House Approves Line-Item Veto for the President

Making good on another Republican campaign promise, the House passed a bill Monday to give presidents a line-item veto, which would permit chief executives to eliminate specific spending items from legislation without vetoing the entire measure.

Supported by 71 Democrats, the House adopted the measure on a 294-134 vote after limiting debate in part to ensure its passage on Monday--the 84th birthday of former President Ronald Reagan, a champion of the line-item veto during his eight years in the White House.

Immediately after the vote, an exuberant House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) called the vote “a very important bipartisan” show of resolve by the new Congress. He and other House GOP leaders attended an emotional birthday cake-cutting event and sang “Happy Birthday” to Reagan.

But a sharp note of partisanship was injected by Rep. Gerald B.H. Solomon (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Rules Committee. “Let’s note for the record that this Republican Congress has given a Democratic President a line-item veto in less than six weeks--unlike the Democratic Congresses that turned a deaf ear to Presidents Reagan and (George) Bush 12 years in a row.”

House enactment of the measure came on the 34th day of the House GOP’s 100-day drive to pass its 10-point “contract with America” by a self-imposed early April deadline.

But having passed the one-third mark, House Republicans are starting to get edgy about meeting the timetable set forth in their campaign vow to vote on all 10 contract planks within that time.

During last week’s debate on unfunded mandates legislation, which the House approved, Republicans limited debate on amendments to five minutes each to hasten floor action. Similar restrictions may also be imposed when the House takes up several anti-crime bills--another plank in the GOP contact.

The House approved the line-item veto after just three days of debate. Despite that and support from President Clinton, the measure faces an uphill battle in the Senate. There, committee work has been stalled twice by disagreements among leading Republicans over how much line-item veto authority a President should have.

Some influential Democrats, including Sen. Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, are expected to delay its enactment--a prospect that Gingrich acknowledged by noting that the GOP will have to “overcome Sen. Byrd.” And some GOP senators want to give the chief executive a more limited version of the line-item veto than that passed by the House.

Line-item veto proponents want to enable a chief executive to reach into, say, a gigantic appropriations bill and kill a specific spending item while approving the rest of the measure. Currently, the only option available to a President is to veto or accept the entire measure.

A President now may propose to rescind specific spending items. But his proposals die unless Congress approves them within 45 days of continuous session. Or as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), a veto proponent, put it: “Doing nothing spends the money.”

Although the President has never had line-item veto power, the governors of 43 states have such power already--and its impact on overall spending has been slight. Studies have shown that governors often have simply used the line-item tool to substitute their own spending priorities for those of state legislatures.

As Rep. Charles W. Stenholm (D-Tex.), a line-item veto backer conceded, spending proposals that are deleted by a presidential line-item veto still “can be spent on other programs”--as opposed to helping reduce the deficit.

Political scientists also warn that the line-item veto can lead to increased spending--particularly if a chief executive and lawmakers engage in a frenzy of vote-trading over pet projects--as has happened in many states.

Skeptics note that the veto could be used against only discretionary spending, which makes up just 36% of the federal budget. Most of the budget--consisting of mandatory entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and interest on the debt--would be exempt from the line-item veto. And mandatory spending is taking up an increasing share of the budget each year.

In some ways, line-item veto is a misnomer. The House measure actually would not allow the President, when a bill comes to his desk for signing, to approve some parts of a bill while vetoing others.

Instead, it would increase his authority to propose the rescission of certain funds after they are appropriated. These rescissions would take effect automatically--unless Congress approves a resolution to block any of them. A President could then veto that resolution, but Congress in turn could override the veto by a two-thirds majority.

In the Senate, Budget Committee Chairman Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) is proposing an alternative to the House bill that would allow a simple majority of Congress to kill presidential rescission proposals.

The disagreement between Domenici and advocates of the tougher House approach, led by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), has caused the postponement of two drafting sessions by the Budget Committee.

Another unresolved issue is the extent to which a presidential line-item veto would be allowed to reach into tax measures, where loopholes and special-interest giveaways often abound.

In all, 223 Republicans and 71 Democrats voted for the bill, while four Republicans, 129 Democrats and one independent voted against it. Eight members did not vote.