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CLINTON v. CITY OF NEW YORK

Breyer, J., dissenting

eﬁt, estimating annual “value” of beneﬁt, in terms of revenue
loss, at about $20 million) and Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997,
§ 1701, 111 Stat. 1099 (identifying only 79 “limited tax bene-
ﬁts” subject to cancellation in the entire tax statute).

(5) Because the “tax beneﬁt” provisions are part and par-
cel of the budget provisions, and because the Act in deﬁn-
ing them, focuses upon “revenue-losing” tax provisions, 2
U. S. C. § 691e(9)(A)(i) (1994 ed., Supp. II), it regards “tax
beneﬁts” as if they were a special kind of spending, namely
spending that puts back into the pockets of a small group of
taxpayers, money that “baseline” tax policy would otherwise
take from them. There is, therefore, no need to consider
this provision as if it represented a delegation of authority
to the President, outside the budget expenditure context, to
set major policy under the federal tax laws. But cf. Skinner
v. Mid-America Pipeline, supra, at 222–223 (no “different
and stricter” nondelegation doctrine in the taxation context).
Still less does approval of the delegation in this case, given
the long history of Presidential discretion in the budgetary
context, automatically justify the delegation to the President
of the authority to alter the effect of other laws outside
that context.

The upshot is that, in my view, the “limited tax beneﬁt”
provisions do not differ enough from the “spending” provi-
sions to warrant a different “nondelegation” result.

V

In sum, I recognize that the Act before us is novel.

In a
sense, it skirts a constitutional edge. But that edge has to
do with means, not ends. The means chosen do not amount
literally to the enactment, repeal, or amendment of a law.
Nor, for that matter, do they amount literally to the “line
item veto” that the Act’s title announces. Those means do
not violate any basic separation-of-powers principle. They
do not improperly shift the constitutionally foreseen bal-
ance of power from Congress to the President. Nor, since