House passes modified Line-Item Veto (1 Viewer)

[Little-Acorn]

In general, line-item veto power is good IMHO. Unfortunately, a straightforward LIV power is unconstitutional - I unhappily agree with the Supremes on this one. Hopefully the present version isn't... we'll see. IMHO it may be just as unconst as the 1996 one was. The Const says that the President gets an up-or-down veto on an entire bill from Congress - he can't pick and choose, even a little as this bill proposes.

Also unfortunately, it has a six-year sunset provision. My guess is, after six years of this, enough congressional oxen will have been gored, that the Congress won't re-authorize it. Oh well, six years is better than none.

At least this will put Congress on the line to bring their favorite pork projects out into the light and vote on them individually, instead of hiding them in bigger bills.

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http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,200611,00.html

House Approves Weaker Version of Line-Item Veto Power

Thursday, June 22, 2006

WASHINGTON — President Bush would receive greater power to try to kill "pork barrel" spending projects under a bill passed Thursday by the House.

Lawmakers voted to give Bush and his successor a new, weaker version of the line-item veto law struck down by the Supreme Court in 1998, despite a recent series of lopsided votes in which they've rallied to preserve each other's back-home projects. It would expire after six years.

The idea advances amid increasing public concern about lawmakers' penchant for stuffing parochial projects into spending bills that the president must accept or reject in their entirety.

The House passed the bill by a 247-172 vote. Thirty-five Democrats joined with most Republicans in voting for the bill; 15 Republicans opposed the measure and others voted for the bill despite private reservations.

The measure must still pass the Senate, and that's by no means a certainty.

The bill would allow the president to single out items contained in appropriations bills he signs into law, and it would require Congress to vote on those items again. It also could be used against increases in benefit programs and tax breaks aimed at a single beneficiary.

Under the proposal, it would take a simple majority in both the House and the Senate to approve the items over the president's objections.

The hope is that wasteful spending or special interest tax breaks would be vulnerable since Congress might vote to reject such items once they are no longer protected by their inclusion in bigger bills that the president has little choice but to sign.

"This legislation would give the president and Congress an important tool to reduce unjustified earmarks and wasteful spending items that are frequently incorporated into large, essential spending measures," said a White House statement.

Supporters said another result would be that lawmakers would think twice before slipping poorly conceived projects into spending bills.

"The success of this bill will be less in the amount of pork that we line-item veto out and more in how much pork never gets put into the legislation in the first place," said the bill's sponsor, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.


(Full text of the article can be read at the above URL)

 

[Spartacus FPV]

I've got mixed feelings about this, but if it helps balance the budget and cut the fat I'm all for it.

I like the sig by the way.

 

[ShamMol]

*Cough* Still unconstitutional. The president only has the power to veto. He does not have the authorization to send certain provisions back to congress...a bill is a whole thing and the court has established that.

 

[faithful_servant]

The solution is not to enact the LIV, but to require bills to be single line items only. This puts the heat where it belongs - on Congress. The SCOTUS has already determined that the LIV is unconstitutional, so the solution is to require single item bills. The realy great part about this is that the processw ould become so time consuming that the congresscritters would have no time to do anything but decide and vote. No more "junkets", "fact-finding missions", or extended meeting with lobbyists, just legislating, like we're paying them to do. I say we over-work Congress to the point that they are actually doing work that matches thier paycheck. Let's drive out the weak and uncommmitted and make being a congress-critter so stinking tough and miserable that only the most committed people would even consider it.

 

[Little-Acorn]

The solution is not to enact the LIV, but to require bills to be single line items only.

That's also a nice idea, but carries with it the difficulty of saying what is "one item", in true Clintonesque fashion.

There are also times when several items SHOULD be in bills. Such as, it would be an excellent thing to pass a bill saying we will build a fence along the entire Mexican border, AND we will increase staffing of the Border Patrol to adequately patrol it, AND we will give authority to all state and local police to examine the credentials of people the arrest for other offenses (speeding ticket etc.), and turn suspicious ones over to ICE to determine if they are illegal aliens.

Each of those three things are definitely seperate line items. But it's a good idea to keep them all in one bill, because if some pass but others don't, the ones that pass will be seriously hamstrung, and far less effective. All three items go together to form a strategy to secure our borders and deport illegal aliens in a manageable fashion. Leaving out parts of it would put large holes in the whole strategy.

Any line-item veto power, or any requirement to keep bills down to single items, has risks. You could give someone the power to decide if this bill should be split into many single-item bills while that other bill should be kept together. But any power like that, can be abused. etc. etc.

It's not an easy problem. The Framers' solution was to let Congress put anything they wanted into a bill, and give the Prez the up-or-down veto over the whole. There are no perfect solutions, including that one, as the Framers well knew.

 

[faithful_servant]

The other solution is the "pass one, lose one" scenario. Set a limit on the munber of items that a bill can have. If you want your piece bacon in the bill then you've got to drop something else. Limit bills to something like 20 lines and let 'em fight over who's chops get grilled and who's get fed to the dogs.

 

[jamesrage]

In general, line-item veto power is good IMHO. Unfortunately, a straightforward LIV power is unconstitutional - I unhappily agree with the Supremes on this one. Hopefully the present version isn't... we'll see. IMHO it may be just as unconst as the 1996 one was. The Const says that the President gets an up-or-down veto on an entire bill from Congress - he can't pick and choose, even a little as this bill proposes.

I think a line item veto is a good thing.I think another good idea would to make it where the politicians would have to read outloud on tv every bill they proposed.

 

[Binary_Digit]

For certain members of Congress to take a bill that's pretty much required in order to maintain the welfare of the country, and include some bullshit idea that they know damn well wouldn't otherwise be approved by the whole of Congress, is selfish, unjust, morally corrupt, and they should serve time in prison right next to the other ex-politicians who have screwed this country over by manipulating the system and its intent.

So I say make it a Federal crime for any member or committee of Congress to propose any bill that contains pork. If any other member of Congress believes that a bill has pork, they should bring up charges on the person(s) so that a Grand Jury can decide whether the "pork" really is pork, or whether it's actually needed to make the bill work as a law.