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[House Report 109-505]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

109th Congress                                            Rept. 109-505
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
 2d Session                                                      Part 1
_______________________________________________________________________

                                     

 
                         LEGISLATIVE LINE ITEM

                            VETO ACT OF 2006

                               __________

                              R E P O R T

                                 of the

                        COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                              to accompany

                               H.R. 4890

                             together with

                             MINORITY VIEWS

                 June 16, 2006.--Ordered to be printed

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
49-006                      WASHINGTON : 2006
_____________________________________________________________________________
For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov  Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512�091800  
Fax: (202) 512�092250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402�090001

                        COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET

                       JIM NUSSLE, Iowa, Chairman
JIM RYUN, Kansas                     JOHN M. SPRATT, Jr., South 
ANDER CRENSHAW, Florida                  Carolina,
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida                Ranking Minority Member
ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi         DENNIS MOORE, Kansas
KENNY C. HULSHOF, Missouri           RICHARD E. NEAL, Massachusetts
JO BONNER, Alabama                   ROSA L. DeLAURO, Connecticut
SCOTT GARRETT, New Jersey            CHET EDWARDS, Texas
J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina   HAROLD E. FORD, Jr., Tennessee
THADDEUS G. McCOTTER, Michigan       LOIS CAPPS, California
MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida           BRIAN BAIRD, Washington
JEB HENSARLING, Texas                JIM COOPER, Tennessee
DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California        ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama
PETE SESSIONS, Texas                 WILLIAM J. JEFFERSON, Louisiana
PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin                 THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho            ED CASE, Hawaii
JEB BRADLEY, New Hampshire           CYNTHIA McKINNEY, Georgia
PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina   HENRY CUELLAR, Texas
CONNIE MACK, Florida                 ALLYSON Y. SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania
K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas            RON KIND, Wisconsin
CHRIS CHOCOLA, Indiana
JOHN CAMPBELL, California

                           Professional Staff

                     James T. Bates, Chief of Staff
       Thomas S. Kahn, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
                            C O N T E N T S

                                                                   PAGE
Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006...........................     1
Introduction.....................................................     9
Summary..........................................................    15
Background and Purpose...........................................    21
Legislative History..............................................    25
Key Constitutional Doctrines.....................................    29
Principal Court Decisions........................................    35
Section by Section Analysis......................................    41
Hearings.........................................................    55
Votes of the Committee...........................................    57
Other Items Required Under the Rules of the House of 
  Representatives................................................    69
Minority Views...................................................   102

109th Congress                                            Rept. 109-505
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
 2d Session                                                      Part 1

======================================================================

                 LEGISLATIVE LINE ITEM VETO ACT OF 2006

                                _______
                                

                 June 16, 2006.--Ordered to be printed

                                _______
                                

 Mr. Nussle, from the Committee on the Budget, submitted the following

                              R E P O R T

                             together with

                             MINORITY VIEWS

                        [To accompany H.R. 4890]

      [Including cost estimate of the Congressional Budget Office]

    The Committee on the Budget, to whom was referred the bill 
(H.R. 4890) to amend the Congressional Budget and Impoundment 
Control Act of 1974 to provide for the expedited consideration 
of certain proposed rescissions of budget authority, having 
considered the same, report favorably thereon with an amendment 
and recommend that the bill as amended do pass.

    The amendment is as follows:
    Strike all after the enacting clause and insert the 
following:

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 
2006''.

SEC. 2. LEGISLATIVE LINE ITEM VETO.

    (a) In General.--Title X of the Congressional Budget and 
Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (2 U.S.C. 621 et seq.) is amended by 
striking all of part B (except for sections 1016 and 1013, which are 
redesignated as sections 1019 and 1020, respectively) and part C and 
inserting the following:

                  ``Part B--Legislative Line Item Veto

                       ``line item veto authority
    ``Sec. 1011. (a) Proposed Cancellations.--Within 45 calendar days 
after the enactment of any bill or joint resolution providing any 
discretionary budget authority, item of direct spending, or targeted 
tax benefit, the President may propose, in the manner provided in 
subsection (b), the cancellation of any dollar amount of such 
discretionary budget authority, item of direct spending, or targeted 
tax benefit. If the 45 calendar-day period expires during a period 
where either House of Congress stands adjourned sine die at the end of 
a Congress or for a period greater than 45 calendar days, the President 
may propose a cancellation under this section and transmit a special 
message under subsection (b) on the first calendar day of session 
following such a period of adjournment.
    ``(b) Transmittal of Special Message.--
            ``(1) Special message.--
                    ``(A) In general.--The President may transmit to 
                the Congress a special message proposing to cancel any 
                dollar amounts of discretionary budget authority, items 
                of direct spending, or targeted tax benefits.
                    ``(B) Contents of special message.--Each special 
                message shall specify, with respect to the 
                discretionary budget authority, items of direct 
                spending proposed, or targeted tax benefits to be 
                canceled--
                            ``(i) the dollar amount of discretionary 
                        budget authority, the specific item of direct 
                        spending (that OMB, after consultation with 
                        CBO, estimates to increase budget authority or 
                        outlays as required by section 1017(9)), or the 
                        targeted tax benefit that the President 
                        proposes be canceled;
                            ``(ii) any account, department, or 
                        establishment of the Government to which such 
                        discretionary budget authority is available for 
                        obligation, and the specific project or 
                        governmental functions involved;
                            ``(iii) the reasons why such discretionary 
                        budget authority, item of direct spending, or 
                        targeted tax benefit should be canceled;
                            ``(iv) to the maximum extent practicable, 
                        the estimated fiscal, economic, and budgetary 
                        effect (including the effect on outlays and 
                        receipts in each fiscal year) of the proposed 
                        cancellation;
                            ``(v) to the maximum extent practicable, 
                        all facts, circumstances, and considerations 
                        relating to or bearing upon the proposed 
                        cancellation and the decision to effect the 
                        proposed cancellation, and the estimated effect 
                        of the proposed cancellation upon the objects, 
                        purposes, or programs for which the 
                        discretionary budget authority, item of direct 
                        spending, or the targeted tax benefit is 
                        provided;
                            ``(vi) a numbered list of cancellations to 
                        be included in an approval bill that, if 
                        enacted, would cancel discretionary budget 
                        authority, items of direct spending, or 
                        targeted tax benefits proposed in that special 
                        message; and
                            ``(vii) if the special message is 
                        transmitted subsequent to or at the same time 
                        as another special message, a detailed 
                        explanation why the proposed cancellations are 
                        not substantially similar to any other proposed 
                        cancellation in such other message.
                    ``(C) Duplicative proposals prohibited.--The 
                President may not propose to cancel the same or 
                substantially similar discretionary budget authority, 
                item of direct spending, or targeted tax benefit more 
                than one time under this Act.
                    ``(D) Maximum number of special messages.--The 
                President may not transmit to the Congress more than 5 
                special messages under this subsection related to any 
                bill or joint resolution described in subsection (a), 
                but may transmit not more than 10 special messages for 
                any omnibus budget reconciliation or appropriation 
                measure.
            ``(2) Enactment of approval bill.--
                    ``(A) Deficit reduction.--Amounts of budget 
                authority, items of direct spending, or targeted tax 
                benefits which are canceled pursuant to enactment of a 
                bill as provided under this section shall be dedicated 
                only to reducing the deficit or increasing the surplus.
                    ``(B) Adjustment of levels in the concurrent 
                resolution on the budget.--Not later than 5 days after 
                the date of enactment of an approval bill as provided 
                under this section, the chairs of the Committees on the 
                Budget of the Senate and the House of Representatives 
                shall revise allocations and aggregates and other 
                appropriate levels under the appropriate concurrent 
                resolution on the budget to reflect the cancellation, 
                and the applicable committees shall report revised 
                suballocations pursuant to section 302(b), as 
                appropriate.
                    ``(C) Adjustments to statutory limits.--After 
                enactment of an approval bill as provided under this 
                section, the Office of Management and Budget shall 
                revise applicable limits under the Balanced Budget and 
                Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, as appropriate.
                ``procedures for expedited consideration
    ``Sec. 1012. (a) Expedited Consideration.--
            ``(1) In general.--The majority leader of each House or his 
        designee shall (by request) introduce an approval bill as 
        defined in section 1017 not later than the fifth day of session 
        of that House after the date of receipt of a special message 
        transmitted to the Congress under section 1011(b).
            ``(2) Consideration in the house of representatives.--
                    ``(A) Referral and reporting.--Any committee of the 
                House of Representatives to which an approval bill is 
                referred shall report it to the House without amendment 
                not later than the seventh legislative day after the 
                date of its introduction. If a committee fails to 
                report the bill within that period or the House has 
                adopted a concurrent resolution providing for 
                adjournment sine die at the end of a Congress, it shall 
                be in order to move that the House discharge the 
                committee from further consideration of the bill. Such 
                a motion shall be in order only at a time designated by 
                the Speaker in the legislative schedule within two 
                legislative days after the day on which the proponent 
                announces his intention to offer the motion. Such a 
                motion shall not be in order after a committee has 
                reported an approval bill with respect to that special 
                message or after the House has disposed of a motion to 
                discharge with respect to that special message. The 
                previous question shall be considered as ordered on the 
                motion to its adoption without intervening motion 
                except twenty minutes of debate equally divided and 
                controlled by the proponent and an opponent. If such a 
                motion is adopted, the House shall proceed immediately 
                to consider the approval bill in accordance with 
                subparagraph (C). A motion to reconsider the vote by 
                which the motion is disposed of shall not be in order.
                    ``(B) Proceeding to consideration.--After an 
                approval bill is reported or a committee has been 
                discharged from further consideration, or the House has 
                adopted a concurrent resolution providing for 
                adjournment sine die at the end of a Congress, it shall 
                be in order to move to proceed to consider the approval 
                bill in the House. Such a motion shall be in order only 
                at a time designated by the Speaker in the legislative 
                schedule within two legislative days after the day on 
                which the proponent announces his intention to offer 
                the motion. Such a motion shall not be in order after 
                the House has disposed of a motion to proceed with 
                respect to that special message. The previous question 
                shall be considered as ordered on the motion to its 
                adoption without intervening motion. A motion to 
                reconsider the vote by which the motion is disposed of 
                shall not be in order.
                    ``(C) Consideration.--The approval bill shall be 
                considered as read. All points of order against an 
                approval bill and against its consideration are waived. 
                The previous question shall be considered as ordered on 
                an approval bill to its passage without intervening 
                motion except five hours of debate equally divided and 
                controlled by the proponent and an opponent and one 
                motion to limit debate on the bill. A motion to 
                reconsider the vote on passage of the bill shall not be 
                in order.
                    ``(D) Senate bill.--An approval bill received from 
                the Senate shall not be referred to committee.
            ``(3) Consideration in the senate.--
                    ``(A) Motion to proceed to consideration.--A motion 
                to proceed to the consideration of a bill under this 
                subsection in the Senate shall not be debatable. It 
                shall not be in order to move to reconsider the vote by 
                which the motion to proceed is agreed to or disagreed 
                to.
                    ``(B) Limits on debate.--Debate in the Senate on a 
                bill under this subsection, and all debatable motions 
                and appeals in connection therewith (including debate 
                pursuant to subparagraph (D)), shall not exceed 10 
                hours, equally divided and controlled in the usual 
                form.
                    ``(C) Appeals.--Debate in the Senate on any 
                debatable motion or appeal in connection with a bill 
                under this subsection shall be limited to not more than 
                1 hour, to be equally divided and controlled in the 
                usual form.
                    ``(D) Motion to limit debate.--A motion in the 
                Senate to further limit debate on a bill under this 
                subsection is not debatable.
                    ``(E) Motion to recommit.--A motion to recommit a 
                bill under this subsection is not in order.
                    ``(F) Consideration of the house bill.--
                            ``(i) In general.--If the Senate has 
                        received the House companion bill to the bill 
                        introduced in the Senate prior to the vote 
                        required under paragraph (1)(C), then the 
                        Senate may consider, and the vote under 
                        paragraph (1)(C) may occur on, the House 
                        companion bill.
                            ``(ii) Procedure after vote on senate 
                        bill.--If the Senate votes, pursuant to 
                        paragraph (1)(C), on the bill introduced in the 
                        Senate, then immediately following that vote, 
                        or upon receipt of the House companion bill, 
                        the House bill shall be deemed to be 
                        considered, read the third time, and the vote 
                        on passage of the Senate bill shall be 
                        considered to be the vote on the bill received 
                        from the House.
    ``(b) Amendments Prohibited.--No amendment to, or motion to strike 
a provision from, a bill considered under this section shall be in 
order in either the Senate or the House of Representatives.
                   ``presidential deferral authority
    ``Sec. 1013. (a) Temporary Presidential Authority to Withhold 
Discretionary Budget Authority.--
            ``(1) In general.--At the same time as the President 
        transmits to the Congress a special message pursuant to section 
        1011(b), the President may direct that any dollar amount of 
        discretionary budget authority to be canceled in that special 
        message shall not be made available for obligation for a period 
        not to exceed 45 calendar days from the date the President 
        transmits the special message to the Congress.
            ``(2) Early availability.--The President shall make any 
        dollar amount of discretionary budget authority deferred 
        pursuant to paragraph (1) available at a time earlier than the 
        time specified by the President if the President determines 
        that continuation of the deferral would not further the 
        purposes of this Act.
    ``(b) Temporary Presidential Authority to Suspend Direct 
Spending.--
            ``(1) In general.--At the same time as the President 
        transmits to the Congress a special message pursuant to section 
        1011(b), the President may suspend the implementation of any 
        item of direct spending proposed to be canceled in that special 
        message for a period not to exceed 45 calendar days from the 
        date the President transmits the special message to the 
        Congress.
            ``(2) Early availability.--The President shall terminate 
        the suspension of any item of direct spending at a time earlier 
        than the time specified by the President if the President 
        determines that continuation of the suspension would not 
        further the purposes of this Act.
    ``(c) Temporary Presidential Authority to Suspend a Targeted Tax 
Benefit.--
            ``(1) In general.--At the same time as the President 
        transmits to the Congress a special message pursuant to section 
        1011(b), the President may suspend the implementation of any 
        targeted tax benefit proposed to be repealed in that special 
        message for a period not to exceed 45 calendar days from the 
        date the President transmits the special message to the 
        Congress.
            ``(2) Early availability.--The President shall terminate 
        the suspension of any targeted tax benefit at a time earlier 
        than the time specified by the President if the President 
        determines that continuation of the suspension would not 
        further the purposes of this Act.
    ``(d) Extension of 45-day Period.--The President may transmit to 
the Congress not more than one supplemental special message to extend 
the period to suspend the implementation of any discretionary budget 
authority, item of direct spending, or targeted tax benefit, as 
applicable, by an additional 45 calendar days. Any such supplemental 
message may not be transmitted to the Congress before the 40th day of 
the 45-day period set forth in the preceding message or later than the 
last day of such period.
               ``identification of targeted tax benefits
    ``Sec. 1014. (a) Statement.--The chairman of the Committee on Ways 
and Means of the House of Representatives and the chairman of the 
Committee on Finance of the Senate acting jointly (hereafter in this 
subsection referred to as the `chairmen') shall review any revenue or 
reconciliation bill or joint resolution which includes any amendment to 
the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 that is being prepared for filing by 
a committee of conference of the two Houses, and shall identify whether 
such bill or joint resolution contains any targeted tax benefits. The 
chairmen shall provide to the committee of conference a statement 
identifying any such targeted tax benefits or declaring that the bill 
or joint resolution does not contain any targeted tax benefits. Any 
such statement shall be made available to any Member of Congress by the 
chairmen immediately upon request.
    ``(b) Statement Included in Legislation.--
            ``(1) In general.--Notwithstanding any other rule of the 
        House of Representatives or any rule or precedent of the 
        Senate, any revenue or reconciliation bill or joint resolution 
        which includes any amendment to the Internal Revenue Code of 
        1986 reported by a committee of conference of the two Houses 
        may include, as a separate section of such bill or joint 
        resolution, the information contained in the statement of the 
        chairmen, but only in the manner set forth in paragraph (2).
            ``(2) Applicability.--The separate section permitted under 
        subparagraph (A) shall read as follows: `Section 1021 of the 
        Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 shall 
        ________ apply to ____________.', with the blank spaces being 
        filled in with--
                    ``(A) in any case in which the chairmen identify 
                targeted tax benefits in the statement required under 
                subsection (a), the word `only' in the first blank 
                space and a list of all of the specific provisions of 
                the bill or joint resolution identified by the chairmen 
                in such statement in the second blank space; or
                    ``(B) in any case in which the chairmen declare 
                that there are no targeted tax benefits in the 
                statement required under subsection (a), the word `not' 
                in the first blank space and the phrase `any provision 
                of this Act' in the second blank space.
    ``(c) President's Authority.--If any revenue or reconciliation bill 
or joint resolution is signed into law--
            ``(1) with a separate section described in subsection 
        (b)(2), then the President may use the authority granted in 
        this section only with respect to any targeted tax benefit in 
        that law, if any, identified in such separate section; or
            ``(2) without a separate section described in subsection 
        (b)(2), then the President may use the authority granted in 
        this section with respect to any targeted tax benefit in that 
        law.
                      ``treatment of cancellations
    ``Sec. 1015. The cancellation of any dollar amount of discretionary 
budget authority, item of direct spending, or targeted tax benefit 
shall take effect only upon enactment of the applicable approval bill. 
If an approval bill is not enacted into law before the end of the 
applicable period under section 1013, then all proposed cancellations 
contained in that bill shall be null and void and any such dollar 
amount of discretionary budget authority, item of direct spending, or 
targeted tax benefit shall be effective as of the original date 
provided in the law to which the proposed cancellations applied.
                    ``reports by comptroller general
    ``Sec. 1016. With respect to each special message under this part, 
the Comptroller General shall issue to the Congress a report 
determining whether any discretionary budget authority is not made 
available for obligation or item of direct spending or targeted tax 
benefit continues to be suspended after the deferral authority set 
forth in section 1013 of the President has expired.
                             ``definitions
    ``Sec. 1017. As used in this part:
            ``(1) Appropriation law.--The term `appropriation law' 
        means an Act referred to in section 105 of title 1, United 
        States Code, including any general or special appropriation 
        Act, or any Act making supplemental, deficiency, or continuing 
        appropriations, that has been signed into law pursuant to 
        article I, section 7, of the Constitution of the United States.
            ``(2) Approval bill.--The term `approval bill' means a bill 
        or joint resolution which only approves proposed cancellations 
        of dollar amounts of discretionary budget authority, items of 
        new direct spending, or targeted tax benefits in a special 
        message transmitted by the President under this part and--
                    ``(A) the title of which is as follows: `A bill 
                approving the proposed cancellations transmitted by the 
                President on ____', the blank space being filled in 
                with the date of transmission of the relevant special 
                message and the public law number to which the message 
                relates;
                    ``(B) which does not have a preamble; and
                    ``(C) which provides only the following after the 
                enacting clause: `That the Congress approves of 
                proposed cancellations ____', the blank space being 
                filled in with a list of the cancellations contained in 
                the President's special message, `as transmitted by the 
                President in a special message on ____', the blank 
                space being filled in with the appropriate date, 
                `regarding ____.', the blank space being filled in with 
                the public law number to which the special message 
                relates;
                    ``(D) which only includes proposed cancellations 
                that are estimated by CBO to meet the definition of 
                discretionary budgetary authority or items of direct 
                spending, or that are identified as targeted tax 
                benefits pursuant to section 1014;
                    ``(E) if any proposed cancellation other than 
                discretionary budget authority or targeted tax benefits 
                is estimated by CBO to not meet the definition of item 
                of direct spending, then the approval bill shall 
                include at the end: `The President shall cease the 
                suspension of the implementation of the following under 
                section 1013 of the Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 
                2006: ____', the blank space being filled in with the 
                list of such proposed cancellations; and
                    ``(F) if no CBO estimate is available, then the 
                entire list of legislative provisions proposed by the 
                President is inserted in the second blank space in 
                subparagraph (C).
            ``(3) Calendar day.--The term `calendar day' means a 
        standard 24-hour period beginning at midnight.
            ``(4) Cancel or cancellation.--The terms `cancel' or 
        `cancellation' means to prevent--
                    ``(A) budget authority from having legal force or 
                effect;
                    ``(B) in the case of entitlement authority, to 
                prevent the specific legal obligation of the United 
                States from having legal force or effect;
                    ``(C) in the case of the food stamp program, to 
                prevent the specific provision of law that provides 
                such benefit from having legal force or effect; or
                    ``(D) a targeted tax benefit from having legal 
                force or effect; and
        to make any necessary, conforming statutory change to ensure 
        that such targeted tax benefit is not implemented and that any 
        budgetary resources are appropriately canceled.
            ``(5) CBO.--The term `CBO' means the Director of the 
        Congressional Budget Office.
            ``(6) Direct spending.--The term `direct spending' means--
                    ``(A) budget authority provided by law (other than 
                an appropriation law);
                    ``(B) entitlement authority; and
                    ``(C) the food stamp program.
            ``(7) Dollar amount of discretionary budget authority.--(A) 
        Except as provided in subparagraph (B), the term `dollar amount 
        of discretionary budget authority' means the entire dollar 
        amount of budget authority--
                    ``(i) specified in an appropriation law, or the 
                entire dollar amount of budget authority or obligation 
                limitation required to be allocated by a specific 
                proviso in an appropriation law for which a specific 
                dollar figure was not included;
                    ``(ii) represented separately in any table, chart, 
                or explanatory text included in the statement of 
                managers or the governing committee report accompanying 
                such law;
                    ``(iii) required to be allocated for a specific 
                program, project, or activity in a law (other than an 
                appropriation law) that mandates the expenditure of 
                budget authority from accounts, programs, projects, or 
                activities for which budget authority is provided in an 
                appropriation law;
                    ``(iv) represented by the product of the estimated 
                procurement cost and the total quantity of items 
                specified in an appropriation law or included in the 
                statement of managers or the governing committee report 
                accompanying such law; or
                    ``(v) represented by the product of the estimated 
                procurement cost and the total quantity of items 
                required to be provided in a law (other than an 
                appropriation law) that mandates the expenditure of 
                budget authority from accounts, programs, projects, or 
                activities for which budget authority is provided in an 
                appropriation law.
            ``(B) The term `dollar amount of discretionary budget 
        authority' does not include--
                    ``(i) direct spending;
                    ``(ii) budget authority in an appropriation law 
                which funds direct spending provided for in other law;
                    ``(iii) any existing budget authority canceled in 
                an appropriation law; or
                    ``(iv) any restriction, condition, or limitation in 
                an appropriation law or the accompanying statement of 
                managers or committee reports on the expenditure of 
                budget authority for an account, program, project, or 
                activity, or on activities involving such expenditure.
            ``(8) Item of direct spending.--The term `item of direct 
        spending' means any provision of law that results in an 
        increase in budget authority or outlays for direct spending 
        relative to the most recent levels calculated consistent with 
        the methodology used to calculate a baseline under section 257 
        of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 
        1985 and included with a budget submission under section 
        1105(a) of title 31, United States Code, in the first year or 
        the 5-year period for which the item is effective. However, 
        such item does not include an extension or reauthorization of 
        existing direct spending, but instead only refers to provisions 
        of law that increase such direct spending.
            ``(9) OMB.--The term `OMB' means the Director of the Office 
        of Management and Budget.
            ``(10) Omnibus reconciliation or appropriation measure.--
        The term `omnibus reconciliation or appropriation measure' 
        means--
                    ``(A) in the case of a reconciliation bill, any 
                such bill that is reported to its House by the 
                Committee on the Budget; or
                    ``(B) in the case of an appropriation measure, any 
                such measure that provides appropriations for programs, 
                projects, or activities falling within 2 or more 
                section 302(b) suballocations.
            ``(11) Targeted tax benefit.--(A) The term `targeted tax 
        benefit' means any revenue-losing provision that provides a 
        Federal tax deduction, credit, exclusion, or preference to only 
        one beneficiary (determined with respect to either present law 
        or any provision of which the provision is a part) under the 
        Internal Revenue Code of 1986 in any year for which the 
        provision is in effect;
            ``(B) for purposes of subparagraph (A)--
                    ``(i) all businesses and associations that are 
                members of the same controlled group of corporations 
                (as defined in section 1563(a) of the Internal Revenue 
                Code of 1986) shall be treated as a single beneficiary;
                    ``(ii) all shareholders, partners, members, or 
                beneficiaries of a corporation, partnership, 
                association, or trust or estate, respectively, shall be 
                treated as a single beneficiary;
                    ``(iii) all employees of an employer shall be 
                treated as a single beneficiary;
                    ``(iv) all qualified plans of an employer shall be 
                treated as a single beneficiary;
                    ``(v) all beneficiaries of a qualified plan shall 
                be treated as a single beneficiary;
                    ``(vi) all contributors to a charitable 
                organization shall be treated as a single beneficiary;
                    ``(vii) all holders of the same bond issue shall be 
                treated as a single beneficiary; and
                    ``(viii) if a corporation, partnership, 
                association, trust or estate is the beneficiary of a 
                provision, the shareholders of the corporation, the 
                partners of the partnership, the members of the 
                association, or the beneficiaries of the trust or 
                estate shall not also be treated as beneficiaries of 
                such provision;
            ``(C) for the purpose of this paragraph, the term `revenue-
        losing provision' means any provision that is estimated to 
        result in a reduction in Federal tax revenues (determined with 
        respect to either present law or any provision of which the 
        provision is a part) for any one of the two following periods--
                    ``(i) the first fiscal year for which the provision 
                is effective; or
                    ``(ii) the period of the 5 fiscal years beginning 
                with the first fiscal year for which the provision is 
                effective; and
            ``(D) the terms used in this paragraph shall have the same 
        meaning as those terms have generally in the Internal Revenue 
        Code of 1986, unless otherwise expressly provided.
                              ``expiration
    ``Sec. 1018. This title shall have no force or effect on or after 
October 1, 2012.''.

SEC. 3. TECHNICAL AND CONFORMING AMENDMENTS.

    (a) Exercise of Rulemaking Powers.--Section 904 of the 
Congressional Budget Act of 1974 (2 U.S.C. 621 note) is amended--
            (1) in subsection (a), by striking ``1017'' and inserting 
        ``1012''; and
            (2) in subsection (d), by striking ``section 1017'' and 
        inserting ``section 1012''.
    (b) Analysis by Congressional Budget Office.--Section 402 of the 
Congressional Budget Act of 1974 is amended by inserting ``(a)'' after 
``402.'' and by adding at the end the following new subsection:
     ``(b) Upon the receipt of a special message under section 1011 
proposing to cancel any item of direct spending, the Director of the 
Congressional Budget Office shall prepare an estimate of the savings in 
budget authority or outlays resulting from such proposed cancellation 
relative to the most recent levels calculated consistent with the 
methodology used to calculate a baseline under section 257 of the 
Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 and included 
with a budget submission under section 1105(a) of title 31, United 
States Code, and transmit such estimate to the chairmen of the 
Committees on the Budget of the House of Representatives and Senate.''.
    (c) Clerical Amendments.--(1) Section 1(a) of the Congressional 
Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 is amended by striking the 
last sentence.
    (2) Section 1020(c) of such Act (as redesignated) is amended is 
amended by striking ``rescinded or that is to be reserved'' and insert 
``canceled'' and by striking ``1012'' and inserting ``1011''.
    (3) Table of Contents.--The table of contents set forth in section 
1(b) of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 is 
amended by striking the contents for parts B and C of title X and 
inserting the following:

                  ``Part B--Legislative Line Item Veto

``Sec. 1011. Line item veto authority.
``Sec. 1012. Procedures for expedited consideration.
``Sec. 1013. Presidential deferral authority.
``Sec. 1014. Identification of targeted tax benefits.
``Sec. 1015. Treatment of cancellations.
``Sec. 1016. Reports by Comptroller General.
``Sec. 1017. Definitions.
``Sec. 1018. Expiration.
``Sec. 1019. Suits by Comptroller General.
``Sec. 1020. Proposed deferrals of budget authority.''.

2    (d) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this Act shall take 
effect on the date of its enactment and apply only to any dollar amount 
of discretionary budget authority, item of direct spending, or targeted 
tax benefit provided in an Act enacted on or after the date of 
enactment of this Act.

SEC. 4. SENSE OF CONGRESS ON ABUSE OF PROPOSED CANCELLATIONS.

