BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
Line item veto is a power that state governors already have

All that is being proposed here is giving the President the same power enjoyed by 44 out of 50 state governors. One strength of a federal system is the way “Our States are our laboratories of democracy and we can look to them for the best practices and innovative ideas” they point the way to solutions that others, including the federal government, can adopt. And at state level the line-item veto power is very valuable in restraining spending and preventing waste; Congressman John Baldacci (D-Maine) Unlike the Federal Government, the States by and large do not run deficits and they keep their books in order and spend only what they have each year. They pass realistic budgets and they stick to them… I am convinced that this authority is a crucial part of keeping spending in check. While it may not be used with great regularity in many States' the fact that it is available encourages the legislatures and the Governor to reach agreement on spending issues and not to crowd the spending with extraneous matters. [[Statement of Hon. John E. Baldacci, A Representative in Congress from the State of Maine, Item veto constitutional amendment hearing before the subcommittee on the constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary House of Representatives, 23/3/00, p.18, http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/judiciary/hju65012.000/hju65012_0f.htm accessed 5/5/11]] Because it is used irregularly there has been no general erosion of legislative authority within these states.
Will damage separation of powers

Giving the President line-item veto power will dangerously upset the balance of power within the US Constitution. The separation of powers gives Congress the power of the purse as a check on the executive, but this proposal would hand a President unilateral legislative power by allowing him to rewrite parts of bills already passed by Congress. It will mean that the priorities of the executive will receive more money (and remember three Presidential elections in the past five have been won with less than 50% of the popular vote), and those of elected legislators who understand the needs of their constituents will receive less. In his opinion in the Clinton v. City of New York case that declared the line item veto unconstitutional Justice Kennedy argued Supreme Court Justice Kennedy By increasing the power of the President beyond what the Framers envisioned, the statute compromises the political liberty of our citizens, liberty which the separation of powers seeks to secure. [[Justice Kennedy, concurring, Clinton, President of the United States et al v. City of New York et al., United States Supreme Court 25/6/98, No.97-1374, p.452 http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar_case?case=4447838344519582856&hl=en&as_sdt=2&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr accessed 5/5/11]] It also sends the message that Congress cannot be trusted to be the final arbiter of the nation’s finances, adding further to the inflated importance the executive has gained in recent times.
Potential for abuse of power

A President would be able to abuse the power given to them in a line-item veto authority, leveraging it into undue influence over other elements of the legislative process. By threatening to veto items dear to particular Congressmen, they could obtain assent to bills, treaties and appointments that they otherwise would not be forthcoming. Such intimidation would be subtle and hard to prove, but it would erode checks on the executive and fundamentally alter the balance of power within the constitution. This means that budgets are politicised even more than is currently the case. When the line item veto was previously used by Clinton republicans such as Rick Santorum argued that every decision “has political overtones, but that's fine, it comes with the territory,” Senator Ted Stevens went further “We're dealing with a raw abuse of political power by a president who doesn't have to run again”.[[Guy Hugliotta and Eric Pianin, Line-Item Veto Tips Traditional Balance of Power, Washington Post, 24/10/97, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/budget/stories/102497b.htm accessed 5/5/11]]
Has made little difference in the past

The precedent of the Line Item Veto Act under President Clinton should warn against a constitutional amendment. The sums saved were laughably small, $355 million, in the context of the entire federal budget, $1.7 trillion, (0.02% of spending)[[Virginia A. McMurty, ‘Enhancing the President’s Authority to Eliminate Wasteful Spending and Reduce the Deficit’, Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services and International Security Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Committee Hearing 15/3/2011, p.9]] but nonetheless provoked considerable friction between elected representatives and the White House. There was unhappiness that the large majority of his cuts were of earmarks requested by Republican members, and an allegation that the Administration had threatened a Congressman with the veto of an item dear to them unless they supported an unrelated piece of legislation.
The constitution should not be amended

