Presidential power grab: the line-item veto

Colton Stackman | May 25, 2010 - 5:17 pm
Jack Liberty
May. 29, 2010

President Obama introduced a bill to Congress that would give him the power of the line-item veto. The line-item veto would allow the President to cut certain provisions out of spending bills in order to stop Constitutionally-called-for earmarks or any other kind of spending.

Obama’s plan, as the Washington Times reports, would allow the President…

After any bill that spends money, the White House could send Congress a new bill that calls for specific cuts. Congress would have a set time line to act on the bill, and it would have to hold an up-or-down vote, avoiding a potential Senate filibuster

The reason for sending it back to Congress is due to the fact that when President Bill Clinton tried to gain the power of the line-item veto, the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional. Since that ruling Bush also pushed forward a very similar plan to Obama’s in order to gain for himself the line-item veto. The hope is that allowing Congress to vote on the presidents cut proposals would allow a balance of power to remain and thus it would still be Constitutional.

The proposal is mainly flowered in speech saying that this new line-item veto would help reduce the deficit and would help cut wasteful spending. Sounds good to the ear but does it sound good to real life? I read a report issued by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in 2006 that had this to say on the deficit reducing abilities of the proposal:

The Congressional Budget Office has suggested that the consequences of this proposal might be to increase total spending rather than reduce it, because "Congress might accommodate some of the President's priorities in exchange for a pledge not to propose rescission of certain provisions, thereby increasing total spending." CBO says that studies of states with line-item vetoes have "documented similar devices employed by state legislatures."

The same report quotes columnist George Will who also agrees:

Arming presidents with a line-item veto might increase federal spending, for two reasons. First, Josh Bolten, director of the Office of Management and Budget, may be exactly wrong when he says the veto would be a "deterrent" because legislators would be reluctant to sponsor spending that was then singled out for a veto. It is at least as likely that, knowing the president can veto line items, legislators might feel even freer to pack them into legislation, thereby earning constituents' gratitude for at least trying to deliver. Second, presidents would buy legislators' support on other large matters in exchange for not vetoing the legislators' favorite small items.

This proposal puts to much power into the hands of the President. Congress comes up with legislation and Congress decides how much the American government spends, not the King. The real way to get Congress to stop ridiculous spending is to not vote for senators or representatives that introduce large earmarks or large amounts of spending on ridiculous things such as building nuclear submarines to defend against the Taliban or unconstitutional wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Allowing the President to have a line-item veto upsets the balance of power the Constitution set up.