    It is the sense of Congress no President or any executive branch 
official should condition the inclusion or exclusion or threaten to 
condition the inclusion or exclusion of any proposed cancellation in 
any special message under this section upon any vote cast or to be cast 
by any Member of either House of Congress.
                              Introduction

                              ----------                              

                      OVERVIEW OF THE LEGISLATION

    The concept of a presidential line item veto has long 
seemed a common-sense and straight-forward mechanism to help 
restrain spending. In its simplest and broadest form, it would 
allow the President to identify questionable spending items in 
bills passed by Congress, and get them promptly reconsidered, 
before the funding starts to flow. Thus it would establish an 
additional check against spending items that are excessive, 
unnecessary, merely parochial, or otherwise unable to stand on 
their own merits.
    As is often the case, however, the execution is far more 
complicated than the concept.
    The Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006 addresses each 
of the complications, from procedural to practical to 
constitutional, and creates a mechanism that will provide 
greater accountability and transparency to the process of 
spending taxpayers' money. A very brief description of the 
manager's amendment for the bill (offered by Mr. Ryan of 
Wisconsin), as reported by the Committee on the Budget, is as 
follows:

- Line Item Veto Authority. Within 45 days of the enactment of 
    a law, the President may transmit a special message 
    proposing to cancel any of three classes of budget 
    provisions--an amount of discretionary budget authority, a 
    direct spending item, or a targeted tax benefit. He can 
    transmit up to five special messages per bill (an exception 
    is made for omnibus bills), and there is no limitation on 
    combining the three classes in any given special message.

- Procedures for Expedited Consideration. For each transmittal, 
    Congress must introduce a bill (termed an ``Approval 
    Bill'') reflecting the proposed cancellations, bring that 
    bill to the floor, and have a vote on it. Amendments or 
    motions to strike provisions, or add provisions, are not 
    allowed--it must be an up-or-down vote on the entire list 
    of proposed cancellations.

- Presidential Deferral Authority. While Congress considers 
    legislation to permanently cancel or repeal spending and 
    tax provisions, the President may defer discretionary 
    spending or suspend the implementation of direct spending 
    or tax provisions. Those budget provisions may be deferred 
    for no more than 45 calendar days. The President also is 
    authorized to renew a deferral for an additional 45 days.

- Nature of the Approval Bill. The approval bill must meet 
    certain conditions. Primary among these is that Congress 
    defines each cancellation that would produce budget 
    authority or outlay savings, or would reduce revenue.

- Savings Go to Deficit Reduction. This bill would devote any 
    savings from the Legislative Line Item Veto Act to deficit 
    reduction. It would accomplish this primarily by reducing 
    the limits established in the budget resolution by the 
    amount of any savings.

    Detailed descriptions of the legislation appear elsewhere 
in this report.

                         THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT

                               Transition

    No one can grasp today's budget situation apart from the 
unique moment in history in which it occurs. The Nation's 
priorities have changed profoundly and permanently in the past 
5 years; and the fiscal challenges of this period reflect the 
awkwardness of the adjustment.
    By the beginning of 2001, the government had enjoyed 3 
consecutive years of growing budget surpluses--after nearly 3 
decades of seemingly insoluble deficits. In January that year, 
the Congressional Budget Office [CBO] estimated $5.6 trillion 
in black ink over the succeeding 10 years. Federal Reserve 
Chairman Greenspan warned that the government might pay off all 
its debt by mid-decade and still be collecting more cash than 
it could spend. Even after enactment of President Bush's 2001 
tax relief plan--and with signs of an economic slowdown 
beginning to show--CBO still projected surpluses of $3.4 
trillion over the next 10 years.
    Yet even as myriad interests clamored for larger shares of 
these swelling Federal funds, a new and more demanding limit on 
spending took hold. Having balanced the overall budget (the 
``unified'' budget) every year since 1998, Congress now 
insisted on balancing the budget excluding revenue credited to 
the Social Security Trust Funds. Since the mid-1980s, critics 
had complained that Social Security revenue--which exceeded 
annual benefit obligations by substantial amounts--masked the 
true size of the government's budget deficits. They also 
criticized the ``raiding'' of these dedicated funds to cover 
costs other than Social Security payments.
    So once the government, in 1999, actually achieved this 
balance-excluding-Social Security status--known as balancing 
the ``on-budget'' budget--it became an imperative. No statute 
required such a discipline; and it had no real impact on the 
government's ability to pay Social Security benefits. But it 
became a political requirement nonetheless. It became so 
important that when the on-budget balance appeared threatened, 
the House Budget Committee drafted legislation authorizing the 
President to sequester any funds needed to maintain it, and 
scheduled a markup--for 11 September 2001.

                        The Change in Priorities

    Understandably and necessarily, on that day the war against 
global terrorism took precedence over everything, including 
budget discipline--and did so in a bipartisan fashion. Congress 
opened its wallet to fund reconstruction in New York and at the 
Pentagon, to shore up security measures within the United 
States, and to engage the terrorists directly in combat 
overseas. Congress and the President also kept commitments to a 
wide range of domestic priorities, including education, health, 
and veterans' benefits, delivering--among other things--
prescription drug coverage in Medicare. By fiscal year 2006, 
Federal outlays in constant dollars were about 27 percent ($491 
billion) higher than in 2001.
    All this new spending brought with it the inevitable 
temptations. For example, fiscal year 2006 appropriations bills 
contained roughly 10,000 parochial or special-interest 
``earmarks, costing about $29 billion. Nevertheless, the 
commitment to budget discipline had been suspended, not 
terminated. It began to reawaken with the fiscal year 2004 
budget debate, when the administration called for cutting 
deficits in half over the subsequent 5 years. Congress accepted 
the guideline, adhering to it through congressional budgets up 
to the present.
    Much of the deficit reduction so far was accomplished 
through revenue growth, which has consistently outpaced 
estimates despite the acceleration of tax relief. Containing 
spending has been harder, especially with the continuing war in 
Iraq. Then, of course, came Katrina. The magnitude of the 
Nation's worst natural disaster, and the need for prompt 
Federal assistance in substantial amounts, threatened to 
shatter the fragile restraint that had begun to return. But 
Congress did ultimately recover--with a package of entitlement 
reforms saving nearly $40 billion over 5 years (up from the 
previously planned $35 billion), and an across-the-board 
reduction in appropriated spending. This year's budget, as 
passed by the House, took further steps, with another round of 
entitlement reforms, and the creation of a set-aside fund for 
natural disasters--the latter included for the first time ever. 
In addition, a lobbying reform bill passed by the House 
contains provisions aimed at reining in the use of special-
interest earmarks that increasingly clutter spending bills.
    No one budget or budget discipline can permanently master 
Congress's budgetary challenges. Progress is incremental. But 
each new step adds to those before it, and the gains do 
accumulate. The Legislative Line Item Veto Act is another step 
along that path.

                      Impoundments and Rescissions

    During his January 1988 State of the Union Address, 
President Reagan memorably hefted a 14-pound, 1,053-page 
omnibus appropriations bill that Congress had passed near the 
end of the previous year. ``Congress shouldn't send another one 
of these,'' he admonished. ``No, and if you do, I will not sign 
it.''
    For several years, the President had urged Congress to pass 
a presidential line item veto law. Since 1974, presidents had 
been all but powerless to strike the extraneous or wasteful 
provisions that Congress tended to load into its spending 
bills. A president could only veto an entire bill or accept it 
with all its costly baubles. Naturally, the larger the bill, 
the worse the problem became, as with the omnibus measure. But 
all spending measures were subject to it.
    This limitation on presidential budgetary discretion was 
partly constitutional: a product broadly of the Constitution's 
fundamental (though not absolute) separation of legislative and 
executive powers, and specifically the charter's article I 
section 7, which prescribes how bills are to become laws. But 
the budget reforms of 1974 arguably worsened the problem, by 
sharply restricting presidents' longstanding and legitimate 
``impoundment'' authority, making even this management practice 
all but impossible.
    Since the beginning of the republic, presidents have had 
the ability to defer or refuse to spend funds provided by 
Congress. As noted in testimony to the Budget Committee: ``[I]n 
the first Congress, President Washington was given 
discretionary spending authority in at least three 
appropriations bills to spend as little or as much as he 
pleased, up to the limit of those spending authorities; and the 
remainder that was left over, if he didn't spend it all, would, 
of course, be restored to the Treasury.'' (Testimony of Charles 
J. Cooper, 8 June 2006) This authority remained during the 19th 
century and early 20th century, though the practice was seldom 
used. Still, the Congressional Research Service [CRS] 
concludes: ``Virtually all Presidents have impounded funds in a 
routine manner as an exercise of executive discretion to 
accomplish efficiency in management.'' (CRS, Item Veto and 
Expanded Impoundment Proposals, 22 November 2004)
    The 1950s and 1960s saw increasing tensions between the 
President and Congress over the use of impoundment authority. 
Yet it was not until the 1970s that the matter finally 
culminated in congressional action.
    During his administration, President Nixon imposed a 
moratorium on subsidized housing programs, targeted certain 
farm programs for elimination, and suspended community 
development activities--all frustrating congressional intent. 
With the Clean Water Act, he went further. Congress handily 
overrode his veto of the act; but the President subsequently 
(and flagrantly) impounded funds from it anyway.
    That was as much as Congress could stand. So it countered 
with a new law (in the midst of Nixon's Watergate troubles), 
the Impoundment Control Act (Title X of the Congressional 
Budget and Impoundment Control Act, or ICA) in 1974. The ICA 
restricted the President's ability to impound funds, providing 
a statutory framework for Congress to review impoundment 
actions by the President. It permitted the President to delay 
the expenditure of funds (deferral authority) and to cancel 
funds (rescission authority). The President was required to 
inform Congress of all proposed deferrals and rescissions and 
to submit specified information about them.
    A rescission action by the President required approval by 
both the House and the Senate within 45 days of continuous 
session or funds were required to be made available again for 
obligation.
    These presidential authorities, still in place today, have 
proved ineffective. Congress can simply ignore presidential 
rescissions, in which case they just fade away. Nothing 
requires Congress to act. So various proposals were introduced 
during the 101st, 102d, and 103d Congresses to strengthen the 
rescission framework. This trend reached a kind of critical 
mass in the spring of 1996, with the passage of the Line Item 
Veto Act (enacted on 9 April 1996, with an effective date of 1 
January 1997).
    The constitutionality of the Line Item Veto Act was soon 
challenged. Upon appeal, the Supreme Court decided in a 6-3 
decision that allowing the President to cancel provisions of 
enacted law violated the Constitution's presentment clause. 
(Detailed discussions of constitutional issues related to the 
line item veto and similar measures appear elsewhere in this 
report.) There the discussion ended--temporarily.

         BENEFITS OF THE LEGISLATIVE LINE ITEM VETO ACT OF 2006

    The Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006 builds on all 
previous efforts to strengthen and expedite the rescission 
process, refining their terms and practices and correcting 
their flaws. The principal advantages of the legislation are 
the following:

- Strengthens Current Practices. As noted above, the rescission 
    process created by the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 is 
    rarely used because it is largely ineffective. Congress can 
    simply ignore rescissions submitted by the president. The 
    Legislative Line Item Veto Act requires Congress to vote up 
    or done on a stand-alone bill containing the items the 
    President seeks to cancel.

- Provides Transparency and Accountability. It is well-known 
    that earmarks and other special-interest items churn 
    silently through the legislative mill and often fix 
    themselves onto massive spending bills that Members never 
    get an opportunity to read. This bill provides another 
    opportunity to expose such measures to scrutiny. If they 
    can stand on their own merits, they will survive.
    There is a widespread public perception that the number of 
    earmarked spending items is excessive. The large number of 
    earmarks, the lack of transparency, and the lack of a 
    rigorous justification process make it difficult to assure 
    taxpayers that their dollars are being spent wisely. This 
    bill helps Congress alter this course.

- The Bill is Constitutional. Unlike the Line Item Veto Act of 
    1996, this proposal has been adjudged by legal experts to 
    be constitutional. It adheres to the procedures of article 
    I. It keeps legislative and budgetary authority in 
    Congress. Although it requires Congress to vote on the 
    President's proposed rescissions, it assures that no law 
    changes unless and until Congress votes to change it.

- It Is Comprehensive. The act applies the line item veto 
    process to annual appropriations, items of ``direct 
    spending'' (entitlements), and targeted tax benefits (as 
    defined by the Chairmen of the tax-writing committees). 
    Thus it covers all areas of spending and tax law subject to 
    earmarking or special-interest spending.

- Taxpayers Are the Principal Beneficiaries. All savings would 
    be used for deficit reduction, and could not be applied to 
    augment other spending.

    The Committee on the Budget reported the Legislative Line 
Item Veto Act of 2006 by a vote of 24-9. Subsequent text in 
this report describes the provisions of the measure in detail.
    Summary of H.R. 4890, the Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006

                              ----------                              

                           BILL AS INTRODUCED

                            General Concept

    H.R. 4890, the Legislative Line Item Veto Act was 
introduced by Cogressman Paul Ryan on 7 March 2006. Under the 
bill as introduced, the President is authorized to send to 
Congress a request for a rescission of discretionary or 
mandatory spending, or a tax provision affecting fewer than 100 
taxpayers (10 taxpayers in the case of a transitional relief 
provision).
    To implement the rescissions and thereby cancel the 
spending Congress must vote to approve the proposals, and the 
President must sign the joint resolution.
    Notwithstanding this requirement, the President has the 
authority to defer the spending (or tax benefit) for up to 180 
days while Congress considers his recommendations.

                               Procedure

    Expedited procedures are established to accelerate 
Congressional consideration of the President's proposal.
    The President transmits proposed rescissions to Congress, 
and the majority leader in each House introduces a joint 
resolution implementing the President's proposed rescissions 
within 2 legislative days of the President's transmittal. The 
introduced bill is referred to the committee of jurisdiction, 
and must be reported without substantive change. (If the 
committee fails to act within 5 legislative days of 
introduction, it is discharged from consideration.) On the 
floor of both the House and the Senate, the resolution is 
highly privileged, and debate is limited to 10 hours in the 
Senate and 4 hours in the House. A vote on final passage occurs 
within 10 days of the bill's introduction.

                              Application

    The President's authority to propose rescissions applies to 
three distinct types of provisions:

    Discretionary Spending. The President may propose 
rescinding a ``dollar amount'' of discretionary spending. This 
means he may propose rescinding an entire dollar amount: 
specified in an appropriations law; required to be allocated by 
an appropriations law despite the absence of a specific dollar 
amount in the law; represented in a table, chart, or text in 
the committee report or joint statement of managers 
accompanying the law; and required by an authorizing statute to 
be spent for a specific purpose for which budget authority has 
been provided by an appropriations law.

    Items of Direct Spending. The President has broad authority 
to propose rescissions of direct (i.e., mandatory) spending. An 
item of direct spending includes any specific provision of law 
that results in a change (not just an increase) in budget 
authority or outlays, relative to current law. In addition, 
presidential authority to rescind items of direct spending 
extends to any direct spending provision enacted after 
enactment of H.R. 4890, regardless of when the President 
transmits his proposal.

    Targeted Tax Benefits. Generally, a targeted tax benefit is 
defined as either a revenue-losing provision (relative to 
current law) benefiting 100 or fewer taxpayers, or a 
transitional relief provision benefiting 10 or fewer taxpayers. 
To refine the definition, several exceptions to the general 
rule are included. For example, a provision benefiting fewer 
than 100 taxpayers is not a targeted tax benefit if it provides 
a similar benefit to all taxpayers operating in the same 
industry, engaging in the same activity, using the same type of 
property, or issuing the same type of investment. In addition, 
a set of anti-avoidance rules prevents circumvention of the 
100-taxpayer rule through formalistic distinctions--e.g., all 
corporations part of the same affiliated group (and therefore 
under common control) are treated as a single taxpayer.

                   SUMMARY OF THE MANAGER'S AMENDMENT

    Line Item Veto Authority. Within 45 days of the enactment 
of a law, the President may transmit a special message 
proposing to cancel any of three classes of budget provisions: 
an amount of discretionary budget authority, a direct spending 
item or a targeted tax benefit. He can transmit up to five 
special messages, and there is no limitation on combining the 
three classes in any given special message.

    Procedures for Expedited Consideration. Congress must 
introduce a bill reflecting the proposed cancellations, bring 
that bill to the floor, and have a vote on it. Amendments or 
motions to strike provisions, or add provisions, are not 
allowed it must be an up or down vote on the entire list of 
proposed cancellations.

    Presidential Deferral Authority. Parallel to the authority 
to propose cancellations is the authority to temporarily 
suspend the implementation, or the obligation of certain budget 
authority, of budgetary resources and revenue measures. The 
President is authorized to withhold spending or suspend 
benefits up to 45 days. The President may not withhold or 
suspend any dollar amount until he transmits the special 
message.
    The President may make funds available earlier if he 
concludes withholding or suspension of funds would not 
``further the purposes'' of the Act. A vote of a House of 
Congress on an approval bill that does not receive sufficient 
support to pass would be an indication that the deferral should 
be ended. The President may renew the deferral for another 45 
days if the Congress has not been able to consider the approval 
bill in the initial period, though it is not predicated on such 
a vote. The renewal period is authorized automatically upon the 
transmittal of a supplemental special message.

    Definition of the Approval Bill. The introduced approval 
bill, in order to effectuate the proposed cancellation of the 
budget provisions, must meet certain conditions. Primary among 
these is that the Congressional Budget Office [CBO] must 
estimate that each cancellation would produce budget authority 
or outlay savings. Another criterion is that the President must 
not have proposed the same cancellation in a separate special 
message either previously or in a contemporaneously transmitted 
special message. If two special messages are transmitted at the 
same time to the Congress, and those messages do contain the 
same proposed cancellation, the majority leader, in introducing 
the approval bill for each special message, may choose in which 
bill the individual proposed cancellation should be included.
    For discretionary rescissions it is generally simple to 
identify the budgetary effect of a provision of discretionary 
spending. Generally an appropriation of budget authority 
follows a straightforward process: ``There are hereby 
appropriated'' an amount for a specified purpose.
    Under the terms of this act, a proposed cancellation must 
propose the rescission of all of a specified appropriation. If 
the proposal is to rescind only an amount within the overall 
appropriation, the amount of the proposed cancellation must be 
identified for a specific purpose in the report or joint 
statement accompanying the bill (or a table or chart). In the 
unusual circumstance where an appropriation of budget authority 
is disputed between CBO and Office of Management and Budget 
[OMB] (for instance the year in which the budget authority is 
determined to be available), the estimate prepared by CBO 
governs the preparation of the approval bill with respect to 
that proposed cancellation of discretionary budget authority.
    With respect to direct spending, there are unusual cases, 
though they occur more frequently than those for discretionary 
spending, when OMB, which prepares the special message 
initially identifying the items of direct spending, disagrees 
with CBO as to the effect legislative provisions might have. In 
this circumstance, the cancellation that CBO estimates to have 
no budgetary effect is not included in the approval bill 
prepared by the majority leader of that House of Congress. If 
it is included, the privileged nature of the bill to expedited 
consideration could be questioned. Because the CBO estimate 
determines whether an item of direct spending has a budgetary 
impact, and because both majority leaders are using this 
estimate, any approval bill introduced in the House or the 
Senate by the leaders will be identical.
    For purposes of tax benefits, the approval bill may only 
include items from a specified list prepared at the time any 
conference report on a tax bill is prepared. A tax bill is 
defined as any bill that makes changes to the Internal Revenue 
Code of 1986, though a targeted tax benefit is revenue oriented 
and does not include spending items such as refundable tax 
credits (such as the Earned Income Tax Credit).
    The specified list of targeted tax benefits is prepared by 
the Chairmen of the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means 
Committees and inserted into the tax bill that is then sent to 
the President. Once that bill is signed into law, the President 
may review that portion of the law and choose from the list any 
provision he believes is a targeted tax benefit that should be 
canceled.
    If the chairmen believe there are no targeted tax benefits 
included in the tax bill to be enacted into law, then the 
section in question provides for a statement that there are no 
such benefits, and in such a situation, the President may not 
include any proposed cancellations of targeted tax benefits in 
a special message related to that public law. This does not 
preclude the President from identifying and proposing to cancel 
any item of direct spending related to the tax code, such as 
refundable tax credits, which are classified as direct 
spending. Any item increasing direct spending in such a case 
could be a proposed cancellation, but the legislative text of 
the proposal may not have an effect on revenue or it would be 
considered an inappropriate item to include in the approval 
bill.
    Again, in any situation where OMB and CBO diverge in their 
estimates of the budgetary effects of the proposed 
cancellations, the latter shall determine whether a provision 
in the numbered list of cancellations proposed by the President 
may be included in a bill introduced by the majority leader of 
the respective House.

    Government Accountability Office. When the President 
transmits a special message to the Congress, the Legislative 
Line Item Veto Act requires the Comptroller General to prepare 
a report determining whether any discretionary budget authority 
is not made available for obligation, item of direct spending 
or targeted tax benefit continues to be suspended after the 
deferral authority expires.

      SUMMARY OF THE MAJOR CHANGES MADE BY THE MANAGER'S AMENDMENT

                 Number and Timing of Special Messages

    H.R. 4890 as Introduced. No limit on number or timing.

    Manager's Amendment. President may submit 5 special 
messages per enacted law, and 10 special messages per enacted 
omnibus reconciliation or appropriations law.

          Withholding Period for Funds in Requested Rescission

    H.R. 4890 as Introduced. 180 day withholding for funds 
proposed for rescission.

    Manager's Amendment. President is authorized to withhold 
spending or suspend benefits up to 45 days. The President may 
not withhold or suspend any dollar amount until he transmits 
the special message. The President may make funds available 
earlier if he concludes withholding or suspension of funds 
would not ``further the purposes'' of the act. A vote of a 
House of Congress on an approval bill which does not receive 
sufficient support to pass would be an indication that the 
deferral should be ended. The President may renew the deferral 
for another 45 days if the Congress has not been able to 
consider the approval bill in the initial period, although his 
authority is not predicated on such a vote. The renewal period 
is authorized automatically upon the transmittal of a 
supplemental special message.

             Repeated Submissions of Proposed Cancellations

    H.R. 4890 as Introduced. No limit on number of times an 
item may be submitted.

    Manager's Amendment. President may not resubmit any 
proposed cancellation that is the same or substantially similar 
to one he has proposed previously.

                            Tax Application

    H.R. 4890 as Introduced. Applies to tax benefits affecting 
100 or fewer taxpayers (10 or fewer in the case of transitional 
relief). The President determines which provisions meet the 
definition of targeted tax benefit.

    Manager's Amendment. Applies to tax benefits affecting a 
single beneficiary. The amendment includes references to 
``targeted tax benefit'' throughout Part B to allow for 
consideration of repeal of these benefits under the same 
procedure as those for discretionary spending and direct 
spending. The Chairmen of the Ways and Means and Finance 
Committees identify targeted tax benefits and allows the 
President to only rescind those benefits on the list.

                           Mandatory Spending

    H.R. 4890 as Introduced. Allows President to modify 
mandatory spending policies.

    Manager's Amendment. Does not allow the President to 
``modify'' direct spending items or targeted tax benefits, but 
does allow limited conforming changes to law to assure direct 
spending savings.

                            Legislative Text

    H.R. 4890 as Introduced. A rescission bill is introduced 
exactly as proposed by the President.

    Manager's Amendment. Defines an ``approval'' bill and 
identifies certain criteria the list of proposed cancellations 
must meet if they are to be included in that bill--e.g. all 
direct spending items must be scored by CBO as reducing budget 
authority or outlays.

             SUMMARY OF THE AMENDMENTS ADOPTED IN COMMITTEE

                    Amendment Offered by Mr. Cuellar

    Neither the bill as introduced nor the manager's amendment 
offered by Mr. Ryan included a ``sunset'' provision, which 
means the procedure set out by its terms would be permanent. 
Mr. Cuellar offered an amendment to include a specific date on 
which the procedure would expire, October 1, 2012. This 6-year 
time period does not mean that the Legislative Line Item Veto 
Act of 2006 is simply a short-term concept, but rather that it 
should be reviewed and if needed revised after that time 
period. This sunset builds in a fixed time when the Congress 
must reconsider the procedure, determine what has worked and 
what, if anything, has not.
    The amendment was agreed to by voice vote.

                   Amendment Offered by Mr. McCotter

    Mr. Neal offered an amendment to include certain language 
within the text of Title X of the Impoundment Control Act of 
1974. This language prohibited the President from using his 
authority to propose to cancel budgetary provisions of 
discretionary budget authority, item of direct spending, or 
targeted tax benefits to effect legislative negotiations with 
Members of Congress.
    Mr. McCotter offered language to replace the text of the 
Neal amendment with his own. The McCotter substitute would not 
insert language into the Impoundment Control Act but rather 
would be a freestanding ``Sense of Congress.''
    The language itself bore a resemblance to the Neal 
amendment insofar as it expressed the intent of Congress that 
the President should not ``condition the inclusion or exclusion 
or threaten to condition the inclusion or exclusion of any 
proposed cancellation in any special message under this section 
upon any vote cast or to be cast by any Member of either House 
of Congress.''
    Mr. McCotter's substitute amendment was agreed to and the 
committee adopted that language as a new section of the 
measure.
                         Background and Purpose

                              ----------                              

                              CURRENT LAW

    The Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (Title X of the 
Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act, P.L. 93-344), 
established two categories of impoundments: deferrals, or 
temporary delays in funding availability; and proposed 
rescissions, or permanent cancellations of discretionary budget 
authority (should they be agreed to by the U.S. Congress). With 
a rescission, the funds must be made available for obligation 
unless both Houses of Congress take action to approve the 
President's rescission request within 45 days of ``continuous 
session.''
    Deferral authority is only allowed to the President for 
administrative reasons. If he defers budget authority for any 
reason, he has to explain to Congress in detail the following:
    1. The amount of the budget authority proposed to be 
deferred;
    2. Any account, department, or establishment of the 
Government to which such budget authority is available for 
obligation, and the specific project or governmental functions 
involved;
    3. The period of time during which the budget authority is 
proposed to be deferred;
    4. The reasons for the proposed deferral, including any 
legal authority invoked to justify the proposed deferral;
    5. To the maximum extent practicable, the estimated fiscal, 
economic, and budgetary effect of the proposed deferral; and
    6. All facts, circumstances, and considerations relating to 
or bearing upon the proposed deferral and the decision to 
effect the proposed deferral, including an analysis of such 
facts, circumstances, and considerations in terms of their 
application to any legal authority, including specific elements 
of legal authority, invoked to justify such proposed deferral, 
and to the maximum extent practicable, the estimated effect of 
the proposed deferral upon the objects, purposes, and programs 
for which the budget authority is provided.

                      SUMMARY OF PROPOSED CHANGES

    Although the Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006 retains 
the President's deferral authority embodied in current law, the 
proposal replaces the current rescission process with a new 
procedure to ``cancel'' budgetary provisions. This new 
procedure, proposed many times before, is often referred to as 
``expedited rescission.''
    The President may still transmit, as under current law, to 
the Congress a special message to propose to cancel specified 
spending or tax provisions (although current law only provides 
for special messages to propose the cancellation of 
discretionary budget authority). The proposed cancellation 
procedure expands the current system, which is confined only to 
spending contained in appropriations measures, to include 
direct spending and targeted tax benefits.
    It also enhances the expedited consideration procedures for 
an ``approval'' bill to enact into law the President's proposed 
cancellations. Under the current system, although there are 
expedited procedures, Congress can easily circumvent the 
process. Congress is constitutionally empowered to deactivate 
any expedited consideration procedures if either House chooses, 
but the process outlined in the proposed bill provides stronger 
tools to address wasteful spending and a far more powerful 
procedure to require a vote on spending and tax cancellations.
    The Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006 has the 
following main elements:

    Line Item Veto Authority. The President is authorized under 
this act to transmit a ``special message'' that proposes to 
cancel provisions falling into one of three classes of 
budgetary provisions--discretionary budget authority, items of 
direct spending, or targeted tax benefits. The President must 
transmit this message no later than 45 days after signing the 
bill to which the cancellations apply into law. He may transmit 
no more than five special messages for each public law. The 
President may send 10 special messages for an omnibus 
appropriations bill or omnibus reconciliation bill signed into 
law. Each message may combine, in any fashion the President 
determines, the three classes of budgetary provisions.

