The Line Item Veto Act is on a fast track at the Supreme Court, which will hear arguments Tuesday and has promised to issue a ruling by July. The act grants the president the power to cancel individual items of spending after signing into law the entire appropriations bill in which they are included. Federal Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson last month struck down the act before it had ever been used, saying that it violates the Constitution by delegating to the president a power that properly belongs to Congress. But the Line Item Veto Act lets laws repealing appropriations be made by the president alone. The good that the act would do by controlling spending pales in comparison to the harm that it does to the Constitution.
Constitutional alternatives are available.
Consider how pork gets into the federal budget in the first place. Congressman Porkpie says he won't vote to let an appropriations bill out of subcommittee unless it includes a dam for his district. The subcommittee adds this item to the thousands of other such special requests already in the bill not because it's in the national interest, but because Rep. Porkpie's vote is essential. The result is an omnibus spending bill larded with pork. Legislators and the president disclaim responsibility for the fatty items by arguing that the only alternative would be no budget at all.