Bush asks for line-item veto power

[bascule]

So, I really wonder: Does Bush not remember when Congress gave Clinton line-item veto power, and the Supreme Court struck it down?

 

And how much sense does this request make considering Bush is the only president in history to have never vetoed a bill?

 

http://www.newswatch50.com/news/national/story.aspx?content_id=BBE62577-345B-446B-B250-072223B4A544

[silkworm]

Does this mean he's been reading bills or has someone else been reading for them for him?

[Pangloss]

I think we speculated on this right after the SOTU didn't we? Maybe I'm thinking of a different board.

 

That bit and the "animal-human hybrids" quote had me in stitches. This one will rank right up there with Clinton's stock market investment scheme as "craziest State of the Union Speaches".

[cosine]

LOLXORZ, was that like Bush's skeezy scheme to give the people's social security to investment firms?

[Saryctos]

LOLXORZ, was that like Bush's skeezy scheme to give the people's social security to investment firms?

 

I fail to see how allowing people to invest 2% of their social sec. as they see fit is a "skeezy scheme." It's a fairly smart move seeing as the market outperforming interest rates is almost a guarenteed fact.

[cosine]

People don't "have" social security. Its not "theirs" to invest, the social security that people pay now is used for the current generation. We're in a contract right now where we agree to pay for our elders, and when we're elders ourselves the younger generations will help us.

[Pangloss]

I see nothing about Saryctos' post that indicates a failure to understand how the system works, and I believe his point is a legitimate one. People SHOULD be upset about the way Social Security has been handled, and the fact that the system both fails to reflect reality and performs poorly compared with even modest investments.

 

I also happen to disagree with the current administration's plan, but not because I harbor any illusions about the sanctity of the program, the intelligence of the people running it, or the fatally flawed reasoning behind it.

[cosine]

Social Security is a great program.

 

While privatization has a role in the economy, it is not the only focus, but must be one of two foci around which our economy goes.

[Sisyphus]

So' date=' I really wonder: Does Bush not remember when Congress gave Clinton line-item veto power, and the Supreme Court struck it down?

[/quote']

 

I don't think he follows politics.

[cosine]

I'm sure the court was justified, but I'm wondering if anyone knows on what grounds the court struck it down on.

[JohnB]

It actually strikes me as a reasonable idea.

 

From what I've read, it would seem the POTUS already has a similar modifying power. He could take the legislation, remove the porkbarrelling bits and then send it back to the various houses for redebate as amended. This is probably a long and time consuming process.

 

A "Line Veto" would simplify the process.

 

Alternatively you could add a line to your Constitution similar to the one in ours.

54. The proposed law which appropriates revenue or moneys for the ordinary annual services of the Government shall deal only with such appropriation.

This simple line means that spending bills can only address one type of spending. You can't hide an "Earmark" inside a larger bill.

[Sisyphus]

 

Alternatively you could add a line to your Constitution similar to the one in ours.

54. The proposed law which appropriates revenue or moneys for the ordinary annual services of the Government shall deal only with such appropriation.

This simple line means that spending bills can only address one type of spending. You can't hide an "Earmark" inside a larger bill.

 

That's DEFINITELY what they should do. However, Congress would never support such an amendment, since half the electoral advantage of being an incumbant is bribing the eloctorate with pork-barrel earmarks!

 

As for the line-item veto, I'm still undecided. It seems like it would be very easy to abuse the power.

[Pangloss]

I don't think he follows politics.

 

That's very clever, Sis. You're double-entendring off on one of Bush's old interview quotes, I believe. I got a chuckle out of it.

[Pangloss]

The case for the line item veto has its merits, but the problem ultimately lies not in the inability for the chief executive to remove pork, but in the propensity of the legislators to introduce it.

 

We need to focus on treating the disease with prevention and vaccine, not fret and fuss about over tumor-cutting surgery.

[cosine]

It actually strikes me as a reasonable idea.

 

From what I've read' date=' it would seem the POTUS already has a similar [i']modifying[/i] power. He could take the legislation, remove the porkbarrelling bits and then send it back to the various houses for redebate as amended. This is probably a long and time consuming process.

 

A "Line Veto" would simplify the process.

 

Our congress has something along similar lines, but it isn't used to remove pork (if anything it adds it). Basically both houses of congress have to agree to the same bill, so one house may agree to it, then the other house has to have its wrestle with it, and then it gets sent back to the other house. Anyway it gets wrestled with until both houses agree to the same bill.