    Procedures for Expedited Consideration. Within 5 days of 
receiving a special message, the majority leader of each House 
of Congress must introduce an ``approval bill'' that includes 
the proposed cancellations. The bill is immediately referred to 
the committee or committees of jurisdiction and they have 7 
days in which to consider the bill. The committee(s) must 
report the bill with or without recommendation, but may not 
amend. If a committee cannot or will not report the bill after 
that time period, a motion to discharge the committee may be 
brought to the floor by any Member of Congress. Upon adoption 
of that motion, the bill is considered on the floor. Amendments 
or motions to strike provisions, or add provisions, are not 
allowed--it must be an up-or-down vote on the entire list of 
proposed cancellations.

    Presidential Deferral Authority. During the time Congress 
is considering the approval bill that will permanently cancel 
spending and tax provisions, the President may suspend 
discretionary spending or the implementation of direct spending 
and tax provisions.
    This deferral may last for only 45 calendar days, although 
it may be extended for an additional 45 days.
    If the 45 days elapse during a time the Congress is in an 
extended recess, such as between sessions of Congress, the 
President may transmit the message on the first day the 
Congress reconvenes.

    Definition of an Approval Bill. The approval bill must meet 
certain conditions. The Congressional Budget Office must 
analyze the proposed cancellations and issue a report to 
Congress. Only those items having a legitimate budgetary effect 
may be included in the approval bill. Even if the Office of 
Management and Budget asserts a provision has a budgetary 
effect, if the Congressional Budget Office disagrees, the 
proposed cancellation is not included in the approval bill 
considered by Congress.

    Deficit Reduction. This bill would devote any savings from 
the Legislative Line Item Veto Act to deficit reduction. It 
would accomplish this primarily by reducing the limits 
established in the budget resolution by the amount of any 
savings.

                      PURPOSE OF PROPOSED CHANGES

    The Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006 provides an 
effective mechanism for rooting out and eliminating particular, 
unnecessary spending items.
    It will provide Congress an additional tool for reducing 
unnecessary spending and expressly dedicate any savings 
achieved by this procedure to deficit reduction. It brings 
transparency and accountability to spending bills, providing a 
strong deterrent to wasteful earmark project requests.
    The bill establishes the means to more easily consider 
unnecessary entitlement spending. That form of spending poses a 
great long-term challenge to the Federal budget. The bill 
creates an expedited process for Congress to vote on the 
President's proposed rescissions of discretionary spending and 
other changes in budgetary provisions to reduce Federal 
spending. It requires Congress to act on the President's 
proposed legislative changes by requiring an up-or-down vote on 
his proposed cancellations of discretionary spending, direct 
spending, and targeted tax benefits.
                          Legislative History

                              ----------                              

                  BEFORE THE CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET ACT

    During the 19th century and early 20th century, U.S. 
presidents had the ability to defer or refuse to spend funds 
provided by Congress. But the practice was seldom used, and 
tended to be employed in a specific manner. According to the 
Congressional Research Service: ``Virtually all Presidents have 
impounded funds in a routine manner as an exercise of executive 
discretion to accomplish efficiency in management.'' (CRS, Item 
Veto and Expanded Impoundment Proposals, 22 November 2004.)
    That began to change during the administration of President 
Franklin D. Roosevelt, who at times refused to spend moneys for 
the purposes intended by Congress. The 1950s and 1960s saw 
increasing tensions between the President and Congress over the 
use of impoundment authority.
    But it was not until the 1970s when the matter finally 
culminated in congressional action.

                          THE CLASH WITH NIXON

    During his administration, President Nixon imposed a 
moratorium on subsidized housing programs, targeted certain 
farm programs for elimination, and suspended community 
development activities--all frustrating congressional intent.
    With the Clean Water Act, he went further. The President 
vetoed the bill originally passed by Congress, and Congress 
then handily overrode his veto. Yet despite the veto override, 
the President imposed an impoundment involving the Clean Water 
Act funds.
    Congress countered by passing the Impoundment Control Act 
(Title X of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control 
Act, or ICA) in 1974. The ICA restricted the President's 
ability to impound funds, providing a statutory framework for 
Congress to review impoundment actions by the President. It 
permitted the President to delay the expenditure of funds 
(deferral authority) and to cancel funds (rescission 
authority). The President was required to inform Congress of 
all proposed deferrals and rescissions and to submit specified 
information on the same. A rescission action by the President 
required approval by both the House and Senate within 45 days 
of continuous session or funds were required to be made 
available again for obligation.
    Various proposals were introduced during the 101st, 102d, 
and 103d Congresses to modify the framework for congressional 
review of rescissions by the President. More than two dozen 
proposals to strengthen the rescission power, or augment it 
with a statutorily derived veto, were introduced in the 103d 
Congress alone.

                       RECENT LEGISLATIVE ACTIONS

                   Expedited Rescissions Act of 1993

    On 1 April 1993, Congressman John Spratt introduced the 
Expedited Rescissions Act of 1993 in the House of 
Representatives.
    This bill amended the Congressional Budget and Impoundment 
Control Act of 1974 to allow the President to transmit to both 
Houses of the Congress, for expedited consideration, a special 
message that proposed to rescind all or part of any item of 
budget authority provided in an appropriation bill.
    It would have required that the special message be 
transmitted no later than 3 days after the President approved 
the appropriation bill and be accompanied by a draft bill that 
would, if enacted, rescind the budget authority proposed to be 
rescinded. It set out House and Senate procedures for the 
expedited consideration of such a proposal.
    The bill also would have terminated the President's 
authority 2 years following enactment.
    On 29 April 1993, the House passed the bill on a recorded 
vote of 258-157 (Roll No. 150).
    On 5 October 1994, the Senate Committee on the Budget held 
a hearing on the measure. It was not considered on the floor of 
the U.S. Senate.

                   Expedited Rescissions Act of 1994

    On 17 June 1994, Congressman John Spratt introduced the 
Expedited Rescissions Act of 1994.
    On 23 June 1994, the Committee on Rules reported the bill.
    The bill would have amended the Congressional Budget and 
Impoundment Control Act of 1974 to allow the President to 
transmit to both Houses of the Congress, for expedited 
consideration, one or more special messages proposing to 
rescind amounts of budget authority or to repeal any targeted 
tax benefit provided in a revenue bill.
    It would have required the special message be accompanied 
by a draft bill or joint resolution that rescinds the budget 
authority or repeals the targeted tax benefit.
    It also would have required the bill to include a Deficit 
Reduction Account. The bill would have allowed the President to 
place rescinded amounts in the account. It would have set out 
House and Senate procedures for the expedited consideration of 
such a proposal.

    Kasich Subsitute. An Amendment in the nature of a 
substitute was made in order and offered by Representatives 
John Kasich and Charles Stenholm. It extended the rescission 
procedures to Presidential proposals to repeal ``targeted tax 
benefits'' in revenue bills; provided that 50 House Members 
could request a vote on a motion to strike an individual 
rescission from the President's proposed rescission package and 
that the special rescission procedures established by the 
substitute were permanent. It also applied the special 
rescission procedures proposed by the President to any time 
during the year. It did not apply the expedited consideration 
procedures to alternative rescission packages proposed by the 
Appropriations Committees, and it specified that the President 
had the option of earmarking savings from proposed rescissions 
for deficit reduction. The amendment was adopted by a vote of 
298-121.
    On 14 July 1994, the House passed the bill on a recorded 
vote of 342-69.
    On 5 October 1994, the Senate Committee on the Budget held 
hearings on the measure.

                     The Line Item Veto Act of 1996

    Plans for an expanded rescission measure began moving 
forward early in the 104th Congress. On 4 January 1995, H.R. 2, 
the Line Item Veto Act, was introduced in the House. H.R. 2 
granted the President line item veto rescission authority. The 
President was authorized to rescind all or part of any 
discretionary budget authority or to veto any targeted tax 
benefit if the President determined that such rescission: would 
help reduce the Federal budget deficit; would not impair any 
essential Government functions; and would not harm the national 
interest. The President was required to notify the Congress by 
special message of such a rescission or veto after enactment of 
an appropriations act providing such budget authority, or a 
revenue or reconciliation act containing a targeted tax 
benefit. H.R. 2, as amended, easily passed the House on 6 
February 1995, by a vote of 294-134.
    The Senate passed a companion bill, S.4., the Line Item 
Veto Act, which promoted a ``separate enrollment'' approach 
rather than the enhanced rescission approach favored by the 
House. Under this approach, each item of spending would be 
enrolled as a separate bill, so the President could address 
each separately.
    The House and Senate struck a compromise implementing an 
enhanced rescission bill, which was signed into law on 9 April 
1996 (Public Law 104-130), with an effective date of 1 January 
1997. This legislation became known as the Line Item Veto Act 
of 1996.
    The constitutionality of the Line Item Veto Act was soon 
challenged. Upon appeal, the Supreme Court decided in a 6-3 
decision allowing the President to cancel provisions of enacted 
law violated the Constitution's presentment clause.
                      Key Constitutional Doctrines

                              ----------                              

    The principal doctrines to consider in examining possible 
challenges to the Legislative Line Item Veto Act are 
``standing,'' ``congressional standing,'' ``delegation of 
authority,'' ``separation of powers,'' and ``the presentment 
clause.'' These are the same issues examined in the challenge 
to the Line Item Veto Act of 1996, which was ultimately found 
unconstitutional for violating the presentment clause.

                        SUMMARY OF THE DOCTRINES

    Standing. Article III confines the jurisdiction of the 
Federal courts to actual cases and controversies. Among the 
essential elements of what the Court considers a case or 
controversy for purposes of determining if a plaintiff has 
standing to bring suit is an injured plaintiff. The requirement 
that a plaintiff show that he or she has suffered ``injury in 
fact'' is a key requirement of the Court's doctrine of 
standing. To meet the requirements of standing, a plaintiff 
must allege personal injury fairly traceable to the defendant's 
allegedly unlawful conduct and likely to be redressed by the 
requested relief. Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 751, 104 S.Ct. 
3315, 3324.

    Congressional Standing. In Raines v. Byrd, 521 U.S. 811 
(1997)--which concerned the 1996 Line Item Veto Act--the Court 
in addressing the matter of standing distinguished between a 
personal injury to a private right and an institutional 
(injury). The Court viewed the plaintiffs as alleging an 
institutional injury: they were injured in their official 
capacities as Members of Congress by the alteration of the 
effect of their votes and the shifting of power between the 
executive and legislative branches. The Court ultimately 
determined that the Members of Congress lacked standing to sue, 
and remanded the case to the lower court with instructions. The 
Members were not granted standing because they had not alleged 
a sufficiently concrete injury under article III.

    Delegation Doctrine. The delegation doctrine maintains that 
broad delegations of authority to the administrative branch of 
government are unconstitutional. The delegation doctrine is a 
fundamental separation of powers principle that requires the 
legislative branch to make the laws. In the words of 
Montesquieu, who was taken quite seriously by the Framers: 
``When the legislative and executive powers are united in the 
same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be 
no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same 
monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them 
in a tyrannical manner.'' Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws, Book 
XI, Part 6 (G. Bell & Sons, ed., London 1914).

    Separation of Powers. The Constitution was crafted with 
three branches of government: the legislative (article I), the 
executive (article II), and the judicial (article III). The 
separation of powers provides a system of shared power known as 
checks and balances. Each of these branches has certain powers, 
and each of these powers is limited, or checked, by another 
branch.
    In its opinion in Nixon v. Administrator of General 
Services, 433 U.S. 425 (1977) the Court considered the charge 
of the appellant--President Nixon--of a violation of the 
separation of powers. The Court rejected the appellant's 
argument that the separation of powers doctrine was an air-
tight, rigidly compartmentalized structure, calling the 
interpretation unconvincing and ``archaic.'' The Court 
concluded that in determining whether the law in question 
(which determined the terms and conditions upon which public 
access may be granted to Presidential documents and recordings) 
disrupts the proper balance between the branches of government, 
the focus must rest on the extent to which the executive branch 
is prevented from accomplishing its constitutionally assigned 
functions. The Court found that the documents would remain 
within the control of the executive branch through the 
Administrator of General Services and the archivist, and the 
appellant's interpretation of the separation of powers was 
incorrect and without merit.
    Unlike the Court in Nixon, the Court in Bowsher v. Synar 
478 U.S. 714 (1986), did find a violation of the separation of 
powers. The Court addressed whether the assignment by Congress 
to the Comptroller General of the United States of certain 
functions under the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit 
Control Act of 1985 violated the doctrine of separation of 
powers. The act (Public Law 99-177), also commonly known as the 
Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act, set a maximum deficit amount for 
Federal spending for each of fiscal years 1986 through 1991. 
The act required across-the-board cuts in Federal spending to 
reach the targeted deficit level and accomplished the automatic 
reductions through a process spelled out in section 251. The 
Directors of the Office of Management and Budget [OMB] and the 
Congressional Budget Office [CBO] were required to report 
jointly their deficit estimates and budget reduction 
calculations to the Comptroller General, who--after reviewing 
the reports--was to submit his conclusions to the President. 
The President would then issue a sequestration order mandating 
the spending reductions specified by the Comptroller General. 
The Court held that the role of the Comptroller General in the 
deficit reduction process violated the separation of powers 
imposed under the Constitution. The District Court held (478 
U.S. 714, 721) that:

  [S]ince the powers conferred upon the Comptroller General as 
    part of the automatic deficit reduction process are 
    executive powers, which cannot constitutionally be 
    exercised by an officer removable by Congress, those powers 
    cannot be exercised and therefore the automatic deficit 
    reduction process to which they are central cannot be 
    implemented.

    The decision was appealed and was heard by the Supreme 
Court pursuant to section 274(b) of the act. The Supreme Court 
also held that congressional participation in the removal of 
executive officers was unconstitutional.
    In Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority v. Citizens 
for the Abatement of Aircraft Noise, 501 U.S. 252 (1991) the 
Supreme Court considered whether or not Congress' retention of 
certain management and policy controls violated the separation 
of powers. Although Congress vested managing authority for 
Washington National and Dulles International Airports in a 
regional entity, Congress required that nine Members be 
included on a Board of Review that followed operative decisions 
made by the Board of Directors for possible veto action. The 
Court found that Congress' scheme of congressional control, 
including its retention of substantial authority over the 
appointment and removal of members of the board, did violate 
separation of powers principles because the Board of Review was 
found to be acting as an agent of Congress.
    Congress passed new legislation that made adjustments to 
the control wielded by Congress over the Board of Directors. 
The Board of Review no longer retained veto authority over 
operative decisions, nor were Members of Congress required to 
sit on the Board of Review. But the Board was to comprise of 
persons drawn from a list determined by the Speaker of the 
House and the President pro tempore of the Senate. The Court of 
Appeals for the District of Columbia looked beyond the explicit 
terms of the revised statute [Hechinger v. Metropolitan 
Washington Airports Authority, 36 F.3d 97, 105 (D.C.Cir.1994)] 
and took into consideration its practical effect. The court 
found that there were practical consequences inherent in the 
Board of Review's ability to delay action by the Directors. The 
court concluded that the Board of Review still retained the 
ability to exercise undue influence over the authority. The 
court was particularly concerned by the Board's ability to 
delay and possibly overturn decisions made by the authority by 
referring the decisions to Congress for review. It concluded 
that the revised statute still violated the separation of 
powers.

    Presentment Clause. The presentment clause contained in 
article I, section 7 of the Constitution requires every bill 
passed by the House and Senate (bicameral passage), before 
becoming law, to be presented to the President, and, if he 
disapproves, to be repassed by two-thirds of the Senate and 
House.
    Before the 1996 Line Item Veto Act was struck down, 
President Clinton used his veto authority a total of 82 times. 
The constitutionality of the veto authority was challenged in 
Clinton v. City of New York, 524 U.S. 417 (1998). The case 
raised the question of whether or not a cancellation of an item 
of direct spending in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, and a 
limited tax benefit in the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997--both of 
which had already been enacted into law--constituted a 
violation of the Constitution's presentment clause. The Court 
determined that the actions of the President prevented one 
section of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, and one section of 
the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, from having legal force and 
effect. From the Court's perspective, the President had amended 
two acts of Congress by repealing a portion of each, and 
``repeal of statutes, no less than enactment, must conform with 
article I,'' INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919, 954, 103 S.Ct. 2764, 
2785-2786. The Court emphasized that statutory repeals must 
conform to the presentment clause's ``single, finely wrought 
and exhaustively considered, procedure'' for enacting a law. 
The Court determined that the cancellation procedures of the 
Line Item Veto Act did not conform to the tenets of the 
presentment clause and that nothing in the Constitution 
authorized the President to amend or repeal a statute, or 
portions of a statute, unilaterally.

            HOW H.R. 4890 ADDRESSES CONSTITUTIONAL DOCTRINES

    Delegation of Powers. The Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 
2006 has two provisions that may engage the delegation concept: 
first, the deferral authority allowed to the President; and 
second, the direct influence in the legislative process given 
to the executive branch.
    The authority provided to the President to defer the 
obligation of discretionary spending authority, or the 
implementation of an item of direct spending, or a targeted tax 
benefit is distinct from legislative authority, because the 
discretion granted to the President has no permanent effect on 
the statute. Statutes enacted by Congress often provide at 
least a modicum of discretion to the executive branch in the 
ways budgetary resources are used. The deferral authority is 
indistinguishable from this insofar as it allows the President 
a set period of time (45 days, with a possible extension of 
another 45 days) to determine whether Congress will agree to 
cancel a given spending or tax provision. During this deferral 
period, the President is allowed to wait before committing the 
resources of the U.S. Government, but it is not a permanent 
change in law unilaterally carried out by the executive branch, 
and hence not legislative in nature.
    The second issue arising under the Legislative Line Item 
Veto Act is the participation of the President in the 
legislative process. First and foremost, the President, by the 
nature of the Constitution, is intrinsically involved in the 
legislative process even if he is not a formal legislative 
actor. The line between legislative and executive is not a 
clear or bright one: The President signs legislation; the Vice 
President, under certain unusual circumstances, votes in the 
Senate--and may preside over the deliberations of that House; 
the President proposes legislation often and submits a budget--
as required by Congress--on an annual basis.
    The question is whether this act provides the President an 
undue amount of influence in the legislative process. In this 
case, the President is allowed to provide to the Congress a 
proposed list of legislative items in an enacted bill that he 
believes it should reconsider. The Congress is under no 
obligation through this statute to do so--it merely provides 
rules to move the proposal to the front of the line of those 
measures considered on the floor of the House or the Senate.

    Presentment Clause. The Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 
2006 is specifically designed to avoid violating the 
presentment clause. With the 1996 Line Item Veto Act, that 
clause, as delineated in the Court case previously cited, was 
violated because the statute was effectively being amended, 
according to the Court, after the fact without congressional 
approval. In the case of the Legislative Line Item Veto Act, 
however, the President merely proposes that a particular 
provision be canceled--he does not do so unilaterally. To 
invalidate budgetary resources under this act requires an act 
of Congress and the assent of the President, the same as any 
other law enacted pursuant to the Constitution of the United 
States.
    Simply put, the ``presentment'' of a law to the President, 
under the Constitution, is undisturbed because only a 
subsequently enacted law amends the law under review. This is 
indistinguishable from any other exercise of legislative or 
executive power.
                       Principal Court Decisions

                              ----------                              

                    (In Reverse Chronological Order)

    Clinton v. City of New York. The case of Clinton v. City of 
New York, 524 U.S. 417 (1998), resulted from President 
Clinton's decisions to cancel, pursuant to the Line Item Veto 
Act of 1996, two provisions in bills that were presented to him 
and signed by him: a mandatory spending provision waiving the 
Federal Government's right to recoupment of New York State 
taxes levied against Medicaid providers and a limited tax 
benefit providing capital gains tax relief to certain 
agricultural refining and processing companies.
    The plaintiff-appellees, claiming injury as a result of 
President Clinton's actions, filed suit arguing that the Line 
Item Veto Act of 1996 violated the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. 
Supreme Court ruled that: first, the appellees had standing to 
bring the suit; and second, the act violated the presentment 
clause of the Constitution. Therefore, the act was nullified.
    In determining that the appellees had standing to bring 
suit under article III, the Court first ruled that the 
provision of the act that provided for ``expedited review'' 
(i.e., allowing plaintiffs to skip the step of first appealing 
a Federal district court decision to a circuit court, and 
instead going straight to the Supreme Court) was available to 
governmental and organizational plaintiffs even though the 
act's language referred to ``individuals.'' The Court then held 
that the appellees satisfied the requirement that they have a 
concrete personal stake in having an actual injury redressed, 
and therefore that the suits satisfied the ``case and 
controversy'' requirement for standing.
    Next, the Court ruled that the Line Item Veto Act violated 
the presentment clause of the Constitution. From the Court's 
perspective, the President had amended two acts of Congress by 
repealing a portion of each and ``repeal of statutes, no less 
than enactment, must conform with article I''--specifically the 
presentment clause of article I, section 7. The Court 
considered significant that whereas constitutional veto power 
operated before a bill becomes a law, cancellation authority 
operated after a bill became law. The Court then emphasized 
that statutory repeals must conform to the presentment clause's 
``single, finely wrought and exhaustively considered, 
procedure'' for enacting a law. The Court determined that the 
cancellation procedures of the Line Item Veto Act did not 
conform to the tenants of the presentment clause--such as the 
requirement that a repeal of a statute be passed by both Houses 
of Congress--and that nothing in the Constitution authorized 
the President to amend or repeal a statute, or portions of a 
statute, unilaterally. Because the cancellation authority 
violated article I, section 7, the Court declared the Line Item 
Veto Act unconstitutional.

    Raines v. Byrd. The Line Item Veto Act was enacted in April 
1996 and became effective on 1 January 1997. Six Members of 
Congress who had voted against the act brought suit in the 
District Court for the District of Columbia challenging its 
constitutionality. In Raines v. Byrd, 521 US 811 (1997), the 
Court in addressing the matter of standing distinguished 
between a personal injury to a private right, and an 
institutional one.
    The Court viewed the plaintiffs as alleging an 
institutional injury: they were injured in their official 
capacities by the alteration of the effect of their votes, and 
the shifting of the power between the executive and legislative 
branches. Although the Court in Raines gave consideration to 
Coleman v. Miller, 307 U.S. 433 (1939)--a case in which Kansas 
State legislators were found to have standing to bring suit 
against State officials for a claim of vote nullification--it 
did not find Coleman to be dispositive in the Raines case. 
There were significant differences in the facts of the two 
cases. In Coleman the vote was nullified due to a tie breaking 
vote cast by the State's lieutenant governor. In Raines, the 
vote was not nullified, rather it was simply lost outright. The 
Court ultimately determined that the Members of Congress lacked 
standing to sue and remanded the case to the lower court with 
instructions. The Members were not granted standing because 
they had not alleged a sufficiently concrete injury under 
article III.

    Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority v. Citizens for 
the Abatement of Aircraft Noise. In this 1991 case, the Supreme 
Court considered whether or not Congress' retention of certain 
management and policy controls violated the separation of 
powers.
    Although Congress vested managing authority for Washington 
National and Dulles International Airports in a regional 
entity, Congress required that nine Members be included on a 
Board of Review that followed operative decisions made by the 
Board of Directors for possible veto action. The Court found 
that Congress' scheme of congressional control, including its 
retention of substantial authority over the appointment and 
removal of members of the board, did violate separation of 
powers principles because the Board of Review was found to be 
acting as an agent of Congress.
    Congress passed new legislation that made adjustments to 
the congressional control wielded by Congress over the Board of 
Directors. The Board of Review no longer retained veto 
authority over operative decisions nor were Members of Congress 
required to sit on the Board of Review. But the Board of Review 
was to comprise persons on a list determined by the Speaker of 
the House and the President pro tempore of the Senate.
    The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia looked 
beyond the explicit terms of the revised statute and took into 
consideration the practical effect of the statute, Hechinger v. 
Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, 36 F.3d 97, 105 
(D.C.Cir.1994). The court found that there were practical 
consequences inherent in the Board of Review's ability to delay 
action by the Directors. The court concluded that the Board of 
Review still retained the ability to exercise undue influence 
over the Authority. The court was particularly concerned by the 
Board's ability to delay and possibly overturn decisions made 
by the Authority by referring the decisions to Congress for 
review. It concluded that the revised statute was still a 
violation of the separation of powers.

    Bowsher v. Synar. The Court in Bowsher v. Synar, 478 U.S. 
714 (1986), addressed whether the assignment by Congress to the 
Comptroller General of the United States of certain functions 
under the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 
1985 violated the doctrine of separation of powers.
    The act (Public Law 99-177), commonly known as the Gramm-
Rudman-Hollings Act, set a maximum deficit amount for Federal 
spending for each of fiscal years 1986 through 1991. The act 
required across-the-board cuts in Federal spending to reach the 
targeted deficit level, and accomplished the automatic 
reductions through a process spelled out in section 251.
    The Directors of the Office of Management and Budget and 
the Congressional Budget Office were required to report jointly 
their deficit estimates and budget reduction calculations to 
the Comptroller General, who--after reviewing the reports--was 
to submit his conclusions to the President. The President would 
then issue a sequestration order mandating the spending 
reductions specified by the Comptroller General.
    The suit challenging the constitutionality of Gramm-Rudman-
Hollings was brought by Congressman Synar, who had voted 
against the act. A similar suit was also brought by the 
National Treasury Employees Union, who alleged an injury as a 
result of the automatic spending reduction of certain cost-of-
living benefits to the union's members. A three-judge district 
court concluded that the union had standing because it had 
suffered an actual injury as a result of the suspension of 
member benefits, and that the Members of Congress had 
congressional standing to sue.
    One of the issues raised before the district court was 
whether the delegation doctrine had been violated. The 
delegation doctrine maintains that broad delegations of 
authority to the administrative branch of government are 
unconstitutional. The court found that while the act delegated 
broad authority, delegation of similarly broad authority had 
been upheld in the past, thus rejecting the claim under the 
delegation doctrine. Nevertheless, the Court held that the role 
of the Comptroller General in the deficit reduction process 
violated the separation of powers created by the Constitution. 
The district court held (478 U.S. 714, 721) that:

  ``[S]ince the powers conferred upon the Comptroller General 
    as part of the automatic deficit reduction process are 
    executive powers, which cannot constitutionally be 
    exercised by an officer removable by Congress, those powers 
    cannot be exercised and therefore the automatic deficit 
    reduction process to which they are central cannot be 
    implemented.''

    The decision was appealed and was heard by the Supreme 
Court pursuant to section 274(b) of the act. The Supreme Court 
also held that congressional participation in the removal of 
executive officers was unconstitutional.

    Allen v. Wright. In this 1984 case, parents of public 
school children sought injunctive relief to bar the application 
of an Internal Revenue Service [IRS] code provision that 
granted tax-exempt status to private schools. The parents, who 
were African-American, alleged that allowing private schools 
that discriminated on the basis of race to receive tax-exempt 
status was unlawful.
    The parents asserted that they were harmed because the 
government's action constituted tangible Federal financial aid 
and other support for racially segregated educational 
institutions, and fostered and encouraged continued segregation 
contrary to the efforts of Federal courts, the Department of 
Health, Education, and Welfare, and local school authorities to 
desegregate public school districts that had been operating 
racially dual school systems. They asked for an order directing 
the IRS to replace its 1975 guidelines with standards 
consistent with the requested injunction.
    The District Court determined that the plaintiff lacked 
standing to sue, and that the requested relief was contrary to 
the will expressed by Congress's 1979 ban on strengthening IRS 
guidelines. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia 
reversed, and granted standing on the basis that as African-
American parents they were denigrated by the government's 
action in allowing tax-exempt status to a racially segregated 
private school.
    Article III confines the jurisdiction of the Federal courts 
to actual cases and controversies. Among the essential elements 
of what the Court considers a case or controversy for purposes 
of determining if a plaintiff has standing to bring suit is an 
injured plaintiff. After reviewing the case upon writ of 
certiorari, the Supreme Court determined that the plaintiff 
lacked standing to sue. The Court's analysis of the standing 
doctrine considered several judicially self-imposed limits on 
the exercise of Federal jurisdiction, such as the general 
prohibition on a litigant's raising another person's legal 
rights, the rule barring adjudication of generalized grievances 
more appropriately addressed in the representative branches, 
and the requirement that a plaintiff's complaint fall within 
the zone of interests protected by the law invoked. The 
requirement of standing, however, has a core component, 
expressly that a plaintiff must allege personal injury fairly 
traceable to the defendant's allegedly unlawful conduct and 
likely to be redressed by the requested relief, 454 U.S. at 
472. The Court concluded that plaintiff's injury did not 
constitute a judicially cognizable injury, and that the alleged 
injury was not fairly traceable to the assertedly unlawful 
conduct of the IRS.

