From: paul@hsh.com
Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton
Subject: Re: Line Item Veto (was Re: Clinton and Dole v. Foley and Mitchell)
Date: 17 Nov 92 22:22:36 GMT
Organization: HSH Associates

In article <1992Nov16.230706.26173@berlioz.nsc.com>, roger@thoreau.nsc.com ( Roger Wakefield) writes:
> In article <1992Nov16.170637.109799@watson.ibm.com>, dwl@watson.ibm.com
> (David W. Levine) writes:
> 
>> From what I can tell, there is interest in some sort of line item veto,
>> the current question is what form it will take. A simple line item
>> excision that requires a majority vote to override has been bandied
>> about as a compromise. This strikes me as reasonable enough. It lets
>> the president (And since this is a precedent setting thing, one may as
>> well assume either of the same or a different party than controls congress)
>> to point at individual items and ask "Do we need this" and force a majority
>> of congress to agree it's needed, on the record, on that specific item.
>> 
>> One thing I would like to see is that excision require a role call vote,
>> on a per item basis to override. I could easily imagine the logrolling that
>> an "omnibuss measure to override the excision of various items" would
> generate.
>> 
>> The current process does tend towards obfuscating responsibility for
> porkbarrel
>> legislation. Making it clear that a specific item was "owned" by a specific
>> collection of represenatives and senators would help clear this up.
> 
> The goal of a line-item veto should be to allow the President to kill
> pork-barrel attachments to bills without actually gaining the power to
> make law.  Therefore, there must be some method of returning the bill to
> Congress after the line-item veto. The best idea I've heard seems to be:
> after the President strikes the offending portions of a bill, it returns
> to the both houses, which can: 1.) by simple majority, pass the new bill
> with the struck items ommitted, or 2.) by 2/3 majority, pass the
> original bill (same as the old veto override), or 3.) kill the bill altogether.
> No further amending would be allowed.

This is, more or less, how it works in New Jersey: the Governor can 
"conditionally veto" a bill with his recommendations.  The Legislature can drop 
the whole thing, or send back a modified version which the Governor may then 
sign.

> You cannot let the President line-item veto a bill into law.  To permit
> this would be a wholescale change in the intent of the Constitution. 
> Further, if George Bush could have done this, he would have passed a
> bunch of the Congressional bills that contained tax increases to pay for
> the costs of the bills, increasing both spending and the debt simultaneously.

Sorry, but it's too soon to start re-writing history.  Bush's main objection
to many otherwise worthwhile bills (especially the Urban Aid bill) was that
they were larded with other programs -- especially tax increases -- that he
found unpalatable.  He said himself during the campaign that, if he had a
line-item veto, he would have struck out the tax increases while preserving
those portions of the bill he had originally asked for. 

------

 Paul Havemann, VP          HSH Associates            (201) 838-3330 
 Internet: paul@hsh.com     Compuserve: 70410,3507    AOL: HSH Assoc
 "Any opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the company."
  
"He walks again by night!  Out of the fog, into the smog -- doggedly 
[barking sound FX], relentlessly, ruthlessly [I wonder where Ruth is], 
toward his weekly meeting with The Unknown..." 
Xref: sparky alt.politics.clinton:17590 alt.politics.democrats.d:652 alt.politics.elections:24224 ba.politics:7314 co.politics:2296 ne.politics:3069 nj.politics:782 or.politics:699 ny.politics:303 talk.politics.misc:61203