Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 494.0

524US2

Unit: $U93

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Cite as: 524 U. S. 417 (1998)

449

Kennedy, J., concurring

may not be desirable, but it is surely not a document that
may “become a law” pursuant to the procedures designed by
the Framers of Article I, § 7, of the Constitution.

If there is to be a new procedure in which the President
will play a different role in determining the ﬁnal text of what
may “become a law,” such change must come not by legisla-
tion but through the amendment procedures set forth in
Article V of the Constitution. Cf. U. S. Term Limits, Inc. v.
Thornton, 514 U. S. 779, 837 (1995).

The judgment of the District Court is afﬁrmed.

It is so ordered.

Justice Kennedy, concurring.
A Nation cannot plunder its own treasury without putting
its Constitution and its survival in peril. The statute before
us, then, is of ﬁrst importance, for it seems undeniable the
Act will tend to restrain persistent excessive spending.
Nevertheless, for the reasons given by Justice Stevens in
the opinion for the Court, the statute must be found invalid.
Failure of political will does not justify unconstitutional
remedies.

I write to respond to my colleague Justice Breyer, who
observes that the statute does not threaten the liberties of
individual citizens, a point on which I disagree. See post, at
496–497. The argument is related to his earlier suggestion
that our role is lessened here because the two political
branches are adjusting their own powers between them-
selves. Post, at 472, 482–483. To say the political branches
have a somewhat free hand to reallocate their own authority
would seem to require acceptance of two premises: ﬁrst, that
the public good demands it, and second, that liberty is not at
risk. The former premise is inadmissible. The Constitu-
tion’s structure requires a stability which transcends the
convenience of the moment. See Metropolitan Washington
Airports Authority v. Citizens for Abatement of Aircraft
Noise, Inc., 501 U. S. 252, 276–277 (1991); Bowsher v. Synar,