    INS v. Chadha. Mr. Chadha entered the U.S. on a 
nonimmigrant student visa. Upon expiration of the visa, Mr. 
Chadha did not leave the United States as prescribed by law. 
Instead he stayed and was subject to deportation proceedings in 
which he was ordered by the Immigration and Naturalization 
Service [INS] to show cause why he should not be deported. Mr. 
Chadha applied for a suspension from deportation.
    The suspension was granted pursuant to Sec. 244(a)(1) of 
the Immigration and Naturalization Act, which authorizes the 
Attorney General, in his discretion, to suspend deportation. 
The suspension was reported to Congress as required by 
Sec. 244(c)(1) of the act. The House of Representatives invoked 
its authority under Sec. 244(c)(2) which authorizes either 
House of Congress, by resolution, to invalidate the decision of 
the executive branch, pursuant to authority delegated by 
Congress to the Attorney General, to allow a particular 
deportable alien to remain in the United States. The House 
passed a resolution pursuant to Sec. 244(c)(2) vetoing the 
suspension and deportation proceedings were reopened.
    Mr. Chadha challenged that Sec. 244(c)(2) was 
unconstitutional and moved to terminate the deportation 
proceedings. The Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed the 
case for lack of authority to rule on the constitutionality of 
the matter. Mr. Chadha then filed a petition for review of the 
deportation order in the Court of Appeals. The INS joined Mr. 
Chadha arguing that Sec. 244(c)(2) was unconstitutional. The 
Court of Appeals held that Sec. 244(c)(2) violated the 
constitutional doctrine of separation of powers. The Attorney 
General was ordered to cease deportation efforts.
    The Supreme Court in 1983 held that Sec. 244(c)(2) was 
severable from the remainder of the act and that the action 
taken by the House pursuant to Sec. 244(c)(2) was essentially 
legislative in purpose and effect, and thus was subject to the 
procedural requirements of article I, section 7, for 
legislative action. The presentment clause contained in article 
I, section 7 of the Constitution requires every bill passed by 
the House and Senate, before becoming law, to be presented to 
the President, and, if he disapproves, to be repassed by two-
thirds of the Senate and House.

    Nixon v. Administrator of General Services. Former 
President Nixon brought suit challenging the constitutionality 
of the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act 
(Public Law 93-526). Nixon v. Administrator of General 
Services, 433 U.S. 425 (1977). The Supreme Court faced the 
issue of whether the act was unconstitutional on its face as a 
violation of, among other doctrines, the separation of powers.
    Soon after Nixon resigned the presidency, he asked the 
Archivist to send 42 million pages of documents and 880 tape 
recordings of conversations to him in California. To abrogate 
an agreement between Nixon and the Archivist, Congress passed 
and President Ford signed the Presidential Recordings and 
Materials Preservation Act, requiring the General Services 
Administration [GSA] to retain complete possession and control 
of the materials, and to issue regulations governing public 
access to the materials.
    Nixon asserted that Congress impermissibly delegated to a 
subordinate executive branch official power over the 
President's materials, and therefore infringed on the 
separation of powers. The Court rejected this argument out of 
hand, finding that President Ford's role in signing the act, 
President Carter's intervention in favor of the act, and GSA's 
status as an executive branch agency under the President's 
direction, provided evidence of official executive branch 
involvement in the enacting and implementing the statutory 
scheme. The Court held that the separation of powers doctrine 
does not require treating the three branches as ``three air-
tight departments,'' and characterized Nixon's view as archaic. 
According to the Court, the key concern of separation of powers 
is whether a legislative act prevents another branch from 
exercising its constitutionally assigned functions.
    The Nixon Court went on to explain that only where such a 
disruption is possible should the Court enquire whether that 
impact is justified by an overriding need to promote the 
constitutional objectives of Congress. But because the act 
allowed an executive branch agency to retain control of the 
materials and provided for safeguards before allowing non-
executive persons to use the materials, the Court found that 
the act would not lead to a disruption of the executive 
branch's constitutional functions. Therefore, the act did not 
infringe upon the executive branch's power and did not violate 
the Constitution under the separation of powers doctrine.
                           Section by Section

                              ----------                              

                         SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE

    This section names the bill the ``Legislative Line Item 
Veto Act of 2006.''

                 SECTION 2. LEGISLATIVE LINE ITEM VETO

    Subsection (a) amends Title X of the Congressional Budget 
and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 by striking all of part B 
(except sections 1016 and 1013, which are designated as 
sections 1019 and 1020, respectively). It then inserts the 
following new sections:
    Section 1011. Cancellation of Budgetary Resources
    Pursuant to subsection (a), after the enactment of any bill 
or joint resolution providing discretionary budget authority, 
or enacting an item of direct spending or a targeted tax 
benefit, the President may send a special message to Congress 
to cancel any specific provision in one or more of those 
budgetary classes. The President, though, must send the message 
to Congress within 45 calendar days of the enactment of the new 
law.
    If the last day of that 45-day period falls on a day in 
which the Congress has been adjourned for an extended period 
(45 days or more) or if it falls on a day after which the 
Congress has adjourned at the end of the second session of that 
Congress, then the President's authority to transmit a special 
message is extended to the first day the Congress reconvenes. 
The President may transmit the special message after the 45-day 
period has expired only in those specific circumstances.
    The contents of the special message must specify the amount 
of budget authority, the specific item of direct spending, or 
the targeted tax benefit that the President proposes be 
canceled; any account, department, or establishment of the 
Government to which such budget authority or item of direct 
spending is available for obligation; and the specific project 
or governmental functions involved. It rescinds the 
discretionary BA or suspends the direct spending or tax 
procedures. It must, to the maximum extent practicable, explain 
the estimated fiscal, economic, and budgetary effects of the 
proposed cancellations.
    The special message must include a numbered list of 
proposed cancellations--this would take the form of rescissions 
of amounts of discretionary budget authority and legislative 
language canceling the effects of items of direct spending and 
targeted tax benefits (and making appropriate conforming 
changes in law). Cancellations of targeted tax benefits must be 
drawn from a list of such provisions included in a tax measure, 
if such a list is provided. Any provision included in a special 
message that is not on that list will not be included in an 
approval bill for consideration by Congress.
    The President is allowed to transmit to the Congress up to 
five special messages for any enacted law. All must be 
transmitted within the 45-day period of the signing of the 
bill, unless one of the exceptions already noted applies.
    The President is not allowed to propose to cancel a 
specific budgetary provision more than one time. Although he is 
allowed five special messages for each enacted law, he may not 
repeatedly send to Congress the same proposed cancellation. Any 
savings resulting from cancellations enacted as part of an 
approval bill will go toward reducing the deficit.
    Any amounts of discretionary budget authority, items of 
direct spending, or targeted tax benefits canceled when an 
approval bill is signed into law are dedicated to deficit 
reduction. After the enactment of an approval bill, the 
Chairmen of the Committees on the Budget of the Senate and the 
House of Representatives must revise the levels of the 
concurrent resolution on the budget in force at the time to 
ensure that the savings achieved are not used to finance other 
spending, whether discretionary or mandatory (or, in cases of 
increased revenues, are not used to reduce other taxes).
    Correspondingly, when an approval bill is enacted, the 
Office of Management and Budget must revise the discretionary 
caps and the PAYGO scorecard to reflect the spending and 
revenue changes--if those spending controls are reauthorized so 
as to be in force when an approval bill is enacted. PAYGO and 
the discretionary caps expired at the end of fiscal year 2002.

          Section 1012. Procedures for Expedited Consideration

    Subsection (a) requires that, after Congress has received a 
special message from the President proposing cancellations, the 
majority leader of the House and the Senate respectively (or 
their designees) shall introduce a bill to approve such 
cancellations within 5 days of session of each applicable 
House.

             Consideration in the House of Representatives

    This subsection requires a committee of the House of 
Representatives, to which an approval bill is referred, to 
report the bill without amendment within 7 legislative days of 
the referral. If a committee does not report the bill within 
seven legislative days, any member may make a privileged motion 
to discharge the relevant committee or committees from 
consideration of the bill.
    The Member offering the privileged motion to discharge must 
give notice to the House of his or her intent to do so, after 
which the Speaker must schedule a time to consider the motion 
within the next 2 legislative days. The privileged motion to 
discharge is debatable for 20 minutes after which the previous 
question is considered as ordered on the motion and a motion to 
reconsider the vote on which the motion is disposed of is not 
allowed. If the motion is agreed to, the House then moves to 
immediate consideration of the approval bill under the 
expedited procedures set out in this subsection. If the 
approval bill has been reported or a motion to discharge has 
already been disposed of, the privileged motion to discharge 
provided in this subsection is not in order.
    If an approval bill is reported from committee, or it has 
been discharged through regular House procedure, then it is in 
order for any Member to offer a privileged motion to proceed to 
consideration of the bill. It is a highly privileged motion and 
provides for the immediate consideration of the bill once 
agreed to. The Member offering the privileged motion to proceed 
to consideration must give notice to the House of his or her 
intent to do so, after which the Speaker must schedule a time 
to consider the motion within the next 2 legislative days. If 
the motion to proceed to consideration is agreed to, the 
approval bill must be immediately considered on the floor.
    If the majority leader of the House, or his designee, has 
introduced an approval bill and Congress adopts a concurrent 
resolution providing for adjournment sine die at the end of a 
Congress and that approval bill has either not been reported by 
a committee or considered by the House, then it shall be in 
order for any Member to immediately give notice of his or her 
intention to offer either a privileged motion to discharge that 
approval bill from committee or a privileged motion to proceed 
to consideration of that approval bill as provided for in this 
subsection. When Congress adopts a resolution to adjourn sine 
die, that Congress does not immediately end: Certain types of 
legislation must still be considered before the Congress 
adjourns. If an approval bill has been introduced, and the 
House adopts a motion to proceed to consideration, the House 
must consider it under the specified procedures of this act. In 
this circumstance, it does not matter at what stage the 
approval bill is, as long as it has been introduced, a motion 
to discharge the bill and bring it to the House floor still 
would be in order.
    The bill is considered as read. All points of order against 
consideration are waived. The previous question is considered 
as ordered. Five hours of debate are equally divided. One 
motion to limit debate on the bill is in order. A motion to 
reconsider the vote on passage is not in order. The bill is not 
open to amendments, including motions to strike individual 
cancellations.
    Finally, an approval bill received from the Senate is not 
referred to committee and may be brought up for consideration 
as an alternative to the House-introduced bill.

                      Consideration in the Senate

    A motion to proceed to the consideration of a bill in the 
Senate under this subsection is not debatable. It is not in 
order to move to reconsider the vote. Debate in the Senate on 
an approval bill, and all debatable motions and appeals may not 
exceed 10 hours, equally divided. Debate on any debatable 
motion or appeal in connection with a bill under this 
subsection shall be limited to not more than 1 hour, equally 
divided and controlled. A motion in the Senate to further limit 
debate on a bill under this subsection is not debatable. A 
motion to recommit the bill is not in order.
    If the Senate receives the House companion bill to the bill 
introduced in the Senate before the required vote, then the 
Senate may consider and vote on the House companion bill in 
lieu of considering and voting on the Senate bill.
    If the Senate votes, pursuant to paragraph (1) , on the 
bill introduced in the Senate, then immediately following that 
vote, or upon receipt of the House companion bill, the House 
bill is deemed to be considered and read for the third time, 
and the vote on passage of the Senate bill shall be considered 
to be the vote on the bill received from the House.
    Subsection (b) applies to both the Senate and the House and 
makes it clear that no amendment or motion to strike a 
provision from an approval bill is allowed to be considered. It 
is important the approval bill is not amended in either House 
so as to avoid different versions of the measures being passed 
by the two Houses of Congress. By avoiding these differences, 
the measure's consideration may be further expedited because it 
avoids a conference committee.

             Section 1013. Presidential Deferral Authority

    Subsection (a) affords the President the authority to 
choose not to obligate discretionary budget authority, and not 
to implement items of direct spending or targeted tax benefits 
(under certain limitations) for 45 calendar days beginning on 
the day a special message is received by either the House or 
the Senate.
    The time for this deferral period runs consecutively, so 
that from the time the transmittal is received in either the 
House or the Senate, the period begins. It ceases after the 
45th day after the day of transmittal. This period may, 
however, be renewed by the President at his discretion with two 
limitations: He may only extend the time period if he sends a 
special supplemental message to Congress notifying both Houses 
of the need to do so; and he must send that message after the 
40th day of the first 45-day period.
    A supplemental special message is simply that a supplement 
to the initial special message transmitted pursuant to the 
authority to defer budgetary provisions, explained in section 
1011. The message must notify Congress that the President 
intends to extend his deferral authority, which is authorized 
under section 1013 of the act, by an additional 45 days.
    As part of this supplemental special message, the President 
must specifically explain why special circumstances have arisen 
so that the original 45-day period is insufficient to 
accommodate the proposed cancellations and their consideration 
by the Congress. This extension may apply, for example, if 
Congress is in an extended recess and has been unable to 
consider a bill to approve the cancellations proposed by the 
President within the initial 45-day deferral period. Such a 
circumstance must be explained in detail in the supplemental 
special message.
    Under no circumstances is this additional deferral 
authority to be used by the President subsequent to the defeat 
of an approval bill in either House of Congress. Once Congress 
acts on an approval bill, this deferral authority must be 
discontinued by the President, even though it is not legally or 
constitutionally required, and he must not extend it for the 
renewal period. The President cannot transmit a supplemental 
special message to Congress subsequent to a negative vote on an 
approval bill by either House.
    Up to five special messages proposing cancellations of 
budgetary provisions may be transmitted for each public law 
enacted after this act, but only one supplemental special 
message may be transmitted for each of those special messages 
for that law. A supplemental special message is an additional 
component of the original special message transmitted under the 
authority of this act. A supplemental special message does not 
count toward the five special messages allowed for each public 
law it is not a special message in and of itself. It is merely 
an adjunct of a previously transmitted special message. Its 
form is not set out specifically through legislative language, 
but its requirements and parameters are made clear in this 
report.
    In addition, the President may submit a valid supplemental 
special message only after 40 calendar days have expired during 
the initial 45-day deferral period. This is to ensure Congress 
has enough time to consider the proposed cancellations before 
the President asks for more deferral authority. Though it is 
not legally or technically circumscribed, the authority to 
renew deferrals would occur during exceptional circumstances 
when the Congress has been unable to consider the approval bill 
that includes the proposed cancellations.
    After the expiration of the 45-day period and absent a 
renewal, or after the expiration of the renewal 45-day period, 
the budgetary provisions proposed to be canceled and which have 
been deferred, must be implemented or obligated, as the case 
may be, as is required by the Constitution and the 
Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974.
    As the special supplemental message may not be transmitted 
to Congress prior to 40 calendar days after the initial 
transmittal, once the 45-day period has expired, no special 
supplemental message may be transmitted; the authority to renew 
the deferral period has also expired. Hence, should the initial 
45-day period expire, and no renewal special supplemental 
notice be transmitted during that period, immediately 
thereafter, the (for example) budget authority appropriated 
must be made available for obligation as if the deferral had 
never occurred.
    Additionally, once the 45-day period has elapsed without a 
supplemental special message having been sent, the option of 
sending such a supplemental message is not available. Deferral 
authority under this act has entirely expired once the initial 
45-day period has ended and no supplemental special message has 
been transmitted.
    It is understood that the legislative calendar of the 
Congress is not relevant for the calculation of this deferral 
period, with the singular exception of last day on which the 
transmittal of the original special message may occur. If the 
Congress has adjourned to a future date when the initial 
deferral period expires, the supplemental special message is 
unaffected.
    Even in the unusual circumstance when a supplemental 
special message is transmitted after the second session of a 
Congress has adjourned but before the first session of the next 
Congress has convened, the Congress still represents the people 
of the United States, and the Senate is a continuing body, so 
that the communication of such a transmittal is always valid to 
extend the deferral authority.
    Although the authority to defer spending and certain tax 
benefits under the initial 45 days (and any applicable renewal 
period) is independent of legislative actions taken by 
Congress, it is the intent of the Committee that if a vote is 
taken on an approval bill by either House, and one approved 
bill is not agreed to by that House, then the suspension of any 
provision of law must be revoked and that provision put into 
effect as if it had always been effective under the terms of 
the public law in which it was originally included.
    Out of constitutional concerns, the committee has not 
directly tied the suspension/deferral period to a failed vote 
or on approval. It does, though, indicate its intent that such 
a vote should have that effect. The President must immediately 
suspend the deferral of all budgetary provisions included in an 
approval bill of proposed cancellations that, after floor 
consideration of the bill, has not received the requisite votes 
to pass in a House of Congress.

         Section 1014. Identification of Targeted Tax Benefits

    Subsection (a) requires the Chairman of the House Committee 
on Ways and Means and the Chairman of the Senate Finance 
Committee to review a bill or joint resolution that amends the 
Internal Revenue Code of 1986 and that a conference committee 
is preparing for filing, to determine if it contains any 
targeted tax benefits. The two chairmen then must provide to 
the conference committee a statement identifying the targeted 
tax benefits or declaring that the bill or joint resolution 
does not contain any.
    Subsection (b) authorizes a conference committee to include 
a statement described in subsection (a) as legislative text in 
the conference agreement to which the statement applies.
    Subsection delineates the President's authority to propose 
the cancellation of targeted tax benefits. If any bill or joint 
resolution is signed into law, then the President may propose 
to cancel only targeted tax benefits identified in the specific 
section of the law containing the statement described in 
subsection (a). If such a statement is not included in the law, 
then the President may apply the statutory definition of 
targeted tax benefit to determine which tax provisions he may 
propose to cancel.

                Section 1015. Treatment of Cancellations

    This section makes it clear that a cancellation proposed by 
the President must be approved by Congress and signed into law 
before the elimination of the spending or tax provision is 
effective.
    If the approval bill is not agreed to by Congress or is 
vetoed by the President, and hence the cancellations are 
approved, those spending or tax provisions proposed to be 
canceled remain in force and must be put into effect as if the 
deferral and the proposed cancellation had never been made.
    If the approval bill is agreed to by Congress and signed 
into law by the President, and hence the cancellations are not 
approved, then the effect is to cause the deficit to be reduced 
(or the surplus increased) by the amount of the spending or tax 
provision canceled.

              Section 1016. Reports by Comptroller General

    This section requires the Comptroller General of the 
Government Accountability Office to prepare and transmit to 
Congress a report for each special message sent by the 
President to the Congress.
    This report must identify the date on which the special 
message was transmitted to the Congress, the public law to 
which the special message applies, and the number of special 
messages transmitted relative to that public law as of the time 
of the preparation of the report.
    It must also, if specifically requested by the Chairman of 
the House or Senate Budget Committee, the Budget of the House 
or the Chairman of the Committee on the Budget of the Senate, 
describe the extent to which a proposed cancellation in the 
message is similar to or different from another proposed 
cancellation in another special message arising from the same 
public law.
    The report must assess whether any provision deferred by 
the President remains deferred after the authorized period 
provided to the President has expired.
    This report is intended to be prepared as soon as 
practicable after the expiration of the deferral period defined 
in the act, which is 45 days without an extension, or 90 days 
if the President determines that an extension is necessary.
    If an additional 45-day renewal period occurs because of 
the President's actions, then the report should note any 
reasons or justifications as to why the extension period is 
needed.

                       Section 1017. Definitions

    Appropriation Law. The term `appropriation law' means an 
Act referred to in section 105 of title 1, United States Code, 
including any general or special appropriation Act, or any Act 
making supplemental, deficiency, or continuing appropriations, 
that has been signed into law pursuant to article I, section 7, 
of the Constitution of the United States.

    Approval Bill. This means a bill or joint resolution which 
only approves proposed cancellations of dollar amounts of 
discretionary budget authority, items of new direct spending, 
or targeted tax benefits in a special message transmitted by 
the President.
    The title of the approval bill is as follows: 'A bill 
approving the proposed cancellations transmitted by the 
President on ____.' Except for the limitations included in this 
definition, a bill with this title is entitled to the 
privileged status and expedited consideration procedures set 
out in this bill.
    The blank space is filled in by the sponsor of the bill, 
the majority leader of each House of Congress (or designee), 
with the date of transmission of the special message and the 
public law number to which the message relates. It does not 
have a preamble. The bill outlined in the text includes a 
numbered list from the President's special message. In 
preparing the approval bill, the sponsor may include only 
proposed cancellations of spending estimated by CBO to meet the 
definition of discretionary budgetary authority or items of 
direct spending, and may include only proposed cancellations of 
tax provisions determined by the chairmen of the House Ways and 
Means and Senate Finance Committees to be targeted tax 
benefits. If an approval bill includes a tax provision that has 
not been chosen from the prepared list, the bill's privileged 
status is jeopardized, and the majority leader will have failed 
to fulfill his or her responsibilities under this act. The 
Committee understands that this circumstance simply will not 
occur under House rules, procedures, precedent, and practice.
    It is the intent of the Committee that a bill, even if it 
has the appropriate title, should not be conferred the 
privileged status of an approval bill if it includes items of 
direct spending that do not meet the criteria set out--if a 
bill termed an approval bill includes a provision from the 
special message that is not estimated by CBO to meet the 
appropriate criteria, or an item not in the special message is 
included, or the bill in some other fashion does not meet this 
definition of an ``approval bill,'' then the measure should not 
be accorded the privileged status that is set out for such a 
bill. Any bill receiving the expedited procedures provided for 
in the Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006 must strictly 
adhere to this definition and follow its parameters.
    Proposed cancellations that CBO estimates do not meet the 
definition of an item of direct spending are included in a 
separate section of the approval bill--but this section 
specifies that the President must implement those provisions. 
The President must cease any deferral of those provisions, and 
must implement them using the effective date of the original 
public law in which they were included.
    Though an approval bill is intended to allow for only those 
provisions that have been estimated as having a budgetary 
effect as estimated by CBO, the Committee understands that 
there may be a circumstance whereby a CBO estimate is not 
available prior to the introduction of the bill. In such a 
situation, the entire list of legislative provisions proposed 
by the President is inserted in the approval bill. This is only 
a contingency to assure the consideration of legislation is not 
hindered due to unforeseen circumstances. It is expected that 
CBO will be able to estimate the effects of any proposed 
cancellations included in an approval bill to allow the sponsor 
of such a measure to appropriately draft the language.

    Calendar Day. This term means a standard 24-hour period 
beginning at midnight.

    Cancel or Cancellation. These terms mean to prevent 
discretionary budget authority from being obligated, or a 
provision of direct spending or targeted tax benefit from being 
implemented. These proposed cancellations are included in an 
approval bill introduced by the majority leaders of the House 
and Senate. The majority leaders of the respective Houses are 
required to introduce the approval bills, much as they must 
introduce other expedited measures such as trade agreements 
considered pursuant to Trade Promotion Authority and measures 
considered pursuant to the base realignment and closure 
procedures.
    A cancellation takes the form of legislative or 
appropriations text reflecting a rescission of a specific 
amount of discretionary budget authority, or a cancellation of 
the legal effects of a direct spending provision (within very 
limited confines) or a targeted tax benefit.
    For a rescission of discretionary budget authority, a 
cancellation is simple--the language included in the special 
message merely needs to ``rescind'' a specific amount 
reflecting the entire amount of an appropriation, or a smaller 
amount of budget authority within an overall amount if there is 
an earmark set out in the joint statement or report on the 
appropriations bill in question. If there are no earmarks, then 
only the entire amount of the appropriation may be rescinded, 
not simply an arbitrary amount of the overall level.
    In terms of an item of direct spending, the legislative 
change proposed by the President--that is, the proposed 
``cancellation''--must be narrow in scope: It must only be a 
``necessary, conforming statutory change'' and only one that is 
to ``ensure that * * * budgetary resources are appropriately 
canceled.''
    The Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006 is not intended 
to allow the President to force Congress to consider policy 
proposals or interests of the President. Hence, any legislative 
text given preferential treatment under this measure must be 
narrowly tailored to have a salutary budgetary effect. It is 
not an open-ended invitation for a vote on the floor of the 
House and Senate for any legislation the President may desire 
to propose.
    The Committee expects that the special procedure set out in 
the Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006 will be followed by 
conferees on any tax bill. That procedure requires the managers 
of any bill making changes to the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 
to include a list of items that meet the definition of a 
``targeted tax benefit'' in the bill. This list is prepared by 
the Chairmen of the Committees on Finance and Ways and Means 
and put into legislative language and included in the 
applicable measure. Upon enactment, the President may only 
choose items from that list to include in his special message 
with respect to proposed targeted tax benefit cancellations 
that he transmits to Congress for the purposes of this act. The 
President may only draft a list of his own choosing if the 
Chairmen of the Committees on Finance and Ways and Means do not 
include such a list in the tax bill.
    If the two chairmen determine there are no targeted tax 
benefits in the bill they are preparing, then a statement may 
be included in the bill that no such targeted tax benefits 
exist and therefore the President is not permitted to transmit 
the proposed cancellation of any tax provisions in that bill 
which has become public law.

    Congressional Budget Office. The term `CBO' means the 
Director of the Congressional Budget Office.

    Direct Spending. This term means budget authority provided 
by law other than an appropriation law; an entitlement; and the 
food stamp program.

    Dollar Amount of Discretionary Budget Authority. This term 
means the entire dollar amount of budget authority or 
obligation limitation: specified in an appropriation law; 
required to be allocated by a specific proviso in an 
appropriation law for which a specific dollar figure was not 
included; represented separately in any table, chart, or 
explanatory text included in the statement of managers or the 
governing committee report accompanying such law; required to 
be allocated for a specific program, project, or activity in a 
law (other than an appropriation law) that mandates the 
expenditure of budget authority from accounts, programs, 
projects, or activities for which budget authority is provided 
in an appropriation law; represented by the product of the 
estimated procurement cost and the total quantity of items 
specified in an appropriation law or included in the statement 
of managers or the governing committee report accompanying such 
law; or represented by the product of the estimated procurement 
cost and the total quantity of items required to be provided in 
a law (other than an appropriation law) that mandates the 
expenditure of budget authority from accounts, programs, 
projects, or activities for which budget authority is provided 
in an appropriation law.
    The term does not include direct spending; budget authority 
in an appropriation law which funds direct spending provided 
for in another law; any existing budget authority canceled in 
an appropriation law; or any restriction, condition, or 
limitation in an appropriation law or the accompanying 
statement of managers or committee reports on the expenditure 
of budget authority for an account, program, project, or 
activity, or on activities involving such expenditure.

    Item of Direct Spending. This term means any provision of 
law that CBO estimates increases budget authority or outlays 
for direct spending relative to the baseline projections of 
direct spending made after receipt of the President's budget 
submission. An item falls under this definition if it increases 
direct spending in the first year or the 5-year period for 
which the item is effective. An exception is provided for the 
extension or reauthorization of existing direct spending. This 
exception refers to specific items of direct spending rather 
than the level of direct spending assumed in the baseline. 
Accordingly, a reauthorization bill could have no cost in the 
aggregate relative to the baseline, but still contain new items 
of direct spending that could be proposed to be canceled for 
purposes of the legislative line item veto.

    Office of Management and Budget. The term `OMB' means the 
Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

    Omnibus Reconciliation Act. An Omnibus Reconciliation bill 
is one reported by the Budget Committee pursuant a directive in 
a concurrent budget resolution. It is a multi-jurisdictional 
bill with a variety of authorizing committees being directed 
through the reconciliation process to make changes to laws in 
their jurisdiction. Though traditionally reconciliation bills 
have been used to reduce spending, they have also included new 
direct spending items and may include targeted tax breaks as 
well.
    The intent of the act is to target narrowly based direct 
spending provisions that are tantamount to discretionary 
earmarks, and might not survive narrow legislative scrutiny. 
Although this is the case, the text of the act does not prevent 
broader new entitlement programs from being proposed for 
cancellation by the President.

    Omnibus Appropriation Act. An Omnibus Appropriations bill 
is defined as any measure providing appropriations falling 
within the jurisdiction of 2 or more subcommittees of the 
Committee on Appropriations of either House of Congress. In 
general, appropriations bills are considered separately as 
individual bills, each with a specified amount of budget 
authority for the programs the measure funds. Upon occasion, 
and due to a variety of reasons, two or more appropriation 
bills may be combined, usually at the end of the legislative 
season, and enacted as an ``omnibus'' appropriation. Because 
these can often be enormous bills, with labyrinthine 
appropriations and legislative text, they also merit a larger 
number of special messages--10 instead of merely five.
    It must be mentioned that ``supplemental'' appropriations 
bills are often considered and have multi-jurisdictional 
spending components. These would also, generally, include 
spending that falls within the jurisdiction of two or more 
suballocations made to the subcommittees of the House or the 
Senate. Though these bills are generally of a smaller spending 
magnitude than those normally considered to be Omnibus bills, 
they are often of similar complexity and breadth of spending 
provisions. Accordingly, supplementals also merit 10 special 
messages instead of 5. Further, they often include 
``emergency'' designations which in some circumstances allow 
the spending to escape normal budgetary controls. The 
Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006, however, is an 
extraordinary budgetary control, and instead of creating 
procedural hurdles to votes on spending bills rather insists on 
votes on specific spending items.
    In this respect, this bill does not recognize ``emergency'' 
spending as opposed to ``non-emergency spending,'' but merely 
allows certain spending, or targeted tax benefits, to be 
reconsidered.

