Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 470.0

524US2

Unit: $U93

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

425

Opinion of the Court

amendment to § 1042 was one of the 79 “limited tax beneﬁts”
authorized by the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 and speciﬁ-
cally identiﬁed in Title XVII of that Act as “subject to [the]
line item veto.” 6

On the same date that he canceled the “item of new direct
spending” involving New York’s health care programs, the
President also canceled this limited tax beneﬁt.
In his ex-
planation of that action, the President endorsed the objective
of encouraging “value-added farming through the purchase
by farmers’ cooperatives of reﬁners or processors of agricul-
tural goods,” 7 but concluded that the provision lacked safe-
guards and also “failed to target its beneﬁts to small-and-
medium-size cooperatives.” 8

II

Appellees ﬁled two separate actions against the President 9
and other federal ofﬁcials challenging these two cancella-
tions. The plaintiffs in the ﬁrst case are the City of New
York, two hospital associations, one hospital, and two unions
representing health care employees. The plaintiffs in the
second are a farmers’ cooperative consisting of about 30 po-
tato growers in Idaho and an individual farmer who is a
member and ofﬁcer of the cooperative. The District Court
consolidated the two cases and determined that at least one

6 § 1701(30), 111 Stat. 1101.
7 App. to Juris. Statement 71a (Cancellation No. 97–2). On the day the
President canceled § 968, he stated: “Because I strongly support family
farmers, farm cooperatives, and the acquisition of production facilities by
co-ops, this was a very difﬁcult decision for me.” App. 125. He added
that creating incentives so that farmers’ cooperatives can obtain process-
ing facilities is a “very worthy goal.”

Id., at 130.

8 App. to Juris. Statement 71a (Cancellation No. 97–2). Section 968 was
one of the two limited tax beneﬁts in the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 that
the President canceled.

9 In both actions, the plaintiffs sought a declaratory judgment that the
Line Item Veto Act is unconstitutional and that the particular cancellation
was invalid; neither set of plaintiffs sought injunctive relief against the
President.