Politics,  Taxes

House of Representatives Watch: House Approves Line-Item Veto?

White House budget director Rob Portman is seen on Capitol Hill, May 11, 2006. President Bush’s drive for line-item veto power to control deficit-spending is facing resistance in the U.S. House of Representatives where the outcome of a vote scheduled for Thursday is in doubt, Portman said on Tuesday.

AP: House approves watered-down line-item veto

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.

Well, this bill is better than nothing but NOT by much. And this bill is far weaker than the bill passed while Bill Clinton was in office – but later declared overtruned by the U.S. Supreme Court. In that particular bill, the President could strike out an item from appropriations or tax legislation and the Congress would have to overturn this veto by a 2/3 vote.

The Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional two years later because it let the president single-handedly change laws passed by Congress.

It’s not clear that the new spending control tool would be very effective. Congress easily mustered the two-thirds margins needed to override Clinton’s 1997 vetoes of military construction projects. More recently, lawmakers have united to reject attacks by a lone conservative, Rep. Jeff Flake (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., to strip from spending bills the very kind of projects the new line-item veto is aimed at attacking.

But, the pork-laden federal budget has to be controlled. There is too much parochial spending. If this legislation fails in the U.S. Senate, then the House should introduce a constitutional amendment and give the President a stronger and true line-item veto.

Stay tuned….

Captain Ed has Line-Item Veto Passes House

The roll call vote can be found here. Voters concerned about earmarks and corruption should note those who opposed this measure. The following Republicans decided to back away from the line-item veto:

Aderholt
Buyer (there’s a name for you!)
Emerson
Hobson
Jones (NC)
Lewis (CA)
Northrup
Otter
Paul
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Simmons
Simpson
Sweeney
Walsh

The inclusion of Jerry Lewis, the head of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, comes as no surprise. After all, Lewis sent $11 million in earmarks to Trident Systems, whose president paid Lewis’ stepdaughter almost a third of all the money raised by his PAC, for which she was employed. Lewis doesn’t want to lose his political heft and ability to direct federal funds to the beneficiaries of his family — which gives us more reason to cheer this vote.


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