    Targeted Tax Benefit. This term means any revenue-losing 
provision amending the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 and 
benefitting a single taxpayer in any fiscal year for which the 
provision is in effect. A revenue-losing provision is any 
provision that reduces Federal tax revenues either in the first 
fiscal year for which the provision is effective or the period 
of the 5 fiscal years beginning with the first fiscal year for 
which the provision is effective. The definition of revenue-
losing' includes both provisions that reduce revenue relative 
to current law, as well as provisions that reduce revenue 
relative a broader provision in the bill in which the provision 
is found. The Committee believes that rifle shot transitional 
rules that benefit a single taxpayer should constitute targeted 
tax benefits. Such special rules have the effect of retaining 
current law for a particular taxpayer, despite the fact that a 
broader class of taxpayers is affected adversely by the bill. 
Thus, they are appropriate candidates for inclusion in approval 
bills even if they do not reduce revenue relative to current 
law.
    For example, a provision in the Tax Reform Act of 1986 
included a favorable rule for banks, and also included a 
special exception treating certain non-banks as banks for 
purposes of the rule. The special exception applied to any 
corporation ``if (A) such corporation is a Delaware corporation 
incorporated on August 20, 1959, and (B) such corporation was 
primarily engaged in the financing of dealer inventory or 
consumer purchases on May 29, 1985, and at all times thereafter 
before the close of the taxable year.'' Pub. L. No. 99-514, 100 
Stat. 2548, sec. 1215(c)(5). If the Chairmen of the Ways and 
Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee expected only 
a single taxpayer to benefit from this special exception, it 
would constitute a targeted tax benefit.
    For purposes of applying the single-beneficiary test, 
several aggregation rules treat certain groups of taxpayers as 
a single taxpayer. All businesses in the same affiliated group, 
all shareholders of the same corporation, all partners of the 
same partnership, all members of the same association, all 
beneficiaries of the same trust or estate, all employees of the 
same employer, all beneficiaries of the same qualified plan, 
all contributors to the same foundation or charity, and all 
holders of the same bond issue are treated as one beneficiary. 
In addition, if a corporation, partnership, association, trust, 
or estate is the beneficiary of a tax provision, then the 
shareholders of the corporation, the partners of the 
partnership, the members of the association, or the 
beneficiaries of the trust or estate are not also treated as 
beneficiaries of the provision. Thus, for example, a provision 
excluding from gross income all income of a particular 
corporation and all income of any shareholders in that 
corporation would be treated as having a single beneficiary.

                          Section 1018. Sunset

    This section provides for an expiration date so that the 
Act has no force or effect on or after October 1, 2012. 
Effectively, this provides for a sunset of the Legislative Line 
Item Veto after 6 years, so after that time, it must be 
reconsidered and extended.

             SECTION 3. TECHNICAL AND CONFORMING AMENDMENTS

    Subsection (a) makes certain technical amendments to 
Section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.
    Subsection (b) requires the Congressional Budget Office to 
prepare an estimate of any special message transmitted by the 
President pursuant to the act.
    Subsection makes certain clerical amendments. It strikes 
the last sentence of Section 1(a) of the Congressional Budget 
and Impoundment Control Act of 1974. It also sets out a revised 
table of contents as follows:

                   PART B--LEGISLATIVE LINE ITEM VETO

    Section 1011. Line item veto authority
    Section 1012. Procedures for expedited consideration
    Section 1013. Presidential deferral authority
    Section 1014. Identification of targeted tax benefits
    Section 1015. Treatment of cancellations
    Section 1016. Reports by Comptroller General
    Section 1017. Definitions
    Section 1018. Expiration
    Section 1019. Suits by Comptroller General
    Section 1020. Proposed Deferrals of budget authority
    Subsection (d) explains that the Legislative Line Item Veto 
Act only applies to laws enacted on or after this law is 
signed.

    SECTION 4. SENSE OF CONGRESS ON ABUSE OF PROPOSED CANCELLATIONS

    This section sets out a Sense of Congress that the 
President should not abuse the authority provided under the 
Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006.
                                Hearings

                              ----------                              

        LINE-ITEM VETO--PERSPECTIVES ON APPLICATIONS AND EFFECTS

    On 25 May 2006, the committee held a hearing titled: ``Line 
Item Veto--Perspectives on Applications and Effects'' and heard 
the following testimony:
    Patrick J. Toomey, President, the Club for Growth, 
testified that the line-item veto gives Presidents a more 
effective check on runaway Federal spending. He believes that 
that line item veto is constitutional, is consistent with the 
primary conservative value of limited government, and is in the 
best interest of taxpayers.
    Thomas A. Schatz, President, Citizens Against Government 
Waste, testified that the need exists for a constitutional 
Presidential line item veto. His rationale included the idea 
that Congress has confronted the President repeatedly with 
hastily crafted, 11th-hour omnibus bills that cover all or 
substantial portions of Federal spending for the year. This 
practice inhibits the exercise of the veto, which under such 
circumstances would have the effect of closing down the Federal 
Government. A line item veto would enhance the President's 
budget role. It would make both the legislative and executive 
branches more accountable for our tax dollars, as it does on 
the State level in 43 States. While some have questioned 
whether a line item veto at the Federal level would threaten 
the separation of powers, experience with such authority at the 
State level indicates that would not be the outcome. The fear, 
Schatz explained, that the President could use the veto 
authority to expand his power exponentially and upset the 
checks and balances between the branches is addressed by 
restricting the President's veto power to disapproving specific 
line items in appropriations bills. In this way, the line item 
veto would not give authority to the President to alter the 
budget priorities set by Congress in its spending decisions, as 
the veto can only be used to withhold funds for an item.
    Edward Lorenzen, Policy Director, the Concord Coalition, 
testified that he believes that the proposed modified line item 
veto and similar proposals would not address the magnitude of 
our fiscal challenges. He testified that budget enforcement 
tools such as pay-as-you-go rules for all tax and spending 
legislation would reduce the deficit and would have a much 
greater impact on fiscal policy. Balancing the budget and 
establishing a fiscally sustainable course for the future will 
require Congress and the President to confront tough choices 
regarding tax and entitlement policy. However, he believes that 
granting the President modified line item veto authority could 
be a useful tool in improving the accountability of the budget 
process and achieving greater public confidence in the budget 
process that will be necessary to make the tough choices on 
much larger fiscal issues.
    James R. Horney, Senior Fellow, Center on Budget and Policy 
Priorities testified that he believes the most fundamental 
aspect of any line-item veto proposal is to shift power from 
the legislative branch to the executive branch. He testified 
that it was unwise to further enhance the power of the 
executive branch. He also indicated that a line item veto is 
not well-suited to getting at the biggest cause of the real, 
long-term budget problem--the fact that under current policies 
the cost of three big entitlement programs Social Security, 
Medicare, and Medicaid are projected to grow at a rate that 
will exceed the growth of the economy and revenues.

                 LINE-ITEM VETO--CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES

    On 6 June 2006, the committee held a hearing titled ``Line-
Item Veto--Constitutional Issues'' and heard the following 
testimony:
    Charles J. Cooper, Partner, Cooper & Kirk, PLLC testified 
that he believed the Supreme Court's reasoning in striking down 
the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 would not apply against the 
Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006. In Clinton v. City of 
New York, 524 U.S. 417 (1998), the Court recognized and 
enforced the constitutional line established by article I, 
section 7, between the power to exercise discretion in the 
making, or unmaking, of law and the power to exercise 
discretion in the execution of law, which in the spending 
context has historically included the power to defer, or to 
decline, expenditure of appropriated funds. Congress cannot 
constitutionally vest the President with the former, but it can 
the latter, and has done so repeatedly throughout our Nation's 
history. The powers granted to the President under the 
Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006 fall safely on the 
constitutional side of that line.
    Viet D. Dinh, Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law 
Center testified that he believes that H.R. 4890 satisfies the 
Constitution's bicameralism and presentment clauses, and does 
not suffer from the defects that doomed the previous line item 
veto legislation invalidated by the Supreme Court. He indicated 
he believed the act is consistent with the basic principle that 
Congress has broad discretion to establish procedures to govern 
its internal operations, including by adopting fast-track rules 
for the quick consideration of legislation proposed by the 
President.
    Louis Fischer, Law Library Specialist, Library of Congress, 
testified that he believes that although it is useful to 
examine judicial precedents in judging the constitutionality of 
the Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006, the proper defender 
of the prerogatives of the legislative branch is the 
legislator, not the judge. He cited four causes of damage to 
the reputation and credibility of Congress: first, recognition 
of the inability of Congress to perform its constitutional 
duties; second, a public rebuke from the President on spending 
the President deems ``unjustified''; third, further public 
criticism for failure to enact the President's recommendations; 
and fourth, creation of a new tool for the President to coerce 
lawmakers and limit their independence.
                         Votes of the Committee

                              ----------                              

    Clause 3(b) of House Rule XIII requires each committee 
report to accompany any bill or resolution of a public 
character, to include the total number of votes cast for and 
against on each roll call vote, on a motion to report and any 
amendments offered to the measure or matter, together with the 
names of those voting for and against. Listed below are the 
roll call votes taken in the House Budget Committee on the 
Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006. On 14 June 2006, the 
committee met in open session, a quorum being present.
    Chairman Nussle asked unanimous consent that he be 
authorized, consistent with clause 4 of House Rule XVI, to 
declare a recess at any time during the committee meeting; and, 
in addition, the chairman and the ranking member be allotted 20 
minutes equally divided to control the time for opening 
statements and to allow members to submit written statements 
for the record.
    There was no objection to the unanimous consent request.
    Chairman Nussle asked unanimous consent to dispense with 
the first reading of the bill and the bill be considered as 
read and open to amendment at any point.
    There was no objection to the unanimous consent request.
    The committee adopted and ordered reported the Legislative 
Line Item Veto Act of 2006. The following votes were taken by 
the committee:
    1. Mr. Ryan offered an amendment in the nature of a 
substitute to H.R. 4890, the Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 
2006. The amendment makes changes to the legislation such as 
allowing 45 calendar days for the President to transmit special 
messages for proposed cancellations to any of the three classes 
of budget provisions: an amount of discretionary budget 
authority; a direct spending item; and a targeted tax benefit. 
It prohibits duplicative proposals. Except for any omnibus 
budget reconciliation or appropriation measure, which is 
permitted not more than 10 messages, the President is limited 
to five special messages that may be transmitted on any bill or 
joint resolution. It also limits the amount of deferral time to 
45 calendar days allowing for one extension of the deferral 
period. It refines the definition of targeted tax benefits in a 
manner consistent with appropriations earmarks and allows the 
President to make conforming changes to direct spending items 
or targeted tax benefits rather than allowing for modifications 
of the provisions. The Chairmen of the Ways and Means and 
Finance Committees identify a list of targeted tax benefits and 
the President may rescind only those benefits on the list. It 
defines an approval bill and details the criteria for proposed 
cancellations including the requirement that all direct 
spending items must be scored by the Congressional Budget 
Office as reducing budget authority or outlays.
    2. A perfecting amendment was offered by Representatives 
Moore, Case, Kind, Capps, Allen, Neal and Cooper to establish a 
pay-as-you-go [PAYGO] provision so legislation enacted before 
October 1, 2011, affecting direct spending or receipts would 
require an offsetting sequestration.
    Reserving the right to object, a point of order was raised 
by Mr. Putnam that the amendment was not germane.
    Unanimous consent was requested by Mr. Moore and received 
that all amendments be allowed 10 minutes of debate equally 
divided.
    Unanimous consent was requested and received by Mr. Edwards 
that an additional 5 minutes for debate be allowed for both 
sides for the amendment currently under consideration.
    Mr. Putnam withdrew his point of order.
    The amendment was not agreed to by a roll call vote of 13 
ayes and 18 noes.

                               VOTE NO. 1

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Representative        Aye         No         Present      Representative        Aye         No       Present
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. NUSSLE,         ..........       X      ............  Mr. SPRATT,              X      .........  ...........
 Chairman                                                  Ranking
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. RYUN (KS)       ..........       X      ............  Mr. MOORE                X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CRENSHAW        ..........       X      ............  Mr. NEAL            ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. PUTNAM          ..........       X      ............  Ms. DeLAURO         ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. WICKER          ..........  ..........  ............  Mr. EDWARDS              X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. HULSHOF         ..........       X      ............  Mr. FORD            ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. BONNER          ..........       X      ............  Mrs. CAPPS               X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. GARRETT         ..........       X      ............  Mr. BAIRD                X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. BARRETT         ..........       X      ............  Mr. COOPER               X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. McCOTTER        ..........       X      ............  Mr. DAVIS                X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. DIAZ-BALART     ..........       X      ............  Mr. JEFFERSON       ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. HENSARLING      ..........       X      ............  Mr. ALLEN                X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. LUNGREN         ..........       X      ............  Mr. CASE                 X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. SESSIONS        ..........  ..........  ............  Ms. McKINNEY             X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. RYAN (WI)       ..........       X      ............  Mr. CUELLAR              X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. SIMPSON         ..........  ..........  ............  Ms. SCHWARTZ             X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. BRADLEY         ..........       X      ............  Mr. KIND                 X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. McHENRY         ..........  ..........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. MACK            ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CONAWAY         ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CHOCOLA         ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CAMPBELL        ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    3. A perfecting amendment offered by Mr. Cooper to add a 
definition for reconciliation to Section 310 of the 
Congressional Budget Act.
    The amendment was not agreed to by voice vote.
    4. A perfecting amendment offered by Representatives Baird 
and Cooper to require a two-thirds majority vote in order to 
waive the 3-day layover requirement concerning the availability 
of reports.
    The amendment was not agreed to by a roll call vote of 9 
ayes and 19 noes.

                               VOTE NO. 2

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Representative        Aye         No         Present      Representative        Aye         No       Present
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. NUSSLE,         ..........       X      ............  Mr. SPRATT,              X      .........  ...........
 Chairman                                                  Ranking
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. RYUN (KS)       ..........       X      ............  Mr. MOORE                X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CRENSHAW        ..........       X      ............  Mr. NEAL            ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. PUTNAM          ..........       X      ............  Ms. DeLAURO         ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. WICKER          ..........  ..........  ............  Mr. EDWARDS              X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. HULSHOF         ..........       X      ............  Mr. FORD            ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. BONNER          ..........       X      ............  Mrs. CAPPS               X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. GARRETT         ..........       X      ............  Mr. BAIRD                X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. BARRETT         ..........       X      ............  Mr. COOPER               X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. McCOTTER        ..........       X      ............  Mr. DAVIS           ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. DIAZ-BALART     ..........       X      ............  Mr. JEFFERSON       ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. HENSARLING      ..........       X      ............  Mr. ALLEN           ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. LUNGREN         ..........       X      ............  Mr. CASE                 X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. SESSIONS        ..........  ..........  ............  Ms. McKINNEY        ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. RYAN (WI)       ..........       X      ............  Mr. CUELLAR              X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. SIMPSON         ..........       X      ............  Ms. SCHWARTZ             X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. BRADLEY         ..........       X      ............  Mr. KIND            ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. McHENRY         ..........  ..........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. MACK            ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CONAWAY         ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CHOCOLA         ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CAMPBELL        ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    5. A perfecting amendment offered by Mr. Baird to require a 
3-day approval bill layover. The amendment was withdrawn.
    6. A perfecting amendment offered by Mr. Cooper to change 
the way earmarks are treated for the purpose of floor 
consideration.
    The amendment was not agreed to by a roll call vote of 8 
ayes and 19 noes.

                               VOTE NO. 3

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Representative        Aye         No         Present      Representative        Aye         No       Present
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. NUSSLE,         ..........       X      ............  Mr. SPRATT,              X      .........  ...........
 Chairman                                                  Ranking
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. RYUN (KS)       ..........       X      ............  Mr. MOORE                X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CRENSHAW        ..........       X      ............  Mr. NEAL            ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. PUTNAM          ..........       X      ............  Ms. DeLAURO         ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. WICKER          ..........       X      ............  Mr. EDWARDS              X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. HULSHOF         ..........       X      ............  Mr. FORD                 X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. BONNER          ..........       X      ............  Mrs. CAPPS               X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. GARRETT         ..........       X      ............  Mr. BAIRD                X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. BARRETT         ..........       X      ............  Mr. COOPER               X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. McCOTTER        ..........       X      ............  Mr. DAVIS           ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. DIAZ-BALART     ..........       X      ............  Mr. JEFFERSON       ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. HENSARLING      ..........       X      ............  Mr. ALLEN           ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. LUNGREN         ..........  ..........  ............  Mr. CASE            ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. SESSIONS        ..........  ..........  ............  Ms. McKINNEY        ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. RYAN (WI)       ..........       X      ............  Mr. CUELLAR              X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. SIMPSON         ..........       X      ............  Ms. SCHWARTZ        ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. BRADLEY         ..........       X      ............  Mr. KIND            ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. McHENRY         ..........  ..........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. MACK            ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CONAWAY         ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CHOCOLA         ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CAMPBELL        ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    7. A perfecting amendment offered by Representatives Capps 
and Allen to exempt Social Security from the programs subject 
to the cancellation's proposal authority.
    The amendment was not agreed to by a roll call vote of 10 
ayes and 19 noes.

                               VOTE NO. 4

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Representative        Aye         No         Present      Representative        Aye         No       Present
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. NUSSLE,         ..........       X      ............  Mr. SPRATT,              X      .........  ...........
 Chairman                                                  Ranking
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. RYUN (KS)       ..........       X      ............  Mr. MOORE                X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CRENSHAW        ..........       X      ............  Mr. NEAL                 X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. PUTNAM          ..........       X      ............  Ms. DeLAURO         ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. WICKER          ..........       X      ............  Mr. EDWARDS              X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. HULSHOF         ..........       X      ............  Mr. FORD                 X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. BONNER          ..........       X      ............  Mrs. CAPPS               X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. GARRETT         ..........       X      ............  Mr. BAIRD           ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. BARRETT         ..........       X      ............  Mr. COOPER               X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. McCOTTER        ..........       X      ............  Mr. DAVIS           ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. DIAZ-BALART     ..........       X      ............  Mr. JEFFERSON       ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. HENSARLING      ..........       X      ............  Mr. ALLEN                X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. LUNGREN         ..........  ..........  ............  Mr. CASE                 X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. SESSIONS        ..........  ..........  ............  Ms. McKINNEY        ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. RYAN (WI)       ..........       X      ............  Mr. CUELLAR              X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. SIMPSON         ..........       X      ............  Ms. SCHWARTZ        ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. BRADLEY         ..........       X      ............  Mr. KIND            ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. McHENRY         ..........  ..........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. MACK            ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CONAWAY         ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CHOCOLA         ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CAMPBELL        ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    8. A perfecting amendment offered by Representatives Allen 
and Davis to exempt Medicare from the programs subject to the 
cancellation's proposal authority.
    The amendment was not agreed to by a roll call vote of 9 
ayes and 19 noes.

                               VOTE NO. 5

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Representative        Aye         No         Present      Representative        Aye         No       Present
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. NUSSLE,         ..........       X      ............  Mr. SPRATT,              X      .........  ...........
 Chairman                                                  Ranking
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. RYUN (KS)       ..........       X      ............  Mr. MOORE           ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CRENSHAW        ..........       X      ............  Mr. NEAL                 X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. PUTNAM          ..........       X      ............  Ms. DeLAURO              X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. WICKER          ..........       X      ............  Mr. EDWARDS              X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. HULSHOF         ..........       X      ............  Mr. FORD            ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. BONNER          ..........       X      ............  Mrs. CAPPS               X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. GARRETT         ..........       X      ............  Mr. BAIRD           ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. BARRETT         ..........       X      ............  Mr. COOPER               X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. McCOTTER        ..........       X      ............  Mr. DAVIS           ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. DIAZ-BALART     ..........       X      ............  Mr. JEFFERSON       ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. HENSARLING      ..........       X      ............  Mr. ALLEN                X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. LUNGREN         ..........  ..........  ............  Mr. CASE                 X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. SESSIONS        ..........  ..........  ............  Ms. McKINNEY        ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. RYAN (WI)       ..........       X      ............  Mr. CUELLAR              X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. SIMPSON         ..........       X      ............  Ms. SCHWARTZ        ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. BRADLEY         ..........       X      ............  Mr. KIND            ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. McHENRY         ..........  ..........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. MACK            ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CONAWAY         ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CHOCOLA         ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CAMPBELL        ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    9. A perfecting amendment offered by Representatives 
Edwards and Kind that exempts veterans benefits from programs 
subject to the cancellation's proposal authority.
    The amendment was not agreed to by a roll call vote of 11 
ayes and 19 noes.

                               VOTE NO. 6

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Representative        Aye         No         Present      Representative        Aye         No       Present
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. NUSSLE,         ..........       X      ............  Mr. SPRATT,              X      .........  ...........
 Chairman                                                  Ranking
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. RYUN (KS)       ..........       X      ............  Mr. MOORE                X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CRENSHAW        ..........       X      ............  Mr. NEAL                 X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. PUTNAM          ..........       X      ............  Ms. DeLAURO              X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. WICKER          ..........       X      ............  Mr. EDWARDS              X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. HULSHOF         ..........       X      ............  Mr. FORD            ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. BONNER          ..........       X      ............  Mrs. CAPPS               X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. GARRETT         ..........       X      ............  Mr. BAIRD           ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. BARRETT         ..........       X      ............  Mr. COOPER               X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. McCOTTER        ..........       X      ............  Mr. DAVIS                X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. DIAZ-BALART     ..........       X      ............  Mr. JEFFERSON       ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. HENSARLING      ..........       X      ............  Mr. ALLEN                X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. LUNGREN         ..........  ..........  ............  Mr. CASE                 X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. SESSIONS        ..........  ..........  ............  Ms. McKINNEY        ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. RYAN (WI)       ..........       X      ............  Mr. CUELLAR              X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. SIMPSON         ..........       X      ............  Ms. SCHWARTZ        ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. BRADLEY         ..........       X      ............  Mr. KIND            ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. McHENRY         ..........  ..........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. MACK            ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CONAWAY         ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CHOCOLA         ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CAMPBELL        ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    10. A perfecting amendment offered by Representatives 
Cooper and Capps to provide for a 2-year sunset provision.
    The amendment was not agreed to by a roll call vote of 10 
ayes and 18 noes.

                               VOTE NO. 7

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Representative        Aye         No         Present      Representative        Aye         No       Present
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. NUSSLE,         ..........       X      ............  Mr. SPRATT,              X      .........  ...........
 Chairman                                                  Ranking
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. RYUN (KS)       ..........       X      ............  Mr. MOORE                X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CRENSHAW        ..........       X      ............  Mr. NEAL                 X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. PUTNAM          ..........       X      ............  Ms. DeLAURO              X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. WICKER          ..........       X      ............  Mr. EDWARDS              X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. HULSHOF         ..........       X      ............  Mr. FORD            ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. BONNER          ..........       X      ............  Mrs. CAPPS               X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. GARRETT         ..........  ..........  ............  Mr. BAIRD           ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. BARRETT         ..........       X      ............  Mr. COOPER               X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. McCOTTER        ..........       X      ............  Mr. DAVIS                X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. DIAZ-BALART     ..........       X      ............  Mr. JEFFERSON       ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. HENSARLING      ..........       X      ............  Mr. ALLEN                X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. LUNGREN         ..........  ..........  ............  Mr. CASE                 X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. SESSIONS        ..........  ..........  ............  Ms. McKINNEY        ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. RYAN (WI)       ..........       X      ............  Mr. CUELLAR         ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. SIMPSON         ..........       X      ............  Ms. SCHWARTZ        ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. BRADLEY         ..........       X      ............  Mr. KIND            ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. McHENRY         ..........  ..........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. MACK            ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CONAWAY         ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CHOCOLA         ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CAMPBELL        ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    11. A perfecting amendment offered by Mr.Cuellar to provide 
for a 6-year sunset provision.
    The amendment was agreed to by voice vote.
    12. A perfecting amendment offered by Mr. Neal for a 
prohibition on Presidential abuse of proposed cancellations. A 
substitute amendment to Mr. Neal's amendment was offered by Mr. 
McCotter to allow for a Sense of Congress on abuse of proposed 
cancellations.
    The Chairman asked for and received unanimous consent that 
the McCotter amendment to the Neal amendment be accepted.
    The amendment was agreed to by voice vote.
    13. A perfecting amendment offered by Mr. Cooper relating 
to the tax provisions. The amendment was not agreed to by a 
roll call vote of 12 ayes and 20 noes.

                               VOTE NO. 8

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Representative        Aye         No         Present      Representative        Aye         No       Present
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. NUSSLE,         ..........       X      ............  Mr. SPRATT,              X      .........  ...........
 Chairman                                                  Ranking
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. RYUN (KS)       ..........       X      ............  Mr. MOORE                X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CRENSHAW        ..........       X      ............  Mr. NEAL                 X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. PUTNAM          ..........       X      ............  Ms. DeLAURO         ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. WICKER          ..........       X      ............  Mr. EDWARDS              X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. HULSHOF         ..........       X      ............  Mr. FORD            ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. BONNER          ..........       X      ............  Mrs. CAPPS               X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. GARRETT         ..........       X      ............  Mr. BAIRD                X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. BARRETT         ..........       X      ............  Mr. COOPER               X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. McCOTTER        ..........       X      ............  Mr. DAVIS                X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. DIAZ-BALART     ..........       X      ............  Mr. JEFFERSON       ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. HENSARLING      ..........       X      ............  Mr. ALLEN                X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. LUNGREN         ..........       X      ............  Mr. CASE                 X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. SESSIONS        ..........  ..........  ............  Ms. McKINNEY        ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. RYAN (WI)       ..........       X      ............  Mr. CUELLAR              X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. SIMPSON         ..........       X      ............  Ms. SCHWARTZ        ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. BRADLEY         ..........       X      ............  Mr. KIND                 X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. McHENRY         ..........  ..........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. MACK            ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CONAWAY         ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CHOCOLA         ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CAMPBELL        ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    14. An amendment, in the nature of a substitute, offered by 
Mr. Spratt to apply to discretionary budget authority and 
target tax benefits and not include items of direct spending 
for cancellation consideration. It provided for a 2-year sunset 
provision.
    The amendment was not agreed to by a roll call vote of 12 
ayes and 21 noes.

                               VOTE NO. 9

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Representative        Aye         No         Present      Representative        Aye         No       Present
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. NUSSLE,         ..........       X      ............  Mr. SPRATT,              X      .........  ...........
 Chairman                                                  Ranking
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. RYUN (KS)       ..........       X      ............  Mr. MOORE                X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CRENSHAW        ..........       X      ............  Mr. NEAL            ..........      X      ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. PUTNAM          ..........       X      ............  Ms. DeLAURO         ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. WICKER          ..........       X      ............  Mr. EDWARDS              X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. HULSHOF         ..........       X      ............  Mr. FORD            ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. BONNER          ..........       X      ............  Mrs. CAPPS               X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. GARRETT         ..........       X      ............  Mr. BAIRD                X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. BARRETT         ..........       X      ............  Mr. COOPER               X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. McCOTTER        ..........       X      ............  Mr. DAVIS                X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. DIAZ-BALART     ..........       X      ............  Mr. JEFFERSON       ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. HENSARLING      ..........       X      ............  Mr. ALLEN                X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. LUNGREN         ..........       X      ............  Mr. CASE                 X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. SESSIONS        ..........  ..........  ............  Ms. McKINNEY        ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. RYAN (WI)       ..........       X      ............  Mr. CUELLAR              X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. SIMPSON         ..........       X      ............  Ms. SCHWARTZ             X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. BRADLEY         ..........       X      ............  Mr. KIND                 X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. McHENRY         ..........  ..........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. MACK            ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CONAWAY         ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CHOCOLA         ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CAMPBELL        ..........       X
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    16. Mr. Ryun made a motion that the committee report the 
bill as amended and that the bill do pass.
    The motion was agreed to by a roll call vote of 24 ayes and 
9 noes.