We should always be cautious of altering the United States’ Constitution. Once an amendment is passed, it is extremely hard to overturn, even if its consequences are clearly negative (as the experience of constitutionally-mandated prohibition of alcohol should make clear). It would be both difficult and unnecessary. There are problems of wording and interpretation. The 1996 Act covered 22 pages and went into great detail to define the extent and limits of Presidential authority under the legislation, including the exact meanings of “single item of appropriation”, ''direct spending'' and ''limited tax benefit'', as well as the means by which Congress could override his decisions.[[One hundred fourth Congress of the United States of America at the second session, “Line Item Veto Act”, 3/1/1996, The Library of Congress, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-104s4enr/pdf/BILLS-104s4enr.pdf accessed 6/5/11]] It is hard to believe that a one-paragraph amendment to the Constitution could achieve such precision, opening the budgetary process up to confusion, shifting interpretation and constant legal challenge. It is also unnecessary Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia The short of the matter is this: Had the Line Item Veto Act authorized the president to 'decline to spend' any item of spending ... there is not the slightest doubt that authorization would have been constitutional… What the Line Item Veto Act does instead -- authorizing the president to 'cancel' an item of spending -- is technically different. [[ Supreme Court Justice Scalia quoted in Michael Kirkland, ‘Under the U.S. Supreme Court: Like the South, will line item veto rise again?’, upi.com, 17/4/11 http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/04/17/Under-the-US-Supreme-Court-Like-the-South-will-line-item-veto-rise-again/UPI-71571303025400/ accessed 6/5/11]] thus the act could simply have been worded differently in order to make it constitutional. This would not change the substance of the ability of the ‘veto’ to cut spending.
Will mean fiscal responsibility

The line-item veto power will not do much to restrain spending or reduce the federal budget deficit. Earmarks amount to less than 0.5% of total US government expenditure,[[An end to earmarks, The economist, 18/11/10, http://www.economist.com/node/17525721 accessed 5/5/10]] and only 1.5% of discretionary spending in 2009.[[W. James Antle, III, Sen. Jim Inhofe: Earmarks Debate “Phony”, The American Spectator, 12/3/10, http://spectator.org/blog/2010/03/12/sen-jim-inhofe-earmarks-debate accessed 5/5/10]] Given that many earmarks will be considered worthwhile projects by the President, any line-item cuts will be so small as to be negligible. If we were serious about controlling spending and cutting the deficit we would need to think about restraining huge entitlement programmes like Medicare and Social Security, raising taxes, reducing military spending, and lifting the retirement age further. All these will require a serious, bipartisan approach on the part of both legislators and the White House. When compared to the 2009 deficit of 500 billion or the total budget of $3 trillion[[Blake Hounshell, McCain’s bizarre earmark obsession, blog.foreignpolicy.com, 27/9/08, http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2008/09/27/mccains_bizarre_earmark_obsession accessed 5/5/11]] the line-item veto debate is just a distraction from that much more important task.
Earmarks are often an abuse by congress

There are other means by which cutting earmarks could be achieved, without the drastic step of mutilating the work of the Founding Fathers. For a start, Congress could just ban the use of earmarks, unfortunately an attempt in 2010 was defeated 39-56 in the Senate.[[J. Taylor Rushing, Senate votes down ban on earmarks 39-56, The Hill, 30/11/10, http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/appropriations/131093-earmark-ban-voted-down-in-the-senate accessed 5/5/11]]Existing rescission powers could be toughened by requiring Congress to hold a prompt vote on Presidential requests for appropriations cuts, rather than ignoring them as invariably happens now. The Impoundment power removed in 1974 could be restored. The convention that spending items in committee reports should be binding on the executive could be challenged. And the practice of legislating massive omnibus spending bills could be ended; more, smaller and more focused bills would make pork more obvious and make it more viable for a President to veto a whole bill without causing the federal government to collapse for want of funding.
News is always negative

Most news about anybody or anything is negative. Bad news sells more than good news and so is reported more. Bad news stories such as crises, starvation, youth crime etc are reported more because they are considered more interesting and more newsworthy. People want to know about how much crime their is in their area and who causes it, if crime goes up there is a media frenzy. If on the other hand crime goes down it is just given a much smaller mention, often counterbalanced by a story about people's perception of crime going up rather than down.
News is always negative

Whenever issues to do with the youth appear in the news it is negative. There are various areas where youths are constantly being shown in a negative light. This is particularly prevelent with crime, especially the low level crime that has been a focus recently with the prominence of antisocial behavious orders (ASBOs). These are often put on young people and are given a lot of media attention - as they are meant to with naming and shaming - which is always negative.
Issues involving youths are seen as more important in general.

Reporting youth crime does not necessarily stop or stall crime of that sort. In fact a lot of juvenile delinquents commit atrocities precisely because they are 'inspired' and/or attracted to notoriety. Impressionable minds should not be provided with the "S/he did it and it was awesome/cool and s/he'll get off easy being a kid/adolescent/teenager"-stimulus to get them to act up. A lot of kids attracted to crime are not concerned with their but being immortalised on television and since pulling off some crazy s*&t is the easiest way to accomplish that; that's the path they will/do take. It's ridiculous how much youth's are portrayed negatively in the media. Newspapers report about how bad knife crime is getting, but when young people see these reports, they'll get scared and take a knife out to 'protect themselves' from other people with knives. They exacerbate the problem!
Issues involving youths are seen as more important in general.

