Essay, Research Paper: The Line Item Veto

The Line Item Veto

President Clinton signed into law the Line item veto act
of 1996, on April 9,1996. The Impoundment Control Act were
amended by adding at the end a new part on line item veto. The
section added to the ICA is named the Public Laws 104-130. The
Line Item Veto was added to the powers of the president on
January 1, 1997. The power of the Line Item veto will then be
Terminated on the sunset of December 31, 2004.
Previously the constitution allowed the president only
to either agree and accept a whole bill or reject or veto the
whole thing. Now, the Line Item Veto gives the president
conditional powers to cancel , or line items of certain parts
of the bill which he disagrees with. The President however,
cannot just cross out any part of a bill he doesn't like with;
he can only cancel something under certain circumstances.
He has to provide congress with reason for the cancellation
and he also has to consider previous legislative histories and
information referenced in law. These cancellations are then
considered by congress and the senate budget committees. If
they do not give back a disapproval bill to the president, it
means that they have agreed with the cancellations of
certain parts of the bill. If they do give a disapproval bill back
to the president the cancellations are now void.
The line-item veto law's intention is to reduce the deficit
and surpluses. Congress and the president claim that by using
the Line Item Veto method that the federal government will
save $569 million over 5 years.
The line item veto has been argued and debated upon in
many cases. One argument started the day after the Line item
Veto act went into effect. This case was Raines vs. Byrd, it
dealt with the constitutionality of the line item veto. The case
was dismissed because the court felt that they did not have a
proper 'standing' .
Another case in which the Line Item Veto was argued
upon was when NY sued . The Line Item veto had caused
NY to lose a provision that would reduced the state of New
York's spending on the Medicaid health care program for the
poor.
Congress feels that the Line Item Veto will help out the
deficit the government is having right now, and do not think
that it is a shift of power like others think. The congressional
budget office has projected an $8 billion surplus for fiscal
1998.
Another incidence in which the president has again used
his power of the line item veto was on military construction.
The bill spends money on the improving National Guard and
Reserve Centers, barrack construction and more. However,
the money spent on all of this construction is considered to be
a very large amount of money and as Rahm Emmanuel, senior
administration official, said, " a blow to the status quo in this
country". Also, after the houses debated this issue using the
line item veto procedure, 129 projects that the pentagon did
not want, was added on the list of projects.
I personally do not agree with the Line Item veto for
many reasons. One of them is that it gives too much power to
the President. At first glance, it seems as if when the
president gives in a list of lined items to the congress that he
does not agree with, that it goes through a vigorous process
before they are actually considered to be canceled. This is
untrue. While congress may write a disapproval bill to the
president attempting to nullify the presidents actions, the
president can still very easily get his way. All he has to do is
get support from either 1/3 of the house of rep.'s or the
senate to veto the disapproval bill. There is a very big chance
that the president can rally up 33% of one or the other house
and as you see he will get whatever he wants.
Another reason why I do not agree with the Line Item
Veto is because is because in the case that a forceful
president like, Richard Nixon came along with the power of
the Line Item Veto the power may be misused. For example; the
president could use the veto as blackmail to force someone to
support a presidential position.
Something else which also confuses me about the
constitutionality and whole position on the Line item veto is
why it was not made an amendment. I would expect something
that big, and the great shift of power to make a change in the
constitution, however it didn't; it was considered a change in
the statute.
The "lock-box" which is kept to insure that any savings
from cancellations go toward deficit reduction can also be
harmful. Although this is said to keep the money secure, once
billions start piling up in their, congress and the President
would find some urge to go spend in on something. This
wouldn't be too harmful if what they were spending the money
on was a good cause, but this defeats the whole purpose of
the "Lock-Box".
The military construction incidence, the "lock-box"
evidence and the excessive amount of power given to the
president are just a few reasons I disagree with the Line Item
Veto. I hope you have seen how this new method is really doing
no help to our budget and is giving more power to our
president and the ones to come. The whole reason why we are
now not under the control of Britain is because Britain was
governing us under a gov't which gave too much rule to one
person or group of people, and to have the Line Item Veto
method in our country is contradicting everything we stand
for.