                              VOTE NO. 10

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Representative        Aye         No         Present      Representative        Aye         No       Present
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. NUSSLE,              X      ..........  ............  Mr. SPRATT,         ..........      X      ...........
 Chairman                                                  Ranking
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. RYUN (KS)            X      ..........  ............  Mr. MOORE           ..........      X      ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CRENSHAW             X      ..........  ............  Mr. NEAL            ..........      X      ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. PUTNAM               X      ..........  ............  Ms. DeLAURO         ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. WICKER               X      ..........  ............  Mr. EDWARDS              X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. HULSHOF              X      ..........  ............  Mr. FORD            ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. BONNER               X      ..........  ............  Mrs. CAPPS          ..........      X      ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. GARRETT              X      ..........  ............  Mr. BAIRD           ..........      X      ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. BARRETT              X      ..........  ............  Mr. COOPER               X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. McCOTTER             X      ..........  ............  Mr. DAVIS           ..........      X      ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. DIAZ-BALART          X      ..........  ............  Mr. JEFFERSON       ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. HENSARLING           X      ..........  ............  Mr. ALLEN           ..........      X      ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. LUNGREN              X      ..........  ............  Mr. CASE                 X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. SESSIONS        ..........  ..........  ............  Ms. McKINNEY        ..........  .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. RYAN (WI)            X      ..........  ............  Mr. CUELLAR              X      .........  ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. SIMPSON              X      ..........  ............  Ms. SCHWARTZ        ..........      X      ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. BRADLEY              X      ..........  ............  Mr. KIND            ..........      X      ...........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. McHENRY         ..........  ..........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. MACK                 X      ..........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CONAWAY              X      ..........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CHOCOLA              X      ..........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. CAMPBELL             X      ..........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Mr. Ryun made a motion that, pursuant to clause 1 of rule 
XXII, the Chairman be authorized to offer such motions as may 
be necessary in the House to go to conference with the Senate 
and staff be authorized to make any necessary technical and 
conforming changes to the bill.
    The motion was agreed to without objection.
    At the conclusion of the markup after all votes had 
occurred, Ms. McKinney requested and received permission to 
have a statement inserted into the record she was not in favor 
of final passage of the bill.
  Other Items Required Under the Rules of the House of Representatives

                              ----------                              

                      COMMITTEE OVERSIGHT FINDINGS

    Pursuant to clause 3(c)(1) of rule XIII of the Rules of the 
House of Representatives, the Committee on the Budget's 
oversight findings and recommendations are reflected in the 
body of this report.

                         BUDGET ACT COMPLIANCE

    The provisions of clause 3(c)(2) of rule XIII of the Rules 
of the House of Representatives and section 308(a)(1) of the 
Congressional Budget Act of 1974 (relating to estimates of new 
budget authority, new spending authority, new credit authority, 
or increased or decreased revenues or tax expenditures) are not 
considered applicable. The estimate and comparison required to 
be prepared by the Director of the Congressional Budget Office 
under clause 3(c)(3) of rule XIII of the Rules of the House of 
Representatives and sections 402 and 423 of the Congressional 
Budget Act of 1974 submitted to the committee prior to the 
filing of this report are as follows:

                                     U.S. Congress,
                               Congressional Budget Office,
                                     Washington, DC, June 16, 2006.
Hon. Jim Nussle,
Chairman, Committee on the Budget,
House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
    Dear Mr. Chairman: The Congressional Budget Office has 
prepared the enclosed cost estimate for H.R. 4890, the 
Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006.
    If you wish further details on this estimate, we will be 
pleased to provide them.
            Sincerely,
                                 Donald B. Marron, Acting Director.

               Congressional Budget Office Cost Estimate

    1. Bill number: H.R. 4890.
    2. Bill title: Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006.
    3. Bill status: As ordered reported by the House Committee 
on the Budget on June 14, 2006.
    4. Bill purpose: H.R. 4890 would establish a new expedited 
procedure for considering Presidential proposals to cancel 
certain spending and tax provisions in newly enacted 
legislation. CBO estimates that enacting H.R. 4890, by itself, 
would not have any significant impact on the budget. Any impact 
on the budget would depend on the extent of the President's use 
of the new cancellation procedure and on future Congressional 
actions.
    The bill would establish a procedure for the President to 
propose canceling specified discretionary budget authority, 
items of direct spending, or targeted tax benefits (defined as 
any provisions of a revenue bill that provide a Federal tax 
benefit to only one beneficiary) and for Congressional 
consideration of such proposals. The President would transmit a 
special message to both Houses of Congress specifying the 
project or governmental functions involved, the reasons for the 
proposed cancellations, and--to the extent practicable--the 
estimated fiscal, economic, and budgetary effect of the action. 
The Congress could then approve or disapprove the President's 
proposals in legislation. (If approved, any such proposed 
cancellations would then become law.)
    Under H.R. 4890, the President could submit up to five 
special messages for most acts and joint resolutions, and up to 
10 special messages for reconciliation or omnibus appropriation 
acts. A message would have to be transmitted to the Congress 
within 45 calendar days of enactment of the legislation 
containing the items proposed for cancellation. Within 5 days 
of receiving a special message, the majority leaders of the 
House and Senate (or their designees) would be required to 
introduce a bill or joint resolution to approve the proposed 
cancellations; that approval bill would be considered under 
expedited procedures. H.R. 4890 also would amend the 
Congressional Budget Act to require that CBO prepare an 
estimate of savings in budget authority and outlays resulting 
from any cancellations proposed by the President.
    Additionally, the President could withhold discretionary 
budget authority proposed for cancellation and suspend items of 
direct spending and targeted tax benefits for 45 days from the 
date on which a special message is transmitted. For each such 
transmittal, the Government Accountability Office would be 
required to submit a report to the Congress indicating whether 
any delay in obligation of discretionary authority, suspension 
of a direct spending item, or suspension of a targeted tax 
benefit continued after the President's authority to suspend 
them expired.
    5. Estimated cost to the Federal Government: The impact of 
H.R. 4890 on future legislation would depend on both the nature 
of such legislation and on the actions of the President and the 
Congress in implementing the expedited cancellation procedure 
in H.R. 4890. Therefore, this bill would not--by itself--have 
any significant impact on the Federal budget. CBO estimates 
that any additional administrative costs for implementing H.R. 
4890 would not be significant because both the executive branch 
and the Congress already carry out activities similar to those 
that would be involved in preparing and responding to 
Presidential budget proposals (including, for example, proposed 
rescissions of discretionary appropriations).
    H.R. 4890 contains no intergovernmental or private-sector 
mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act and--by 
itself--would have no impact on the budgets of state, local, or 
tribal governments. Any budgetary impacts would depend on 
subsequent legislative action.

                    PERFORMANCE GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

    With respect to the requirement of clause 3(c)(4) of rule 
XIII of the Rules of the House of Representatives, the 
performance goals and objectives of this legislation are to 
provide both the President and the Congress improved tools to 
reconsider spending and tax provisions.

                   CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY STATEMENT

    Pursuant to clause 3(d)(1) of rule XIII of the Rules of the 
House of Representatives, the committee finds the 
constitutional authority for this legislation in article I, 
section 8, clause 18, that grants Congress the power to make 
all laws necessary and proper for carrying out the powers 
vested by Congress in the Constitution of the United States or 
in any department or officer thereof.

                        COMMITTEE COST ESTIMATE

    Pursuant to clause 3(d)(2) of rule XIII of the Rules of the 
House of Representatives, the committee report incorporates the 
cost estimate prepared by the Director of the Congressional 
Budget Office pursuant to sections 402 and 423 of the 
Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

                      ADVISORY COMMITTEE STATEMENT

    No advisory committee within the meaning of section 5(b) of 
the Federal Advisory Committee Act was created by this 
legislation.

                APPLICABILITY TO THE LEGISLATIVE BRANCH

    The committee finds that the legislation does not relate to 
the terms and conditions of employment or access to public 
services or accommodations within the meaning of section 
102(b)(3) of the Congressional Accountability Act (Public Law 
104-1).

                       FEDERAL MANDATES STATEMENT

    The committee adopted as its own the estimate of Federal 
mandates prepared by the Director of the Congressional Budget 
Office pursuant to section 423 of the Unfunded Mandates Reform 
Act (Public Law 104-4).

          CHANGES IN EXISTING LAW MADE BY THE BILL AS REPORTED

    Pursuant to the terms of the referral of the bill to the 
committee, the committee adopted an amendment striking those 
provisions which were referred to the committee and inserting 
new text.
    In compliance with clause 3(e) of rule XIII of the Rules of 
the House of Representatives, changes in existing law made by 
the provisions of the bill referred to the committee, as 
reported, are shown as follows (existing law proposed to be 
omitted is enclosed in black brackets, new matter is printed in 
italics, existing law in which no change is proposed is shown 
in roman):

        CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET AND IMPOUNDMENT CONTROL ACT OF 1974

                    SHORT TITLES; TABLE OF CONTENTS

    Section 1. (a) Short Titles.--This Act may be cited as the 
``Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974''. 
Titles I through IX may be cited as the ``Congressional Budget 
Act of 1974''. Parts A and B of title X may be cited as the 
``Impoundment Control Act of 1974''. [Part C of title X may be 
cited as the ``Line Item Veto Act of 1996''.]
    (b) Table of Contents.--

Sec. 1. Short titles; table of contents.
     * * * * * * *

                      TITLE X--IMPOUNDMENT CONTROL

     * * * * * * *

     [Part B--Congressional Consideration of Proposed Rescissions, 
             Reservations, and Deferrals of Budget Authority

[Sec. 1011. Definitions.
[Sec. 1012. Rescission of budget authority.
[Sec. 1013. Proposed deferrals of budget authority.
[Sec. 1014. Transmission of messages; publication.
[Sec. 1015. Reports by Comptroller General.
[Sec. 1016. Suits by Comptroller General.
[Sec. 1017. Procedure in House and Senate.

                         [Part C--Line Item Veto

[Sec. 1021. Line item veto authority.
[Sec. 1022. Special messages.
[Sec. 1023. Cancellation effective unless disapproved.
[Sec. 1024. Deficit reduction.
[Sec. 1025. Expedited congressional consideration of disapproval bills.
[Sec. 1026. Definitions.
[Sec. 1027. Identification of limited tax benefits.]

                   Part B--Legislative Line Item Veto

Sec. 1011. Line item veto authority.
Sec. 1012. Procedures for expedited consideration.
Sec. 1013. Presidential deferral authority.
Sec. 1014. Identification of targeted tax benefits.
Sec. 1015. Treatment of cancellations.
Sec. 1016. Reports by Comptroller General.
Sec. 1017. Definitions.
Sec. 1018. Expiration.
Sec. 1019. Suits by Comptroller General.
Sec. 1020. Proposed deferrals of budget authority.

           *       *       *       *       *       *       *

      TITLE IV--ADDITIONAL PROVISIONS TO IMPROVE FISCAL PROCEDURES

Part A--General Provisions

           *       *       *       *       *       *       *

                ANALYSIS BY CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE

    Sec. 402. (a) The Director of the Congressional Budget 
Office shall, to the extent practicable, prepare for each bill 
or resolution of a public character reported by any committee 
of the House of Representatives or the Senate (except the 
Committee on Appropriations of each House), and submit to such 
committee--
            (1) * * *

           *       *       *       *       *       *       *

    (b) Upon the receipt of a special message under section 
1011 proposing to cancel any item of direct spending, the 
Director of the Congressional Budget Office shall prepare an 
estimate of the savings in budget authority or outlays 
resulting from such proposed cancellation relative to the most 
recent levels calculated consistent with the methodology used 
to calculate a baseline under section 257 of the Balanced 
Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 and included 
with a budget submission under section 1105(a) of title 31, 
United States Code, and transmit such estimate to the chairmen 
of the Committees on the Budget of the House of Representatives 
and Senate.

           *       *       *       *       *       *       *

TITLE IX--MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS; EFFECTIVE DATES

           *       *       *       *       *       *       *

                     EXERCISE OF RULEMAKING POWERS

    Sec. 904. (a) The provisions of this title and of titles I, 
III, IV, and V and the provisions of sections 701, 703, and 
[1017] 1012 are enacted by the Congress--
            (1) as an exercise of the rulemaking power of the 
        House of Representatives and the Senate, respectively, 
        and as such they shall be considered as part of the 
        rules of each House, respectively, or of that House to 
        which they specifically apply, and such rules shall 
        supersede other rules only to the extent that they are 
        inconsistent therewith; and
            (2) with full recognition of the constitutional 
        right of either House to change such rules (so far as 
        relating to such House) at any time, in the same 
        manner, and to the same extent as in the case of any 
        other rule of such House.

           *       *       *       *       *       *       *

    (d) Appeals.--
            (1) Procedure.--Appeals in the Senate from the 
        decisions of the Chair relating to any provision of 
        title III or IV or section [1017] 1012 shall, except as 
        otherwise provided therein, be limited to 1 hour, to be 
        equally divided between, and controlled by, the mover 
        and the manager of the resolution, concurrent 
        resolution, reconciliation bill, or rescission bill, as 
        the case may be.

           *       *       *       *       *       *       *

TITLE X--IMPOUNDMENT CONTROL

           *       *       *       *       *       *       *

     [Part B--Congressional Consideration of Proposed Rescissions, 
            Reservations, and Deferrals of Budget Authority

                              [DEFINITIONS

    [Sec. 1011. For purposes of this part--
            [(1) ``deferral of budget authority'' includes--
                    [(A) withholding or delaying the 
                obligations or expenditure of budget authority 
                (whether by establishing reserves or otherwise) 
                provided for projects or activities; or
                    [(B) any other type of Executive action or 
                inaction which effectively precludes the 
                obligation or expenditure of budget authority, 
                including authority to obligate by contract in 
                advance of appropriations as specifically 
                authorized by law;
            [(2) ``Comptroller General'' means the Comptroller 
        General of the United States;
            [(3) ``rescission bill'' means a bill or joint 
        resolution which only recinds in whole or in part, 
        budget authority proposed to be rescinded in a special 
        message transmitted by the President under section 
        1012, and upon which the Congress completes action 
        before the end of the first period of 45 calendar days 
        of continuous session of the Congress after the date on 
        which the President's message is received by the 
        Congress;
            [(4) ``impoundment resolution'' means a resolution 
        of the House of Representatives or the Senate which 
        only expresses its disapproval of a proposed deferral 
        of budget authority set forth in a special message 
        transmitted by the President under section 1013; and
            [(5) continuity of a session of the Congress shall 
        be considered as broken only by an adjournment of the 
        Congress sine die, and the days on which either House 
        is not in session because of an adjournment of more 
        than 3 days to a day certain shall be excluded in the 
        computation of the 45-day period referred to in 
        paragraph (3) of this section and in section 1012, and 
        the 25-day periods referred to in sections 1016 and 
        1017(b)(1). If a special message is transmitted under 
        section 1012 during any Congress and the last session 
        of such Congress adjourns sine die before the 
        expiration of 45 calendar days of continuous session 
        (or a special message is so transmitted after the last 
        session of the Congress adjourns sine die), the message 
        shall be deemed to have been retransmitted on the first 
        day of the succeeding Congress and the 45-day period 
        referred to in paragraph (3) of this section and 
        section 1012 (with respect to such message) shall 
        commence on the day after such first day.

                    [RESCISSION OF BUDGET AUTHORITY

    [Sec. 1012. (a) Transmittal of Special Message.--Whenever 
the President determines that all or part of any budget 
authority will not be required to carry out the full objectives 
or scope of programs for which it is provided or that such 
budget authority should be rescinded for fiscal policy or other 
reasons (including the determination of authorized projects or 
activities for which budget authority has been provided), or 
whenever all or part of budget authority provided for only one 
fiscal year is to be reserved from obligation for such fiscal 
year, the President shall transmit to both Houses of Congress a 
special message specifying--
            [(1) the amount of budget authority which he 
        proposes to be rescinded or which is to be so reserved;
            [(2) any account, department, or establishment of 
        the Government to which such budget authority is 
        available for obligation, and the specific project or 
        governmental functions involved;
            [(3) the reasons why the budget authority should be 
        rescinded or is to be so reserved;
            [(4) to the maximum extent practicable, the 
        estimated fiscal, economic, and budgetary effect of the 
        proposed rescission or of the reservation; and
            [(5) all facts, circumstances, and considerations 
        relating to or bearing upon the proposed rescission or 
        the reservation and the decision to effect the proposed 
        rescission or the reservation, and to the maximum 
        extent practicable, the estimated effect of the 
        proposed rescission or the reservation upon the 
        objects, purposes, and programs for which the budget 
        authority is provided.
    [(b) Requirement To Make Available for Obligation.--Any 
amount of budget authority proposed to be rescinded or that is 
to be reserved as set forth in such special message shall be 
made available for obligation unless, within the prescribed 45-
day period, the Congress has completed action on a rescission 
bill rescinding all or part of the amount proposed to be 
rescinded or that is to be reserved. Funds made available for 
obligation under this procedure may not be proposed for 
rescission again.
                 [transmission of messages; publication
    [Sec. 1014. (a) Delivery to House and Senate.--Each special 
message transmitted under section 1012 or 1013 shall be 
transmitted to the House of Representatives and the Senate on 
the same day, and shall be delivered to the Clerk of the House 
of Representatives if the House is not in session, and to the 
Secretary of the Senate if the Senate is not in session. Each 
special message so transmitted shall be referred to the 
appropriate committee of the House of Representatives and the 
Senate. Each such message shall be printed as a document of 
each House.
    [(b) Delivery to Comptroller General.--A copy of each 
special message transmitted under section 1012 or 1013 shall be 
transmitted to the Comptroller General on the same day it is 
transmitted to the House of Representatives and the Senate. In 
order to assist the Congress in the exercise of its functions 
under sections 1012 and 1013, the Comptroller General shall 
review each such message and inform the House of 
Representatives and the Senate as promptly as practicable with 
respect to----
            [(1) in the case of a special message transmitted 
        under section 1012, the facts surrounding the proposed 
        rescission or the reservation of budget authority 
        (including the probable effects thereof); and
            [(2) in the case of a special message transmitted 
        under section 1013, (A) the facts surrounding each 
        proposed deferral of budget authority (including the 
        probable effects thereof) and (B) whether or not (or to 
        what extent), in his judgment, such proposed deferral 
        is in accordance with existing statutory authority.
    [(c) Transmission of Supplementary Messages.--If any 
information contained in a special message transmitted under 
section 1012 or 1013 is subsequently revised, the President 
shall transmit to both Houses of Congress and the Comptroller 
General a supplementary message stating and explaining such 
revision. Any such supplementary message shall be delivered, 
referred, and printed as provided in subsection (a). The 
Comptroller General shall promptly notify the House of 
Representatives and the Senate of any change in the information 
submitted by him under subsection (b) which may be necessitated 
by such revision.
    [(d) Printing in Federal Register.--Any special message 
transmitted under section 1012 or 1013, and any supplementary 
message transmitted under subsection (c), shall be printed in 
the first issue of the Federal Register published after such 
transmittal.
    [(e) Cumulative Reports of Proposed Rescissions, 
Reservations, and Deferrals of Budget Authority.--
            [(1) The President shall submit a report to the 
        House of Representatives and the Senate, not later than 
        the 10th day of each month during a fiscal year, 
        listing all budget authority for that fiscal year with 
        respect to which, as of the first day of such month--
                    [(A) he has transmitted a special message 
                under section 1012 with respect to a proposed 
                rescission or a reservation; and
                    [(B) he has transmitted a special message 
                under section 1013 proposing a deferral.
        Such report shall also contain, with respect to each 
        such proposed rescission or deferral, or each such 
        reservation, the information required to be submitted 
        in the special message with respect thereto under 
        section 1012 or 1013.
            [(2) Each report submitted under paragraph (1) 
        shall be printed in the first issue of the Federal 
        Register published after its submission.
                    [reports by comptroller general
    [Sec. 1015. (a) Failure To Transmit Special Message.--If 
the Comptroller General finds that the President, the Director 
of the Office of Management and Budget, the head of any 
department or agency of the United States, or any other officer 
or employee of the United States--
            [(1) is to establish a reserve or proposes to defer 
        budget authority with respect to which the President is 
        required to transmit a special message under section 
        1012 or 1013; or
            [(2) has ordered, permitted, or approved the 
        establishment of such a reserve or a deferral of budget 
        authority;
and that the President has failed to transmit a special message 
with respect to such reserve or deferral, the Comptroller 
General shall make a report on such reserve or deferral and any 
available information concerning it to both Houses of Congress. 
The provisions of this part shall apply with respect to such 
reserve or deferral in the same manner and with the same effect 
as if such report of the Comptroller General were a special 
message transmitted by the President under section 1012 or 
1013, and, for purposes of this part, such report shall be 
considered a special message transmitted under section 1012 or 
1013.
    [(b) Incorrect Classification of Special Message.--If the 
President has transmitted a special message to both Houses of 
Congress in accordance with section 1012 or 1013, and the 
Comptroller General believes that the President so transmitted 
the special message in accordance with one of those sections 
when the special message should have been transmitted in 
accordance with the other of those sections, the Comptroller 
General shall make a report to both Houses of the Congress 
setting forth his reasons.
                     [procedure in house and senate
    [Sec. 1017. (a) Referral.--Any rescission bill introduced 
with respect to a special message or impoundment resolution 
introduced with respect to a proposed deferral of budget 
authority shall be referred to the appropriate committee of the 
House of Representatives or the Senate, as the case may be.
    [(b) Discharge of Committee.--
            [(1) If the committee to which a rescission bill or 
        impoundment resolution has been referred has not 
        reported it at the end of 25 calendar days of 
        continuous session of the Congress after its 
        introduction, it is in order to move either to 
        discharge the committee from further consideration of 
        the bill or resolution or to discharge the committee 
        from further consideration of any other rescission bill 
        with respect to the same special message or impoundment 
        resolution with respect to the same proposed deferral, 
        as the case may be, which has been referred to the 
        committee.
            [(2) A motion to discharge may be made only by an 
        individual favoring the bill or resolution, may be made 
        only if supported by one-fifth of the Members of the 
        House involved (a quorum being present), and is highly 
        privileged in the House and privileged in the Senate 
        (except that it may not be made after the committee has 
        reported a bill or resolution with respect to the same 
        special message or the same proposed deferral, as the 
        case may be); and debate thereon shall be limited to 
        not more than 1 hour, the time to be divided in the 
        House equally between those favoring and those opposing 
        the bill or resolution, and to be divided in the Senate 
        equally between, and controlled by, the majority leader 
        and the minority leader or their designees. An 
        amendment to the motion is not in order, and it is not 
        in order to move to reconsider the vote by which the 
        motion is agreed to or disagreed to.
    [(c) Floor Consideration in the House.--
            [(1) When the committee of the House of 
        Representatives has reported, or has been discharged 
        from further consideration of a rescission bill or 
        impoundment resolution, it shall at any time thereafter 
        be in order (even though a previous motion to the same 
        effect has been disagreed to) to move to proceed to the 
        consideration of the bill or resolution. The motion 
        shall be highly privileged and not debatable. An 
        amendment to the motion shall not be in order, nor 
        shall it be in order to move to reconsider the vote by 
        which the motion is agreed to or disagreed to.
            [(2) Debate on a rescission bill or impoundment 
        resolution shall be limited to not more than 2 hours, 
        which shall be divided equally between those favoring 
        and those opposing the bill or resolution. A motion 
        further to limit debate shall not be debatable. In the 
        case of an impoundment resolution, no amendment to, or 
        motion to recommit, the resolution shall be in order. 
        It shall not be in order to move to reconsider the vote 
        by which a rescission bill or impoundment resolution is 
        agreed to or disagreed to.
            [(3) Motions to postpone, made with respect to the 
        consideration of a rescission bill or impoundment 
        resolution, and motions to proceed to the consideration 
        of other business, shall be decided without debate.
            [(4) All appeals from the decisions of the Chair 
        relating to the application of the Rules of the House 
        of Representatives to the procedure relating to any 
        rescission bill or impoundment resolution shall be 
        decided without debate.
            [(5) Except to the extent specifically provided in 
        the preceding provisions of this subsection, 
        consideration of any rescission bill or impoundment 
        resolution and amendments thereto (or any conference 
        report thereon) shall be governed by the Rules of the 
        House of Representatives applicable to other bills and 
        resolutions, amendments, and conference reports in 
        similar circumstances.
    [(d) Floor Consideration in the Senate.--
            [(1) Debate in the Senate on any rescission bill or 
        impoundment resolution, and all amendments thereto (in 
        the case of a rescission bill) and debatable motions 
        and appeals in connection therewith, shall be limited 
        to not more than 10 hours. The time shall be equally 
        divided between, and controlled by, the majority leader 
        and the minority leader or their designees.
            [(2) Debate in the Senate on any amendment to a 
        rescission bill shall be limited to 2 hours, to be 
        equally divided between, and controlled by, the mover 
        and the manager of the bill. Debate on any amendment to 
        an amendment, to such a bill, and debate on any 
        debatable motion or appeal in connection with such a 
        bill or an impoundment resolution shall be limited to 1 
        hour, to be equally divided between, and controlled by, 
        the mover and the manager of the bill or resolution, 
        except that in the event the manager of the bill or 
        resolution is in favor in any such amendment, motion, 
        or appeal, the time in opposition thereto, shall be 
        controlled by the minority leader or his designee. No 
        amendment that is not germane to the provisions of a 
        rescission bill shall be received. Such leaders, or 
        either of them, may, from the time under their control 
        on the passage of a rescission bill or impoundment 
        resolution, allot additional time to any Senator during 
        the consideration of any amendment, debatable motion, 
        or appeal.
            [(3) A motion to further limit debate is not 
        debatable. In the case of a rescission bill, a motion 
        to recommit (except a motion to recommit with 
        instructions to report back within a specified number 
        of days, not to exceed 3, not counting any day on which 
        the Senate is not in session) is not in order. Debate 
        on any such motion to recommit shall be limited to one 
        hour, to be equally divided between, and controlled by, 
        the mover and the manager of the concurrent resolution. 
        In the case of an impoundment resolution, no amendment 
        or motion to recommit is in order.
            [(4) The conference report on any rescission bill 
        shall be in order in the Senate at any time after the 
        third day (excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and legal 
        holidays) following the day on which such a conference 
        report is reported and is available to Members of the 
        Senate. A motion to proceed to the consideration of the 
        conference report may be made even though a previous 
        motion to the same effect has been disagreed to.
            [(5) During the consideration in the Senate of the 
        conference report on any rescission bill, debate shall 
        be limited to 2 hours, to be equally divided between, 
        and controlled by, the majority leader and minority 
        leader or their designees. Debate on any debatable 
        motion or appeal related to the conference report shall 
        be limited to 30 minutes, to be equally divided 
        between, and controlled by, the mover and the manager 
        of the conference report.
            [(6) Should the conference report be defeated, 
        debate on any request for a new conference and the 
        appointment of conferees shall be limited to one hour, 
        to be equally divided, between, and controlled by, the 
        manager of the conference report and the minority 
        leader or his designee, and should any motion be made 
        to instruct the conferees before the conferees are 
        named, debate on such motion shall be limited to 30 
        minutes, to be equally divided between, and controlled 
        by, the mover and the manager of the conference report. 
        Debate on any amendment to any such instructions shall 
        be limited to 20 minutes, to be equally divided 
        between, and controlled by the mover and the manager of 
        the conference report. In all cases when the manager of 
        the conference report is in favor of any motion, 
        appeal, or amendment, the time in opposition shall be 
        under the control of the minority leader or his 
        designee.
            [(7) In any case in which there are amendments in 
        disagreement, time on each amendment shall be limited 
        to 30 minutes, to be equally divided between, and 
        controlled by, the manager of the conference report and 
        the minority leader or his designee. No amendment that 
        is not germane to the provisions of such amendments 
        shall be received.

