Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Executive Power Increased - The New Line-Item Veto

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has a new report analyzing the effect of a proposed new line-item veto that would increase executive power (while fixing the aspects of the 1996 line-item veto that caused it to be struck down in the courts).  The proposed bill would allow the president to send four veto packages back to Congress to be voted upon with no amendments or filibusters.  Since there are 11 appropriation bills passed each year, each veto packages would contain items from a number of spending bills.  The president would have one year from when the bills are passed to veto line-items.  Even if the Congress over-ruled the president's veto, the president could withhold funding for up to 45 days.  If the veto was made in late August, for example, and the Congress voted upon the veto immediately (there is a 13 day maximum window from the veto until the vote), the President could withhold funds until after September 30, the end of the fiscal year, which would cancel the appropriations even though the Congress struck down the veto.  Because the president has a year to make a veto package, he could use it to blackmail legislators on many unrelated issues by promising not to veto pork barrel legislation of a Congressman if he votes the president's way on another bill.  One need only to recall the Congress holding the highway bill vote until after the vote on the Central American Free Trade Area (CAFTA) in order to pressure wavering Congressmen to vote the Administration's way.  Furthermore, tax cuts are treated differently than spending.  Spending can be vetoed in all cases, cannot be partially reduced and automatically reverts to deficit reduction.  Tax cuts can only be vetoed if they are 'limited' in scope, defined by the Senate bill as applying to less than 100 people and by the House bill as applying to one individual or company.  All other tax cuts are exempt from a veto and the determination of whether tax cuts are 'limited' is up to the Congress to decide.  If the line-item veto is passed in this form, the executive branch would gain an immense amount of political leverage over the legislative branch, a point made by conservative columnist George Will (quoted in the CBPP report), "The line-item veto's primary effect might be political, and inimical to a core conservative value. It would aggravate an imbalance in our constitutional system that has been growing for seven decades: the expansion of executive power at the expense of the legislature."  Furthermore, as Norm Ornstein of the conservative American Enterprise Institute notes (again, quoted in the CBPP report) , "The larger reality is that this gives the president a great additional mischief-making capability, to pluck out items to punish lawmakers he doesn’t like, or to threaten individual lawmakers to get votes on other things, without having any noticeable impact on budget growth or restraint."  The new line-item veto hurts the constitutional separation of powers, doesn't lead to spending restraint, particularly when pork projects are involved, and favors tax cuts over spending. 

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