Yes, youth crime is highlighted, but this is because crime involving young people is seen as an urgent issue. Young people are not being targeted or victimised, they are being seen as a priority. Young people themselves do not want youth crime to happen, it affects them just as badly, most campaigns against youth crime highlight this. Crimes against young people are also seen as more serious than against adults because young people are a vulnerable group. The achievements of young people are seen as more greater than comparative achievements of adults because they have achieved the same with a lot less experience and resources.
Its not just the media

It could be seen that the media influence the thought paterrns of the genral public, but we are all responcible for what we beleave is right or wrong. The establishments that work with young people can be the worst for sterotyping them in a negative light. A young person that has been introuble with the police is demanised as bad, and a disfuctional part of our society. In schools young people are trown out for being to out spoken even though every child matters ecourages adults to give young people a voice, the staff room in schools is the worlds worst for stereotyping and enforcing negative images of a young person.
Prevention is better than cure, and a vaccine is the best way to prevent an outbreak of a disease or...

Many vaccines have significant adverse effects, of which the most serious can result in death. With many vaccines the immunity is not life-long. Sometimes the vaccines itself can cause a serious disease to develop as a side effect. If governments know that compulsory mass vaccination is likely to cause death or permanent disability in even a few cases, it is immoral for them to make it compulsory.
Vaccination is a natural way to stimulate our immune system to fight a disease. Through vaccination...

Some vaccines include toxic materials such as chemicals including mercury, formaldehyde, aluminium, and a variety of other known toxic materials. Vaccines might be capable of causing recurrent infections in children because they weaken the immune system. Parents should have the right to choose on behalf of their children whether they should be vaccinated at all, or to choose vaccination against some diseases but not others.
Compulsory vaccination has eradicated or greatly reduced the impact of some of the world's most deva...

Through different techniques the figures on the efficiency of vaccines are kept artificially high. Statistics are shown partially, diseases are falsely diagnosed and re-diagnosed, public scarce campaigns are organised by the protagonists of compulsory vaccination, etc., all of which results in unrepresentative data. After the CJD-BSE health disaster in the UK, and tragedies connected to the contamination of blood products in several countries, people no longer trust either governments or the scientific establishment to tell them the truth.
Compulsory vaccination leads to a better health situation in a state. The child mortality rate is l...

Evidence suggests that the dramatic rise in ear infections, allergies, and asthma in children can be attributed (at least in part) to the damaging effects of vaccines. The incidence of asthma, the most serious and life threatening of these conditions has steadily increased in the modern era since the introduction of vaccines. In the UK controversy surrounds the use of the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) triple vaccine, with many parents refusing vaccination for their children or insisting that they be vaccinated separately against the three illnesses.
The state has a right to impose compulsory vaccination. If an age group is protected, that results ...

Many people have sincerely-held religious beliefs regarding vaccines in \ general. These individuals believe that God created the human body as a \ temple, and that the body should not be destroyed by injecting a virus into \ the body. By making vaccination compulsory, people's freedom to choose is curtailed and that is an infringement on human rights. In any case, it doesn't matter if a few people choose not to be vaccinated, as if the large majority of the population is protected from a disease, there will be too few carriers for it to become endemic, so the risk to those opting-out is very small.\
Compulsory vaccination has eradicated or greatly reduced the impact of some of the world's most deva...

Compulsory vaccination has eradicated or greatly reduced the impact of some of the world's most devastating diseases, such as small pox, polio, measles, etc. The numbers of people with the diseases decreased dramatically after the vaccine was introduced. With better vaccines, and more comprehensive and effective vaccination programmes, even more suffering and deaths could be prevented. Even if they do not trust their particular governments, people should believe the overwhelming weight of medical opinion and the backing of the World Health Organisation in favour of vaccination.
Compulsory vaccination leads to a better health situation in a state. The child mortality rate is l...

Compulsory vaccination leads to a better health situation in a state. The child mortality rate is lower and the natality rate is higher, greater outbreaks of diseases are prevented. The overall health situation improves for all the people in a designated area.\ As for the claims made against vaccines, these are based upon irrational anti-science attitudes and media scare stories. There are many more likely causes of asthma and study after study has found that the MMR vaccine is safe and effective.\
The state has a right to impose compulsory vaccination. If an age group is protected, that results ...