                        [Part C--Line Item Veto

                       [line item veto authority
    [Sec. 1021. (a) In General.--Notwithstanding the provisions 
of parts A and B, and subject to the provisions of this part, 
the President may, with respect to any bill or joint resolution 
that has been signed into law pursuant to article I, section 7, 
of the Constitution of the United States, cancel in whole--
            [(1) any dollar amount of discretionary budget 
        authority;
            [(2) any item of new direct spending; or
            [(3) any limited tax benefit;
if the President--
            [(A) determines that such cancellation will--
                    [(i) reduce the Federal budget deficit;
                    [(ii) not impair any essential Government 
                functions; and
                    [(iii) not harm the national interest; and
            [(B) notifies the Congress of such cancellation by 
        transmitting a special message, in accordance with 
        section 1022, within five calendar days (excluding 
        Sundays) after the enactment of the law providing the 
        dollar amount of discretionary budget authority, item 
        of new direct spending, or limited tax benefit that was 
        canceled.
    [(b) Identification of Cancellations.--In identifying 
dollar amounts of discretionary budget authority, items of new 
direct spending, and limited tax benefits for cancellation, the 
President shall--
            [(1) consider the legislative history, 
        construction, and purposes of the law which contains 
        such dollar amounts, items, or benefits;
            [(2) consider any specific sources of information 
        referenced in such law or, in the absence of specific 
        sources of information, the best available information; 
        and
            [(3) use the definitions contained in section 1026 
        in applying this part to the specific provisions of 
        such law.
    [(c) Exception for Disapproval Bills.--The authority 
granted by subsection (a) shall not apply to any dollar amount 
of discretionary budget authority, item of new direct spending, 
or limited tax benefit contained in any law that is a 
disapproval bill as defined in section 1026.
                           [special messages
    [Sec. 1022. (a) In General.--For each law from which a 
cancellation has been made under this part, the President shall 
transmit a single special message to the Congress.
    [(b) Contents.--
            [(1) The special message shall specify--
                    [(A) the dollar amount of discretionary 
                budget authority, item of new direct spending, 
                or limited tax benefit which has been canceled, 
                and provide a corresponding reference number 
                for each cancellation;
                    [(B) the determinations required under 
                section 1021(a), together with any supporting 
                material;
                    [(C) the reasons for the cancellation;
                    [(D) to the maximum extent practicable, the 
                estimated fiscal, economic, and budgetary 
                effect of the cancellation;
                    [(E) all facts, circumstances and 
                considerations relating to or bearing upon the 
                cancellation, and to the maximum extent 
                practicable, the estimated effect of the 
                cancellation upon the objects, purposes and 
                programs for which the canceled authority was 
                provided; and
                    [(F) include the adjustments that will be 
                made pursuant to section 1024 to the 
                discretionary spending limits under section 
                251(c) of the Balanced Budget and Emergency 
                Deficit Control Act of 1985 and an evaluation 
                of the effects of those adjustments upon the 
                sequestration procedures of section 251 of the 
                Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control 
                Act of 1985.
            [(2) In the case of a cancellation of any dollar 
        amount of discretionary budget authority or item of new 
        direct spending, the special message shall also 
        include, if applicable--
                    [(A) any account, department, or 
                establishment of the Government for which such 
                budget authority was to have been available for 
                obligation and the specific project or 
                governmental functions involved;
                    [(B) the specific States and congressional 
                districts, if any, affected by the 
                cancellation; and
                    [(C) the total number of cancellations 
                imposed during the current session of Congress 
                on States and congressional districts 
                identified in subparagraph (B).
    [(c) Transmission of Special Messages to House and 
Senate.--
            [(1) The President shall transmit to the Congress 
        each special message under this part within five 
        calendar days (excluding Sundays) after enactment of 
        the law to which the cancellation applies. Each special 
        message shall be transmitted to the House of 
        Representatives and the Senate on the same calendar 
        day. Such special message shall be delivered to the 
        Clerk of the House of Representatives if the House is 
        not in session, and to the Secretary of the Senate if 
        the Senate is not in session.
            [(2) Any special message transmitted under this 
        part shall be printed in the first issue of the Federal 
        Register published after such transmittal.
               [cancellation effective unless disapproved
    [Sec. 1023. (a) In General.--The cancellation of any dollar 
amount of discretionary budget authority, item of new direct 
spending, or limited tax benefit shall take effect upon receipt 
in the House of Representatives and the Senate of the special 
message notifying the Congress of the cancellation. If a 
disapproval bill for such special message is enacted into law, 
then all cancellations disapproved in that law shall be null 
and void and any such dollar amount of discretionary budget 
authority, item of new direct spending, or limited tax benefit 
shall be effective as of the original date provided in the law 
to which the cancellation applied.
    [(b) Commensurate Reductions in Discretionary Budget 
Authority.--Upon the cancellation of a dollar amount of 
discretionary budget authority under subsection (a), the total 
appropriation for each relevant account of which that dollar 
amount is a part shall be simultaneously reduced by the dollar 
amount of that cancellation.
                           [deficit reduction
    [Sec. 1024. (a) In General.--
            [(1) Discretionary budget authority.--OMB shall, 
        for each dollar amount of discretionary budget 
        authority and for each item of new direct spending 
        canceled from an appropriation law under section 
        1021(a)--
                    [(A) reflect the reduction that results 
                from such cancellation in the estimates 
                required by section 251(a)(7) of the Balanced 
                Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 
                1985 in accordance with that Act, including an 
                estimate of the reduction of the budget 
                authority and the reduction in outlays flowing 
                from such reduction of budget authority for 
                each outyear; and
                    [(B) include a reduction to the 
                discretionary spending limits for budget 
                authority and outlays in accordance with the 
                Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control 
                Act of 1985 for each applicable fiscal year set 
                forth in section 251(c) of the Balanced Budget 
                and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 by 
                amounts equal to the amounts for each fiscal 
                year estimated pursuant to subparagraph (A).
            [(2) Direct spending and limited tax benefits.--(A) 
        OMB shall, for each item of new direct spending or 
        limited tax benefit canceled from a law under section 
        1021(a), estimate the deficit decrease caused by the 
        cancellation of such item or benefit in that law and 
        include such estimate as a separate entry in the report 
        prepared pursuant to section 252(d) of the Balanced 
        Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985.
            [(B) OMB shall not include any change in the 
        deficit resulting from a cancellation of any item of 
        new direct spending or limited tax benefit, or the 
        enactment of a disapproval bill for any such 
        cancellation, under this part in the estimates and 
        reports required by sections 252(b) and 254 of the 
        Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 
        1985.
    [(b) Adjustments to Spending Limits.--After ten calendar 
days (excluding Sundays) after the expiration of the time 
period in section 1025(b)(1) for expedited congressional 
consideration of a disapproval bill for a special message 
containing a cancellation of discretionary budget authority, 
OMB shall make the reduction included in subsection (a)(1)(B) 
as part of the next sequester report required by section 254 of 
the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985.
    [(c) Exception.--Subsection (b) shall not apply to a 
cancellation if a disapproval bill or other law that 
disapproves that cancellation is enacted into law prior to 10 
calendar days (excluding Sundays) after the expiration of the 
time period set forth in section 1025(b)(1).
    [(d) Congressional Budget Office Estimates.--As soon as 
practicable after the President makes a cancellation from a law 
under section 1021(a), the Director of the Congressional Budget 
Office shall provide the Committees on the Budget of the House 
of Representatives and the Senate with an estimate of the 
reduction of the budget authority and the reduction in outlays 
flowing from such reduction of budget authority for each 
outyear.
      [expedited congressional consideration of disapproval bills
    [Sec. 1025. (a) Receipt and Referral of Special Message.--
Each special message transmitted under this part shall be 
referred to the Committee on the Budget and the appropriate 
committee or committees of the Senate and the Committee on the 
Budget and the appropriate committee or committees of the House 
of Representatives. Each such message shall be printed as a 
document of the House of Representatives.
    [(b) Time Period for Expedited Procedures.--
            [(1) There shall be a congressional review period 
        of 30 calendar days of session, beginning on the first 
        calendar day of session after the date on which the 
        special message is received in the House of 
        Representatives and the Senate, during which the 
        procedures contained in this section shall apply to 
        both Houses of Congress.
            [(2) In the House of Representatives the procedures 
        set forth in this section shall not apply after the end 
        of the period described in paragraph (1).
            [(3) If Congress adjourns at the end of a Congress 
        prior to the expiration of the period described in 
        paragraph (1) and a disapproval bill was then pending 
        in either House of Congress or a committee thereof 
        (including a conference committee of the two Houses of 
        Congress), or was pending before the President, a 
        disapproval bill for the same special message may be 
        introduced within the first five calendar days of 
        session of the next Congress and shall be treated as a 
        disapproval bill under this part, and the time period 
        described in paragraph (1) shall commence on the day of 
        introduction of that disapproval bill.
    [(c) Introduction of Disapproval Bills.--(1) In order for a 
disapproval bill to be considered under the procedures set 
forth in this section, the bill must meet the definition of a 
disapproval bill and must be introduced no later than the fifth 
calendar day of session following the beginning of the period 
described in subsection (b)(1).
    [(2) In the case of a disapproval bill introduced in the 
House of Representatives, such bill shall include in the first 
blank space referred to in section 1026(6)(C) a list of the 
reference numbers for all cancellations made by the President 
in the special message to which such disapproval bill relates.
    [(d) Consideration in the House of Representatives.--(1) 
Any committee of the House of Representatives to which a 
disapproval bill is referred shall report it without amendment, 
and with or without recommendation, not later than the seventh 
calendar day of session after the date of its introduction. If 
any committee fails to report the bill within that period, it 
is in order to move that the House discharge the committee from 
further consideration of the bill, except that such a motion 
may not be made after the committee has reported a disapproval 
bill with respect to the same special message. A motion to 
discharge may be made only by a Member favoring the bill (but 
only at a time or place designated by the Speaker in the 
legislative schedule of the day after the calendar day on which 
the Member offering the motion announces to the House his 
intention to do so and the form of the motion). The motion is 
highly privileged. Debate thereon shall be limited to not more 
than one hour, the time to be divided in the House equally 
between a proponent and an opponent. The previous question 
shall be considered as ordered on the motion to its adoption 
without intervening motion. A motion to reconsider the vote by 
which the motion is agreed to or disagreed to shall not be in 
order.
    [(2) After a disapproval bill is reported or a committee 
has been discharged from further consideration, it is in order 
to move that the House resolve into the Committee of the Whole 
House on the State of the Union for consideration of the bill. 
If reported and the report has been available for at least one 
calendar day, all points of order against the bill and against 
consideration of the bill are waived. If discharged, all points 
of order against the bill and against consideration of the bill 
are waived. The motion is highly privileged. A motion to 
reconsider the vote by which the motion is agreed to or 
disagreed to shall not be in order. During consideration of the 
bill in the Committee of the Whole, the first reading of the 
bill shall be dispensed with. General debate shall proceed, 
shall be confined to the bill, and shall not exceed one hour 
equally divided and controlled by a proponent and an opponent 
of the bill. The bill shall be considered as read for amendment 
under the five-minute rule. Only one motion to rise shall be in 
order, except if offered by the manager. No amendment to the 
bill is in order, except any Member if supported by 49 other 
Members (a quorum being present) may offer an amendment 
striking the reference number or numbers of a cancellation or 
cancellations from the bill. Consideration of the bill for 
amendment shall not exceed one hour excluding time for recorded 
votes and quorum calls. No amendment shall be subject to 
further amendment, except pro forma amendments for the purposes 
of debate only. At the conclusion of the consideration of the 
bill for amendment, the Committee shall rise and report the 
bill to the House with such amendments as may have been 
adopted. The previous question shall be considered as ordered 
on the bill and amendments thereto to final passage without 
intervening motion. A motion to reconsider the vote on passage 
of the bill shall not be in order.
    [(3) Appeals from decisions of the Chair regarding 
application of the rules of the House of Representatives to the 
procedure relating to a disapproval bill shall be decided 
without debate.
    [(4) It shall not be in order to consider under this 
subsection more than one disapproval bill for the same special 
message except for consideration of a similar Senate bill 
(unless the House has already rejected a disapproval bill for 
the same special message) or more than one motion to discharge 
described in paragraph (1) with respect to a disapproval bill 
for that special message.
    [(e) Consideration in the Senate.--
            [(1) Referral and reporting.--Any disapproval bill 
        introduced in the Senate shall be referred to the 
        appropriate committee or committees. A committee to 
        which a disapproval bill has been referred shall report 
        the bill not later than the seventh day of session 
        following the date of introduction of that bill. If any 
        committee fails to report the bill within that period, 
        that committee shall be automatically discharged from 
        further consideration of the bill and the bill shall be 
        placed on the Calendar.
            [(2) Disapproval bill from house.--When the Senate 
        receives from the House of Representatives a 
        disapproval bill, such bill shall not be referred to 
        committee and shall be placed on the Calendar.
            [(3) Consideration of single disapproval bill.--
        After the Senate has proceeded to the consideration of 
        a disapproval bill for a special message, then no other 
        disapproval bill originating in that same House 
        relating to that same message shall be subject to the 
        procedures set forth in this subsection.
            [(4) Amendments.--
                    [(A) Amendments in order.--The only 
                amendments in order to a disapproval bill are--
                            [(i) an amendment that strikes the 
                        reference number of a cancellation from 
                        the disapproval bill; and
                            [(ii) an amendment that only 
                        inserts the reference number of a 
                        cancellation included in the special 
                        message to which the disapproval bill 
                        relates that is not already contained 
                        in such bill.
                    [(B) Waiver or appeal.--An affirmative vote 
                of three-fifths of the Senators, duly chosen 
                and sworn, shall be required in the Senate--
                            [(i) to waive or suspend this 
                        paragraph; or
                            [(ii) to sustain an appeal of the 
                        ruling of the Chair on a point of order 
                        raised under this paragraph.
            [(5) Motion nondebatable.--A motion to proceed to 
        consideration of a disapproval bill under this 
        subsection shall not be debatable. It shall not be in 
        order to move to reconsider the vote by which the 
        motion to proceed was adopted or rejected, although 
        subsequent motions to proceed may be made under this 
        paragraph.
            [(6) Limit on consideration.--(A) After no more 
        than 10 hours of consideration of a disapproval bill, 
        the Senate shall proceed, without intervening action or 
        debate (except as permitted under paragraph (9)), to 
        vote on the final disposition thereof to the exclusion 
        of all amendments not then pending and to the exclusion 
        of all motions, except a motion to reconsider or to 
        table.
            [(B) A single motion to extend the time for 
        consideration under subparagraph (A) for no more than 
        an additional five hours is in order prior to the 
        expiration of such time and shall be decided without 
        debate.
            [(C) The time for debate on the disapproval bill 
        shall be equally divided between the Majority Leader 
        and the Minority Leader or their designees.
            [(7) Debate on amendments.--Debate on any amendment 
        to a disapproval bill shall be limited to one hour, 
        equally divided and controlled by the Senator proposing 
        the amendment and the majority manager, unless the 
        majority manager is in favor of the amendment, in which 
        case the minority manager shall be in control of the 
        time in opposition.
            [(8) No motion to recommit.--A motion to recommit a 
        disapproval bill shall not be in order.
            [(9) Disposition of senate disapproval bill.--If 
        the Senate has read for the third time a disapproval 
        bill that originated in the Senate, then it shall be in 
        order at any time thereafter to move to proceed to the 
        consideration of a disapproval bill for the same 
        special message received from the House of 
        Representatives and placed on the Calendar pursuant to 
        paragraph (2), strike all after the enacting clause, 
        substitute the text of the Senate disapproval bill, 
        agree to the Senate amendment, and vote on final 
        disposition of the House disapproval bill, all without 
        any intervening action or debate.
            [(10) Consideration of house message.--
        Consideration in the Senate of all motions, amendments, 
        or appeals necessary to dispose of a message from the 
        House of Representatives on a disapproval bill shall be 
        limited to not more than four hours. Debate on each 
        motion or amendment shall be limited to 30 minutes. 
        Debate on any appeal or point of order that is 
        submitted in connection with the disposition of the 
        House message shall be limited to 20 minutes. Any time 
        for debate shall be equally divided and controlled by 
        the proponent and the majority manager, unless the 
        majority manager is a proponent of the motion, 
        amendment, appeal, or point of order, in which case the 
        minority manager shall be in control of the time in 
        opposition.
    [(f) Consideration in Conference.--
            [(1) Convening of conference.--In the case of 
        disagreement between the two Houses of Congress with 
        respect to a disapproval bill passed by both Houses, 
        conferees should be promptly appointed and a conference 
        promptly convened, if necessary.
            [(2) House consideration.--(A) Notwithstanding any 
        other rule of the House of Representatives, it shall be 
        in order to consider the report of a committee of 
        conference relating to a disapproval bill provided such 
        report has been available for one calendar day 
        (excluding Saturdays, Sundays, or legal holidays, 
        unless the House is in session on such a day) and the 
        accompanying statement shall have been filed in the 
        House.
            [(B) Debate in the House of Representatives on the 
        conference report and any amendments in disagreement on 
        any disapproval bill shall each be limited to not more 
        than one hour equally divided and controlled by a 
        proponent and an opponent. A motion to further limit 
        debate is not debatable. A motion to recommit the 
        conference report is not in order, and it is not in 
        order to move to reconsider the vote by which the 
        conference report is agreed to or disagreed to.
            [(3) Senate consideration.--Consideration in the 
        Senate of the conference report and any amendments in 
        disagreement on a disapproval bill shall be limited to 
        not more than four hours equally divided and controlled 
        by the Majority Leader and the Minority Leader or their 
        designees. A motion to recommit the conference report 
        is not in order.
            [(4) Limits on scope.--(A) When a disagreement to 
        an amendment in the nature of a substitute has been 
        referred to a conference, the conferees shall report 
        those cancellations that were included in both the bill 
        and the amendment, and may report a cancellation 
        included in either the bill or the amendment, but shall 
        not include any other matter.
            [(B) When a disagreement on an amendment or 
        amendments of one House to the disapproval bill of the 
        other House has been referred to a committee of 
        conference, the conferees shall report those 
        cancellations upon which both Houses agree and may 
        report any or all of those cancellations upon which 
        there is disagreement, but shall not include any other 
        matter.
                              [definitions
    [Sec. 1026. As used in this part:
            [(1) Appropriation law.--The term ``appropriation 
        law'' means an Act referred to in section 105 of title 
        1, United States Code, including any general or special 
        appropriation Act, or any Act making supplemental, 
        deficiency, or continuing appropriations, that has been 
        signed into law pursuant to article I, section 7, of 
        the Constitution of the United States.
            [(2) Calendar day.--The term ``calendar day'' means 
        a standard 24-hour period beginning at midnight.
            [(3) Calendar days of session.--The term ``calendar 
        days of session'' shall mean only those days on which 
        both Houses of Congress are in session.
            [(4) Cancel.--The term ``cancel'' or 
        ``cancellation'' means--
                    [(A) with respect to any dollar amount of 
                discretionary budget authority, to rescind;
                    [(B) with respect to any item of new direct 
                spending--
                            [(i) that is budget authority 
                        provided by law (other than an 
                        appropriation law), to prevent such 
                        budget authority from having legal 
                        force or effect;
                            [(ii) that is entitlement 
                        authority, to prevent the specific 
                        legal obligation of the United States 
                        from having legal force or effect; or
                            [(iii) through the food stamp 
                        program, to prevent the specific 
                        provision of law that results in an 
                        increase in budget authority or outlays 
                        for that program from having legal 
                        force or effect; and
                    [(C) with respect to a limited tax benefit, 
                to prevent the specific provision of law that 
                provides such benefit from having legal force 
                or effect.
            [(5) Direct spending.--The term ``direct spending'' 
        means--
                    [(A) budget authority provided by law 
                (other than an appropriation law);
                    [(B) entitlement authority; and
                    [(C) the food stamp program.
            [(6) Disapproval bill.--The term ``disapproval 
        bill'' means a bill or joint resolution which only 
        disapproves one or more cancellations of dollar amounts 
        of discretionary budget authority, items of new direct 
        spending, or limited tax benefits in a special message 
        transmitted by the President under this part and--
                    [(A) the title of which is as follows: ``A 
                bill disapproving the cancellations transmitted 
                by the President on ____'', the blank space 
                being filled in with the date of transmission 
                of the relevant special message and the public 
                law number to which the message relates;
                    [(B) which does not have a preamble; and
                    [(C) which provides only the following 
                after the enacting clause: ``That Congress 
                disapproves of cancellations ____'', the blank 
                space being filled in with a list by reference 
                number of one or more cancellations contained 
                in the President's special message, ``as 
                transmitted by the President in a special 
                message on ____'', the blank space being filled 
                in with the appropriate date, ``regarding 
                ____.'', the blank space being filled in with 
                the public law number to which the special 
                message relates.
            [(7) Dollar amount of discretionary budget 
        authority.--(A) Except as provided in subparagraph (B), 
        the term ``dollar amount of discretionary budget 
        authority'' means the entire dollar amount of budget 
        authority--
                    [(i) specified in an appropriation law, or 
                the entire dollar amount of budget authority 
                required to be allocated by a specific proviso 
                in an appropriation law for which a specific 
                dollar figure was not included;
                    [(ii) represented separately in any table, 
                chart, or explanatory text included in the 
                statement of managers or the governing 
                committee report accompanying such law;
                    [(iii) required to be allocated for a 
                specific program, project, or activity in a law 
                (other than an appropriation law) that mandates 
                the expenditure of budget authority from 
                accounts, programs, projects, or activities for 
                which budget authority is provided in an 
                appropriation law;
                    [(iv) represented by the product of the 
                estimated procurement cost and the total 
                quantity of items specified in an appropriation 
                law or included in the statement of managers or 
                the governing committee report accompanying 
                such law; or
                    [(v) represented by the product of the 
                estimated procurement cost and the total 
                quantity of items required to be provided in a 
                law (other than an appropriation law) that 
                mandates the expenditure of budget authority 
                from accounts, programs, projects, or 
                activities for which budget authority is 
                provided in an appropriation law.
            [(B) The term ``dollar amount of discretionary 
        budget authority'' does not include--
                    [(i) direct spending;
                    [(ii) budget authority in an appropriation 
                law which funds direct spending provided for in 
                other law;
                    [(iii) any existing budget authority 
                rescinded or canceled in an appropriation law; 
                or
                    [(iv) any restriction, condition, or 
                limitation in an appropriation law or the 
                accompanying statement of managers or committee 
                reports on the expenditure of budget authority 
                for an account, program, project, or activity, 
                or on activities involving such expenditure.
            [(8) Item of new direct spending.--The term ``item 
        of new direct spending'' means any specific provision 
        of law that is estimated to result in an increase in 
        budget authority or outlays for direct spending 
        relative to the most recent levels calculated pursuant 
        to section 257 of the Balanced Budget and Emergency 
        Deficit Control Act of 1985.
            [(9) Limited tax benefit.--(A) The term ``limited 
        tax benefit'' means--
                    [(i) any revenue-losing provision which 
                provides a Federal tax deduction, credit, 
                exclusion, or preference to 100 or fewer 
                beneficiaries under the Internal Revenue Code 
                of 1986 in any fiscal year for which the 
                provision is in effect; and
                    [(ii) any Federal tax provision which 
                provides temporary or permanent transitional 
                relief for 10 or fewer beneficiaries in any 
                fiscal year from a change to the Internal 
                Revenue Code of 1986.
            [(B) A provision shall not be treated as described 
        in subparagraph (A)(i) if the effect of that provision 
        is that--
                    [(i) all persons in the same industry or 
                engaged in the same type of activity receive 
                the same treatment;
                    [(ii) all persons owning the same type of 
                property, or issuing the same type of 
                investment, receive the same treatment; or
                    [(iii) any difference in the treatment of 
                persons is based solely on--
                            [(I) in the case of businesses and 
                        associations, the size or form of the 
                        business or association involved;
                            [(II) in the case of individuals, 
                        general demographic conditions, such as 
                        income, marital status, number of 
                        dependents, or tax return filing 
                        status;
                            [(III) the amount involved; or
                            [(IV) a generally-available 
                        election under the Internal Revenue 
                        Code of 1986.
            [(C) A provision shall not be treated as described 
        in subparagraph (A)(ii) if--
                    [(i) it provides for the retention of prior 
                law with respect to all binding contracts or 
                other legally enforceable obligations in 
                existence on a date contemporaneous with 
                congressional action specifying such date; or
                    [(ii) it is a technical correction to 
                previously enacted legislation that is 
                estimated to have no revenue effect.
            [(D) For purposes of subparagraph (A)--
                    [(i) all businesses and associations which 
                are related within the meaning of sections 
                707(b) and 1563(a) of the Internal Revenue Code 
                of 1986 shall be treated as a single 
                beneficiary;
                    [(ii) all qualified plans of an employer 
                shall be treated as a single beneficiary;
                    [(iii) all holders of the same bond issue 
                shall be treated as a single beneficiary; and
                    [(iv) if a corporation, partnership, 
                association, trust or estate is the beneficiary 
                of a provision, the shareholders of the 
                corporation, the partners of the partnership, 
                the members of the association, or the 
                beneficiaries of the trust or estate shall not 
                also be treated as beneficiaries of such 
                provision.
            [(E) For purposes of this paragraph, the term 
        ``revenue-losing provision'' means any provision which 
        results in a reduction in Federal tax revenues for any 
        one of the two following periods--
                    [(i) the first fiscal year for which the 
                provision is effective; or
                    [(ii) the period of the 5 fiscal years 
                beginning with the first fiscal year for which 
                the provision is effective.
            [(F) The terms used in this paragraph shall have 
        the same meaning as those terms have generally in the 
        Internal Revenue Code of 1986, unless otherwise 
        expressly provided.
            [(10) OMB.--The term ``OMB'' means the Director of 
        the Office of Management and Budget.
                [identification of limited tax benefits
    [Sec. 1027. (a) Statement by Joint Tax Committee.--The 
Joint Committee on Taxation shall review any revenue or 
reconciliation bill or joint resolution which includes any 
amendment to the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 that is being 
prepared for filing by a committee of conference of the two 
Houses, and shall identify whether such bill or joint 
resolution contains any limited tax benefits. The Joint 
Committee on Taxation shall provide to the committee of 
conference a statement identifying any such limited tax 
benefits or declaring that the bill or joint resolution does 
not contain any limited tax benefits. Any such statement shall 
be made available to any Member of Congress by the Joint 
Committee on Taxation immediately upon request.
    [(b) Statement Included in Legislation.--(1) 
Notwithstanding any other rule of the House of Representatives 
or any rule or precedent of the Senate, any revenue or 
reconciliation bill or joint resolution which includes any 
amendment to the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 reported by a 
committee of conference of the two Houses may include, as a 
separate section of such bill or joint resolution, the 
information contained in the statement of the Joint Committee 
on Taxation, but only in the manner set forth in paragraph (2).
    [(2) The separate section permitted under paragraph (1) 
shall read as follows: ``Section 1021(a)(3) of the 
Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 shall 
____ apply to ______.'', with the blank spaces being filled in 
with--
            [(A) in any case in which the Joint Committee on 
        Taxation identifies limited tax benefits in the 
        statement required under subsection (a), the word 
        ``only'' in the first blank space and a list of all of 
        the specific provisions of the bill or joint resolution 
        identified by the Joint Committee on Taxation in such 
        statement in the second blank space; or
            [(B) in any case in which the Joint Committee on 
        Taxation declares that there are no limited tax 
        benefits in the statement required under subsection 
        (a), the word ``not'' in the first blank space and the 
        phrase ``any provision of this Act'' in the second 
        blank space.
    [(c) President's Authority.--If any revenue or 
reconciliation bill or joint resolution is signed into law 
pursuant to article I, section 7, of the Constitution of the 
United States--
            [(1) with a separate section described in 
        subsection (b)(2), then the President may use the 
        authority granted in section 1021(a)(3) only to cancel 
        any limited tax benefit in that law, if any, identified 
        in such separate section; or
            [(2) without a separate section described in 
        subsection (b)(2), then the President may use the 
        authority granted in section 1021(a)(3) to cancel any 
        limited tax benefit in that law that meets the 
        definition in section 1026.
    [(d) Congressional Identifications of Limited Tax 
Benefits.--There shall be no judicial review of the 
congressional identification under subsections (a) and (b) of a 
limited tax benefit in a conference report.]