 

A Line Veto would enable Bush to strike off any of the compromises that he doesn't like, after they've already been passed by congress. So say a bill thats trying to reduce teen pregnancy might be passed that says it will increase funding to sexual health education while cutting funding to abortion clinics (not that the government funds anything like that in real life, this is hypothetical of course), then Bush could use the line veto to strike out the sexual health education part, and then where would we be.

 

Alternatively you could add a line to your Constitution similar to the one in ours.

54. The proposed law which appropriates revenue or moneys for the ordinary annual services of the Government shall deal only with such appropriation.

This simple line means that spending bills can only address one type of spending. You can't hide an "Earmark" inside a larger bill.

 

Haha that would be really cool to have, but we don't, and I don't think we'd ever get it either. The system sort of has pork barreling built into it. Its not all that bad though...

[Pangloss]

The Catch-22 here is that "lines" have to be defined. And once they're defined, Congress can simply write "lines" with riders attached to them. And they will feel like they HAVE to do that in order to get "what the people want" when the president doesn't want it. So we're right back to where we started.

 

There's a reason why the Constitution was constructed in the way that it is.

[entwined]

I think that we already have the line item veto, at least in a way.

 

The constitution calls for the president to sign the bill if he approves of it, and if he does not approve it, to send it back with a message telling congress why he does not approve of it.

Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a law, be presented to the President of the United States; if he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the objections at large on their journal, and proceed to reconsider it.

It seems to me that this is fine and dandy.

 

If, after all, we allowed a line item veto, wouldn't any such altered bill be re-submitted back to congress to see if it passed congress in the altered form?

 

Actually, it is moot because a line item veto is unconstitutional, absent, of course, a constitutional amendment.

[JohnB]

Cosine, we work in a similar fashion. a bill goes through both Houses then once passed by both Houses it goes to the Governor General for "Royal Assent". (A pleasant fiction as the G-G has very little grounds to refuse assent.)

 

In the case that you outlined, there would be two bills passed in our Parliment, not one. The usual political wrangling would ensue with modifications to both bills and then both would pass.

 

Section 54 simply means that one type of spending can't be hidden inside a bill for a different outlay. It works well for us. BTW our Constitution also forbids our Senate from creating bills that raise revenue, nor can they modify a tax bill so as to increase revenue. All Income bills must originate in the lower House. Is yours the same? (It's a while since I read yours.)

 

The US Constitution was one of those studied in the drafting of the Australian Constitution. (Along with the British and French ones.) By the 1890's, flaws like the ones we are talking about were becoming obvious so our writers added bits to try to improve on what you had done.

 

Another option is for you blokes to admit you made a mistake 200 years ago and ask Her Majesty if she can find it in her heart to forgive you ungrateful revolutionaries and let you become a Constitutional Monarchy. We might even teach you how to play Cricket.

[Jim]

So' date=' I really wonder: Does Bush not remember when Congress gave Clinton line-item veto power, and the Supreme Court struck it down?

 

And how much sense does this request make considering Bush is the only president in history to have never vetoed a bill?

 

http://www.newswatch50.com/news/national/story.aspx?content_id=BBE62577-345B-446B-B250-072223B4A544[/quote']

 

Here's the only article I could readily find which stated Bush's argument/hope re constitutionality:

 

 

 

The six justices in the majority in Clinton et al. v. City of New York et al. include five - Stevens, Ginsburg, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, and Ginsburg - who are still on the bench. The Great Scalia said the line item veto law was constitutional. The Bush administration says its new draft of the line item veto law passes constitutional muster because a presidential "veto" under the law doesn't actually eliminate the spending, it just sends the "vetoed" spending back to Congress for an up-or-down vote. Well, Harriet Miers might buy that argument, but it strikes us that it'd be a tough one to get past justices who were actually confirmed. Maybe the Bush camp is hoping that Roberts and Alito will side with Scalia and that one of the five justices who voted against the line-item veto last time around will be swayed by the minor modifications to abandon their defense of the Presentment Clause. After all, the argument goes, it's the Congress voting to give up its own privileges - they are entitled to some deference.

 

Well, it may be worth a shot. But there are a lot of ironies to savor here besides Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry taking the same side.

 

Arguably, the fact that Bush does not veto under the current set up supports the idea that he needs line-item veto so he can veto pork without sacrificing the entire bill. It may be that the administration wants to gauge support for the line-item veto in this way before pushing for a constitutional amendment. Alternatively, they may be wanting to box in some democrats who might oppose the power.

[bascule]

It seems to me like a line item veto in any form destroys any ability of Congress to achieve bipartisan compromises. The President is left free to strike any language he doesn't like from a bill willy nilly, and the rest passes directly into law.