The state has a right to impose compulsory vaccination. If an age group is protected, that results in a better health conditions for the whole society. In an industrialised country such as the USA, those choosing exemption from statutorily compulsory vaccination were 35-times more likely to contract measles than vaccinated persons; in developing countries where these viruses are still endemic, the risk would be considerably higher. Those who wish to opt-out of vaccination (often on behalf of their children, who have no say in the matter) are classic free riders, hoping to benefit from the more responsible behaviour of the rest of society. Unfortunately, irresponsible behaviour soon spreads and diseases which were once under control become endemic again; this can be seen with outbreaks of measles in parts of London where childhood vaccination rates have dropped sharply in recent years, resulting in unnecessary suffering and some deaths or permanent disabilities.
Vaccination protects citizens and the state from the negative economic effects of diseases. Product...

Vaccination protects citizens and the state from the negative economic effects of diseases. Productivity rates remain high and less money is earmarked for social and health transfers because people are healthier. The developing world would benefit enormously from effective and compulsory vaccines against killer diseases such as AIDS and malaria, but irrational opposition to vaccination in developed countries makes it less likely that government resources and the attention of pharmaceutical companies will be targeted towards these goals.
Minor children should not be held legally accountable for their actions, nor should they be obligate...

Minor children should not be held legally accountable for their actions, nor should they be obligated to provide for themselves until they have reached the age of majority. Governments have established laws drawing distinctions between adults and juveniles for a reason. These governments believe that juveniles make mistakes and are not necessarily prepared to be fully responsible for their actions. Parents, and the community at large have a responsibility to raise children to act appropriately in society. If society, or more specifically, parents fail in the task it is not reasonable for the children to suffer sole responsibility for these acts.
Legal requirements for parental action, particularly those that include sanctions for non-action pro...

The causes at the core of juvenile delinquency, abusive families, and child neglect are not necessarily the kind of problems that can be solved by the leverage of criminal or civil sanctions. In instances where parents are absent or neglectful, deep social problems are often the cause. Problems such as alcoholism, poverty, poor education, poor health care, and family histories of abuse can lock a family into a cycle of problems that continue to perpetuate behaviours others might view as irresponsible. There is a danger that the proposed sanctions will make families trapped in such problems afraid to seek help from social services for fear of punishment.
Minor children should not be held legally accountable for their actions, nor should they be obligate...

While generally true, there are instances where the influence of parents over a child’s life is probably not realistic. Some children run away from home or forcibly separate themselves from their parents on their own accord. On occasion, juveniles commit crimes so heinous, and so unexpected, that no reasonable person would think that the parents were ultimately responsible. There are also significant differences between cultures as to what age constitutes 'adulthood'. While many western countries consider an 18-year-old an adult, other cultures see the onset of adulthood as being much earlier. The arrival of adulthood can also be regarded as a continuum of increasing responsibility, as in many countries the age of majority varies, with differing ages set for leaving school, having sex, getting married without parental permission, joining the armed forces, driving, drinking, voting and standing for public office. Thus, multinational or global accords on parental responsibility or children’s rights are potentially problematic.
Laws that enshrine parental responsibility improve family life. As parents are encouraged to take r...

This argument stems from two flawed assumptions: first, that parents from separated or divorced families cannot act responsibly, and second, that doing 'the right thing', necessarily equates with positive family values. A parent may play a very active role in the lives of their children, yet still have a horrible marriage or be mentally or physically abusive to the children. A parent who is not married to a child’s other parent may still play an active and valuable role in the life of the child they conceived, even if they do not live in the same home.
Parental responsibility laws help to compel parents who are delinquent in their support for a child ...

Decades of legal experience in countries that order child support from separated or divorced parents have demonstrated that parents who want to sever ties (financial or otherwise) can do so, either by defaulting on payments or hiding from the law. These laws may even have a reverse effect by fostering resentment toward the child or other parent on the part of the parent compelled to provide support. Child support orders may also harm any subsequent children an estranged parent may have by impoverishing a second family in favour of the first.
Children are less likely to engage in acts of delinquency if they feel that their parents are likely...

Children prone to engage in acts of serious juvenile delinquency are rarely interested in the feelings of or effects on parents. In fact, the worst juvenile delinquents are probably more likely to act out if they believe, first, that the action will result in harm to parents they seek to rebel against, and second, that their parents will be held responsible in place of them.
Modern video games cannot be fairly compared to traditional childhood play.

Modern video games cannot be fairly compared to traditional childhood play. Computer gaming is a largely solo experience, with none of the team play involved in games of war, cowboys, etc. Playing alone also makes it easier for the boundaries between fantasy and reality to become blurred, especially with the highly realistic graphics possible with modern technology. In any case, civilisation is about taming our base instincts, not celebrating the worst parts of human nature.