                   Part B--Legislative Line Item Veto

                        LINE ITEM VETO AUTHORITY

    Sec. 1011. (a) Proposed Cancellations.--Within 45 calendar 
days after the enactment of any bill or joint resolution 
providing any discretionary budget authority, item of direct 
spending, or targeted tax benefit, the President may propose, 
in the manner provided in subsection (b), the cancellation of 
any dollar amount of such discretionary budget authority, item 
of direct spending, or targeted tax benefit. If the 45 
calendar-day period expires during a period where either House 
of Congress stands adjourned sine die at the end of a Congress 
or for a period greater than 45 calendar days, the President 
may propose a cancellation under this section and transmit a 
special message under subsection (b) on the first calendar day 
of session following such a period of adjournment.
    (b) Transmittal of Special Message.--
            (1) Special message.--
                    (A) In general.--The President may transmit 
                to the Congress a special message proposing to 
                cancel any dollar amounts of discretionary 
                budget authority, items of direct spending, or 
                targeted tax benefits.
                    (B) Contents of special message.--Each 
                special message shall specify, with respect to 
                the discretionary budget authority, items of 
                direct spending proposed, or targeted tax 
                benefits to be canceled--
                            (i) the dollar amount of 
                        discretionary budget authority, the 
                        specific item of direct spending (that 
                        OMB, after consultation with CBO, 
                        estimates to increase budget authority 
                        or outlays as required by section 
                        1017(9)), or the targeted tax benefit 
                        that the President proposes be 
                        canceled;
                            (ii) any account, department, or 
                        establishment of the Government to 
                        which such discretionary budget 
                        authority is available for obligation, 
                        and the specific project or 
                        governmental functions involved;
                            (iii) the reasons why such 
                        discretionary budget authority, item of 
                        direct spending, or targeted tax 
                        benefit should be canceled;
                            (iv) to the maximum extent 
                        practicable, the estimated fiscal, 
                        economic, and budgetary effect 
                        (including the effect on outlays and 
                        receipts in each fiscal year) of the 
                        proposed cancellation;
                            (v) to the maximum extent 
                        practicable, all facts, circumstances, 
                        and considerations relating to or 
                        bearing upon the proposed cancellation 
                        and the decision to effect the proposed 
                        cancellation, and the estimated effect 
                        of the proposed cancellation upon the 
                        objects, purposes, or programs for 
                        which the discretionary budget 
                        authority, item of direct spending, or 
                        the targeted tax benefit is provided;
                            (vi) a numbered list of 
                        cancellations to be included in an 
                        approval bill that, if enacted, would 
                        cancel discretionary budget authority, 
                        items of direct spending, or targeted 
                        tax benefits proposed in that special 
                        message; and
                            (vii) if the special message is 
                        transmitted subsequent to or at the 
                        same time as another special message, a 
                        detailed explanation why the proposed 
                        cancellations are not substantially 
                        similar to any other proposed 
                        cancellation in such other message.
                    (C) Duplicative proposals prohibited.--The 
                President may not propose to cancel the same or 
                substantially similar discretionary budget 
                authority, item of direct spending, or targeted 
                tax benefit more than one time under this Act.
                    (D) Maximum number of special messages.--
                The President may not transmit to the Congress 
                more than 5 special messages under this 
                subsection related to any bill or joint 
                resolution described in subsection (a), but may 
                transmit not more than 10 special messages for 
                any omnibus budget reconciliation or 
                appropriation measure.
            (2) Enactment of approval bill.--
                    (A) Deficit reduction.--Amounts of budget 
                authority, items of direct spending, or 
                targeted tax benefits which are canceled 
                pursuant to enactment of a bill as provided 
                under this section shall be dedicated only to 
                reducing the deficit or increasing the surplus.
                    (B) Adjustment of levels in the concurrent 
                resolution on the budget.--Not later than 5 
                days after the date of enactment of an approval 
                bill as provided under this section, the chairs 
                of the Committees on the Budget of the Senate 
                and the House of Representatives shall revise 
                allocations and aggregates and other 
                appropriate levels under the appropriate 
                concurrent resolution on the budget to reflect 
                the cancellation, and the applicable committees 
                shall report revised suballocations pursuant to 
                section 302(b), as appropriate.
                    (C) Adjustments to statutory limits.--After 
                enactment of an approval bill as provided under 
                this section, the Office of Management and 
                Budget shall revise applicable limits under the 
                Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control 
                Act of 1985, as appropriate.

                 PROCEDURES FOR EXPEDITED CONSIDERATION

    Sec. 1012. (a) Expedited Consideration.--
            (1) In general.--The majority leader of each House 
        or his designee shall (by request) introduce an 
        approval bill as defined in section 1017 not later than 
        the fifth day of session of that House after the date 
        of receipt of a special message transmitted to the 
        Congress under section 1011(b).
            (2) Consideration in the house of 
        representatives.--
                    (A) Referral and reporting.--Any committee 
                of the House of Representatives to which an 
                approval bill is referred shall report it to 
                the House without amendment not later than the 
                seventh legislative day after the date of its 
                introduction. If a committee fails to report 
                the bill within that period or the House has 
                adopted a concurrent resolution providing for 
                adjournment sine die at the end of a Congress, 
                it shall be in order to move that the House 
                discharge the committee from further 
                consideration of the bill. Such a motion shall 
                be in order only at a time designated by the 
                Speaker in the legislative schedule within two 
                legislative days after the day on which the 
                proponent announces his intention to offer the 
                motion. Such a motion shall not be in order 
                after a committee has reported an approval bill 
                with respect to that special message or after 
                the House has disposed of a motion to discharge 
                with respect to that special message. The 
                previous question shall be considered as 
                ordered on the motion to its adoption without 
                intervening motion except twenty minutes of 
                debate equally divided and controlled by the 
                proponent and an opponent. If such a motion is 
                adopted, the House shall proceed immediately to 
                consider the approval bill in accordance with 
                subparagraph (C). A motion to reconsider the 
                vote by which the motion is disposed of shall 
                not be in order.
                    (B) Proceeding to consideration.--After an 
                approval bill is reported or a committee has 
                been discharged from further consideration, or 
                the House has adopted a concurrent resolution 
                providing for adjournment sine die at the end 
                of a Congress, it shall be in order to move to 
                proceed to consider the approval bill in the 
                House. Such a motion shall be in order only at 
                a time designated by the Speaker in the 
                legislative schedule within two legislative 
                days after the day on which the proponent 
                announces his intention to offer the motion. 
                Such a motion shall not be in order after the 
                House has disposed of a motion to proceed with 
                respect to that special message. The previous 
                question shall be considered as ordered on the 
                motion to its adoption without intervening 
                motion. A motion to reconsider the vote by 
                which the motion is disposed of shall not be in 
                order.
                    (C) Consideration.--The approval bill shall 
                be considered as read. All points of order 
                against an approval bill and against its 
                consideration are waived. The previous question 
                shall be considered as ordered on an approval 
                bill to its passage without intervening motion 
                except five hours of debate equally divided and 
                controlled by the proponent and an opponent and 
                one motion to limit debate on the bill. A 
                motion to reconsider the vote on passage of the 
                bill shall not be in order.
                    (D) Senate bill.--An approval bill received 
                from the Senate shall not be referred to 
                committee.
            (3) Consideration in the senate.--
                    (A) Motion to proceed to consideration.--A 
                motion to proceed to the consideration of a 
                bill under this subsection in the Senate shall 
                not be debatable. It shall not be in order to 
                move to reconsider the vote by which the motion 
                to proceed is agreed to or disagreed to.
                    (B) Limits on debate.--Debate in the Senate 
                on a bill under this subsection, and all 
                debatable motions and appeals in connection 
                therewith (including debate pursuant to 
                subparagraph (D)), shall not exceed 10 hours, 
                equally divided and controlled in the usual 
                form.
                    (C) Appeals.--Debate in the Senate on any 
                debatable motion or appeal in connection with a 
                bill under this subsection shall be limited to 
                not more than 1 hour, to be equally divided and 
                controlled in the usual form.
                    (D) Motion to limit debate.--A motion in 
                the Senate to further limit debate on a bill 
                under this subsection is not debatable.
                    (E) Motion to recommit.--A motion to 
                recommit a bill under this subsection is not in 
                order.
                    (F) Consideration of the house bill.--
                            (i) In general.--If the Senate has 
                        received the House companion bill to 
                        the bill introduced in the Senate prior 
                        to the vote required under paragraph 
                        (1)(C), then the Senate may consider, 
                        and the vote under paragraph (1)(C) may 
                        occur on, the House companion bill.
                            (ii) Procedure after vote on senate 
                        bill.--If the Senate votes, pursuant to 
                        paragraph (1)(C), on the bill 
                        introduced in the Senate, then 
                        immediately following that vote, or 
                        upon receipt of the House companion 
                        bill, the House bill shall be deemed to 
                        be considered, read the third time, and 
                        the vote on passage of the Senate bill 
                        shall be considered to be the vote on 
                        the bill received from the House.
    (b) Amendments Prohibited.--No amendment to, or motion to 
strike a provision from, a bill considered under this section 
shall be in order in either the Senate or the House of 
Representatives.

                    PRESIDENTIAL DEFERRAL AUTHORITY

    Sec. 1013. (a) Temporary Presidential Authority to Withhold 
Discretionary Budget Authority.--
            (1) In general.--At the same time as the President 
        transmits to the Congress a special message pursuant to 
        section 1011(b), the President may direct that any 
        dollar amount of discretionary budget authority to be 
        canceled in that special message shall not be made 
        available for obligation for a period not to exceed 45 
        calendar days from the date the President transmits the 
        special message to the Congress.
            (2) Early availability.--The President shall make 
        any dollar amount of discretionary budget authority 
        deferred pursuant to paragraph (1) available at a time 
        earlier than the time specified by the President if the 
        President determines that continuation of the deferral 
        would not further the purposes of this Act.
    (b) Temporary Presidential Authority to Suspend Direct 
Spending.--
            (1) In general.--At the same time as the President 
        transmits to the Congress a special message pursuant to 
        section 1011(b), the President may suspend the 
        implementation of any item of direct spending proposed 
        to be canceled in that special message for a period not 
        to exceed 45 calendar days from the date the President 
        transmits the special message to the Congress.
            (2) Early availability.--The President shall 
        terminate the suspension of any item of direct spending 
        at a time earlier than the time specified by the 
        President if the President determines that continuation 
        of the suspension would not further the purposes of 
        this Act.
    (c) Temporary Presidential Authority to Suspend a Targeted 
Tax Benefit.--
            (1) In general.--At the same time as the President 
        transmits to the Congress a special message pursuant to 
        section 1011(b), the President may suspend the 
        implementation of any targeted tax benefit proposed to 
        be repealed in that special message for a period not to 
        exceed 45 calendar days from the date the President 
        transmits the special message to the Congress.
            (2) Early availability.--The President shall 
        terminate the suspension of any targeted tax benefit at 
        a time earlier than the time specified by the President 
        if the President determines that continuation of the 
        suspension would not further the purposes of this Act.
    (d) Extension of 45-day Period.--The President may transmit 
to the Congress not more than one supplemental special message 
to extend the period to suspend the implementation of any 
discretionary budget authority, item of direct spending, or 
targeted tax benefit, as applicable, by an additional 45 
calendar days. Any such supplemental message may not be 
transmitted to the Congress before the 40th day of the 45-day 
period set forth in the preceding message or later than the 
last day of such period.

                IDENTIFICATION OF TARGETED TAX BENEFITS

    Sec. 1014. (a) Statement.--The chairman of the Committee on 
Ways and Means of the House of Representatives and the chairman 
of the Committee on Finance of the Senate acting jointly 
(hereafter in this subsection referred to as the ``chairmen'') 
shall review any revenue or reconciliation bill or joint 
resolution which includes any amendment to the Internal Revenue 
Code of 1986 that is being prepared for filing by a committee 
of conference of the two Houses, and shall identify whether 
such bill or joint resolution contains any targeted tax 
benefits. The chairmen shall provide to the committee of 
conference a statement identifying any such targeted tax 
benefits or declaring that the bill or joint resolution does 
not contain any targeted tax benefits. Any such statement shall 
be made available to any Member of Congress by the chairmen 
immediately upon request.
    (b) Statement Included in Legislation.--
            (1) In general.--Notwithstanding any other rule of 
        the House of Representatives or any rule or precedent 
        of the Senate, any revenue or reconciliation bill or 
        joint resolution which includes any amendment to the 
        Internal Revenue Code of 1986 reported by a committee 
        of conference of the two Houses may include, as a 
        separate section of such bill or joint resolution, the 
        information contained in the statement of the chairmen, 
        but only in the manner set forth in paragraph (2).
            (2) Applicability.--The separate section permitted 
        under subparagraph (A) shall read as follows: ``Section 
        1021 of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment 
        Control Act of 1974 shall ________ apply to 
        ____________.'', with the blank spaces being filled in 
        with--
                    (A) in any case in which the chairmen 
                identify targeted tax benefits in the statement 
                required under subsection (a), the word 
                ``only'' in the first blank space and a list of 
                all of the specific provisions of the bill or 
                joint resolution identified by the chairmen in 
                such statement in the second blank space; or
                    (B) in any case in which the chairmen 
                declare that there are no targeted tax benefits 
                in the statement required under subsection (a), 
                the word ``not'' in the first blank space and 
                the phrase ``any provision of this Act'' in the 
                second blank space.
    (c) President's Authority.--If any revenue or 
reconciliation bill or joint resolution is signed into law--
            (1) with a separate section described in subsection 
        (b)(2), then the President may use the authority 
        granted in this section only with respect to any 
        targeted tax benefit in that law, if any, identified in 
        such separate section; or
            (2) without a separate section described in 
        subsection (b)(2), then the President may use the 
        authority granted in this section with respect to any 
        targeted tax benefit in that law.

                       TREATMENT OF CANCELLATIONS

    Sec. 1015. The cancellation of any dollar amount of 
discretionary budget authority, item of direct spending, or 
targeted tax benefit shall take effect only upon enactment of 
the applicable approval bill. If an approval bill is not 
enacted into law before the end of the applicable period under 
section 1013, then all proposed cancellations contained in that 
bill shall be null and void and any such dollar amount of 
discretionary budget authority, item of direct spending, or 
targeted tax benefit shall be effective as of the original date 
provided in the law to which the proposed cancellations 
applied.

                     REPORTS BY COMPTROLLER GENERAL

    Sec. 1016. With respect to each special message under this 
part, the Comptroller General shall issue to the Congress a 
report determining whether any discretionary budget authority 
is not made available for obligation or item of direct spending 
or targeted tax benefit continues to be suspended after the 
deferral authority set forth in section 1013 of the President 
has expired.

                              DEFINITIONS

    Sec. 1017. As used in this part:
            (1) Appropriation law.--The term ``appropriation 
        law'' means an Act referred to in section 105 of title 
        1, United States Code, including any general or special 
        appropriation Act, or any Act making supplemental, 
        deficiency, or continuing appropriations, that has been 
        signed into law pursuant to article I, section 7, of 
        the Constitution of the United States.
            (2) Approval bill.--The term ``approval bill'' 
        means a bill or joint resolution which only approves 
        proposed cancellations of dollar amounts of 
        discretionary budget authority, items of new direct 
        spending, or targeted tax benefits in a special message 
        transmitted by the President under this part and--
                    (A) the title of which is as follows: ``A 
                bill approving the proposed cancellations 
                transmitted by the President on ____'', the 
                blank space being filled in with the date of 
                transmission of the relevant special message 
                and the public law number to which the message 
                relates;
                    (B) which does not have a preamble; and
                    (C) which provides only the following after 
                the enacting clause: ``That the Congress 
                approves of proposed cancellations ____'', the 
                blank space being filled in with a list of the 
                cancellations contained in the President's 
                special message, ``as transmitted by the 
                President in a special message on ____'', the 
                blank space being filled in with the 
                appropriate date, ``regarding ____.'', the 
                blank space being filled in with the public law 
                number to which the special message relates;
                    (D) which only includes proposed 
                cancellations that are estimated by CBO to meet 
                the definition of discretionary budgetary 
                authority or items of direct spending, or that 
                are identified as targeted tax benefits 
                pursuant to section 1014;
                    (E) if any proposed cancellation other than 
                discretionary budget authority or targeted tax 
                benefits is estimated by CBO to not meet the 
                definition of item of direct spending, then the 
                approval bill shall include at the end: ``The 
                President shall cease the suspension of the 
                implementation of the following under section 
                1013 of the Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 
                2006: ____'', the blank space being filled in 
                with the list of such proposed cancellations; 
                and
                    (F) if no CBO estimate is available, then 
                the entire list of legislative provisions 
                proposed by the President is inserted in the 
                second blank space in subparagraph (C).
            (3) Calendar day.--The term ``calendar day'' means 
        a standard 24-hour period beginning at midnight.
            (4) Cancel or cancellation.--The terms ``cancel'' 
        or ``cancellation'' means to prevent--
                    (A) budget authority from having legal 
                force or effect;
                    (B) in the case of entitlement authority, 
                to prevent the specific legal obligation of the 
                United States from having legal force or 
                effect;
                    (C) in the case of the food stamp program, 
                to prevent the specific provision of law that 
                provides such benefit from having legal force 
                or effect; or
                    (D) a targeted tax benefit from having 
                legal force or effect; and
        to make any necessary, conforming statutory change to 
        ensure that such targeted tax benefit is not 
        implemented and that any budgetary resources are 
        appropriately canceled.
            (5) CBO.--The term ``CBO'' means the Director of 
        the Congressional Budget Office.
            (6) Direct spending.--The term ``direct spending'' 
        means--
                    (A) budget authority provided by law (other 
                than an appropriation law);
                    (B) entitlement authority; and
                    (C) the food stamp program.
            (7) Dollar amount of discretionary budget 
        authority.--(A) Except as provided in subparagraph (B), 
        the term ``dollar amount of discretionary budget 
        authority'' means the entire dollar amount of budget 
        authority--
                    (i) specified in an appropriation law, or 
                the entire dollar amount of budget authority or 
                obligation limitation required to be allocated 
                by a specific proviso in an appropriation law 
                for which a specific dollar figure was not 
                included;
                    (ii) represented separately in any table, 
                chart, or explanatory text included in the 
                statement of managers or the governing 
                committee report accompanying such law;
                    (iii) required to be allocated for a 
                specific program, project, or activity in a law 
                (other than an appropriation law) that mandates 
                the expenditure of budget authority from 
                accounts, programs, projects, or activities for 
                which budget authority is provided in an 
                appropriation law;
                    (iv) represented by the product of the 
                estimated procurement cost and the total 
                quantity of items specified in an appropriation 
                law or included in the statement of managers or 
                the governing committee report accompanying 
                such law; or
                    (v) represented by the product of the 
                estimated procurement cost and the total 
                quantity of items required to be provided in a 
                law (other than an appropriation law) that 
                mandates the expenditure of budget authority 
                from accounts, programs, projects, or 
                activities for which budget authority is 
                provided in an appropriation law.
            (B) The term ``dollar amount of discretionary 
        budget authority'' does not include--
                    (i) direct spending;
                    (ii) budget authority in an appropriation 
                law which funds direct spending provided for in 
                other law;
                    (iii) any existing budget authority 
                canceled in an appropriation law; or
                    (iv) any restriction, condition, or 
                limitation in an appropriation law or the 
                accompanying statement of managers or committee 
                reports on the expenditure of budget authority 
                for an account, program, project, or activity, 
                or on activities involving such expenditure.
            (8) Item of direct spending.--The term ``item of 
        direct spending'' means any provision of law that 
        results in an increase in budget authority or outlays 
        for direct spending relative to the most recent levels 
        calculated consistent with the methodology used to 
        calculate a baseline under section 257 of the Balanced 
        Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 and 
        included with a budget submission under section 1105(a) 
        of title 31, United States Code, in the first year or 
        the 5-year period for which the item is effective. 
        However, such item does not include an extension or 
        reauthorization of existing direct spending, but 
        instead only refers to provisions of law that increase 
        such direct spending.
            (9) OMB.--The term ``OMB'' means the Director of 
        the Office of Management and Budget.
            (10) Omnibus reconciliation or appropriation 
        measure.--The term ``omnibus reconciliation or 
        appropriation measure'' means--
                    (A) in the case of a reconciliation bill, 
                any such bill that is reported to its House by 
                the Committee on the Budget; or
                    (B) in the case of an appropriation 
                measure, any such measure that provides 
                appropriations for programs, projects, or 
                activities falling within 2 or more section 
                302(b) suballocations.
            (11) Targeted tax benefit.--(A) The term ``targeted 
        tax benefit'' means any revenue-losing provision that 
        provides a Federal tax deduction, credit, exclusion, or 
        preference to only one beneficiary (determined with 
        respect to either present law or any provision of which 
        the provision is a part) under the Internal Revenue 
        Code of 1986 in any year for which the provision is in 
        effect;
            (B) for purposes of subparagraph (A)--
                    (i) all businesses and associations that 
                are members of the same controlled group of 
                corporations (as defined in section 1563(a) of 
                the Internal Revenue Code of 1986) shall be 
                treated as a single beneficiary;
                    (ii) all shareholders, partners, members, 
                or beneficiaries of a corporation, partnership, 
                association, or trust or estate, respectively, 
                shall be treated as a single beneficiary;
                    (iii) all employees of an employer shall be 
                treated as a single beneficiary;
                    (iv) all qualified plans of an employer 
                shall be treated as a single beneficiary;
                    (v) all beneficiaries of a qualified plan 
                shall be treated as a single beneficiary;
                    (vi) all contributors to a charitable 
                organization shall be treated as a single 
                beneficiary;
                    (vii) all holders of the same bond issue 
                shall be treated as a single beneficiary; and
                    (viii) if a corporation, partnership, 
                association, trust or estate is the beneficiary 
                of a provision, the shareholders of the 
                corporation, the partners of the partnership, 
                the members of the association, or the 
                beneficiaries of the trust or estate shall not 
                also be treated as beneficiaries of such 
                provision;
            (C) for the purpose of this paragraph, the term 
        ``revenue-losing provision'' means any provision that 
        is estimated to result in a reduction in Federal tax 
        revenues (determined with respect to either present law 
        or any provision of which the provision is a part) for 
        any one of the two following periods--
                    (i) the first fiscal year for which the 
                provision is effective; or
                    (ii) the period of the 5 fiscal years 
                beginning with the first fiscal year for which 
                the provision is effective; and
            (D) the terms used in this paragraph shall have the 
        same meaning as those terms have generally in the 
        Internal Revenue Code of 1986, unless otherwise 
        expressly provided.

                               EXPIRATION

    Sec. 1018. This title shall have no force or effect on or 
after October 1, 2012.

                      SUITS BY COMPTROLLER GENERAL

    Sec. [1016] 1019. If, under this title, budget authority is 
required to be made available for obligation and such budget 
authority is not made available for obligation, the Comptroller 
General is hereby expressly empowered, through attorneys of his 
own selection, to bring a civil action in the United States 
District Court for the District of Columbia to require such 
budget authority to be made available for obligation, and such 
court is hereby expressly empowered to enter in such civil 
action, against any department, agency, officer, or employee of 
the United States, any decree, judgment, or order, which may be 
necessary or appropriate to make such budget authority 
available for obligation. No civil action shall be brought by 
the Comptroller General under this section until the expiration 
of 25 calendar days of continuous session of the Congress 
following the date on which an explanatory statement by the 
Comptroller General of the circumstances giving rise to the 
action contemplated has been filed with the Speaker of the 
House of Representatives and the President of the Senate.

                 PROPOSED DEFERRALS OF BUDGET AUTHORITY

    Sec. [1013] 1020. (a) * * *

           *       *       *       *       *       *       *

    (c) Exception.--The provisions of this section do not apply 
to any budget authority proposed to be [rescinded or that is to 
be reserved] canceled as set forth in a special message 
required to be transmitted under section [1012] 1011.

                       VIEWS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS

    Clause 2(l) of rule XI requires each committee to afford a 
2-day opportunity for members of the committee to file 
additional, minority, or dissenting views and to include the 
views in its report. The following views were submitted:

                             MINORITY VIEWS

    The United States faces a serious budget situation--
structural deficits of $300 billion-$400 billion--which this 
bill barely addresses. Anything that can help bring the budget 
back to balance is worthy of discussion, but even its 
proponents do not claim that this bill will balance the budget. 
A well crafted expedited power of rescission could be a useful 
budget tool, but only if it is part of a framework that 
includes real budget enforcement, and these elements are still 
missing from this package.
    Lack of Budget: First of all, the Congress has abdicated 
one of the basic tenets of governing by failing to budget. If 
we learned any lesson from the 1990s, it is that we need multi-
year budget plans to bring large structural deficits down. But 
for this year, we do not have a concurrent budget resolution, 
much less a five-year plan.
    PAYGO: Second, if we are in earnest about tools to bring 
down the deficit, we have tools that have proved their 
effectiveness, specifically, the Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) rules 
that worked well in the 1990s but that Congress let lapse in 
2002. We are concerned that passage of today's bill by itself 
could lessen the likelihood of tougher measures, like PAYGO, 
becoming law.
    Deficit Reduction: Third, if we are in earnest about 
bringing down the deficit, let's put in place rules that work 
to reduce the deficit. For example, Congress created the 
reconciliation process to make it easier to reduce the deficit 
by setting up special procedures for hard-to-pass budget cuts, 
yet this Congress now uses reconciliation to pass tax cuts that 
enlarge the deficit. We are concerned that this legislation 
could result in an increase in the deficit. A president with 
this virtual veto power could push a big spending bill, call 
members of Congress when a vote was coming up, solicit their 
support, and if it was not forthcoming, back up his request 
with a veiled threat--the rescission of something that member 
dearly wanted.
    Enforce Rules: If we are serious about rooting out wasteful 
spending--as we think we should be--let's start by enforcing 
the requirement already on the books requiring that House 
members be given three days to review conference reports before 
they are brought up for a vote. The House Rules Committee 
routinely waives that rule and rushes bills to the floor hours 
or even minutes after multi-billion dollar bills are finalized. 
While we are exercising our three-day scrutiny, we should have 
a bright light shining on exactly where earmarked spending is 
going, yet this bill is silent on earmark reform. If this bill 
is an acknowledgment that Congress has failed to oversee 
spending, shouldn't we make some effort to correct our own 
procedures, rather than just surrendering immense powers to the 
president?
    What Democrats Support: This bill is an improved version of 
the bill as originally filed. But it cedes too much power to 
the President, and we think that these powers could still be 
pared back, so that the risk of abuse or manipulation is 
reduced. We're not opposed to a properly crafted, limited 
expedited rescission legislation as one part of a tool kit that 
will bring the budget under control. In the 1990s, some 
Democrats filed and brought to the floor a balanced bill that 
required the President to act swiftly in order to wield a line-
item veto and gave him a clean chance--but only one--to 
eliminate a particular item.
    This legislation is materially different from what many 
Democrats supported in the 1990s. That legislation protected 
Social Security and Medicare because it excluded mandatory 
spending from its reach. This bill would apply to all mandatory 
spending programs. This bill gives the President 45 days to 
send the Congress an expedited rescission message. But the 
measure in the 1990s gave the president only three calendar 
days. The legislation in the 1990s also gave the Congress the 
power to amend the President's package and contained a two-year 
sunset so that the Congress could assess the value of the bill. 
This bill has a six-year sunset and no Congressional power to 
amend. Finally, the legislation in the 1990s was proposed when 
PAYGO and discretionary spending caps were in force, and was 
complementary to those rules.
    In Committee markup, Democrats proposed a number of 
amendments to improve this bill, including a substitute 
amendment (described below). If this bill could be closer to 
the form that many Democrats supported in the 1990s, and if we 
could add the PAYGO rule that was in force when we considered 
expedited rescission in the 1990s, and bar the Rules Committee 
from overriding our points of order, some of us might view it 
in a different light. But if the goal is deficit reduction, and 
the means are transparency, this package has a way to go before 
it is worthy of passage.

                   BRIEF SUMMARY OF SPRATT SUBSTITUTE

Key features:
     Reinstates statutory two-sided Pay-As-You-Go 
(PAYGO) rules for both mandatory spending and revenues.
     Amends the Budget Act to prevent reconciliation 
from being used to make the deficit worse or the surplus 
smaller.
     Enforces the three-day layover requirement in 
House rules to give Members adequate time to review 
legislation.
     Adds earmark reform provisions.
     Deletes all provisions concerning mandatory 
spending, thus protecting programs like Social Security, 
Medicare, and veterans' benefits.
     Prohibits the President or executive branch 
officials from using the rescission authority as a bargaining 
tool to secure votes on other legislation.
     Provides for a motion to strike in the House and 
the Senate, if 100 House Members or 16 Senators propose it. If, 
as a result of successful motions to strike, the House and 
Senate pass different versions of the rescission bill, then a 
conference committee would have only a limited amount of time 
to produce a conference report on the bill. If 20 days passed 
without a conference report being produced, then the House and 
Senate would consider the President's proposed package again--
and this time no amendments would be permitted.
     Adds a two-year sunset to the bill.

                                   John M. Spratt, Jr.
                                   Dennis Moore.
                                   Harold Ford, Jr.
                                   Lois Capps.
                                   Brian N. Baird.
                                   Artur Davis.
                                   Wm. J. Jefferson.
                                   Tom Allen.
                                   Cynthia McKinney.
                                   Ron Kind.
                                   Allyson Y. Schwartz.

                                  
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