House Passes Bill Giving President a Line-Item Veto

In a historic vote that will transform the balance of power in Washington, the House gave final congressional approval Thursday to legislation giving the president power to veto individual spending items without killing an entire bill.

The line-item veto, already passed by the Senate and virtually certain to be signed by President Clinton, was approved by a vote of 232 to 177 amid a flurry of floor action designed to resolve unsettled budget and legislative issues before a two-week congressional recess scheduled to begin Saturday.

The House also approved legislation that would avert a potential government default for more than a year and adopted two other items from the GOP’s “contract with America”--a measure to ease the regulatory burden on small businesses and another to permit Social Security recipients to earn more outside income without losing benefits. After the debt-limit package was approved by the House, 328 to 91, the Senate adopted it by voice vote, sending the measure to the White House for Clinton’s expected signature.

Congressional action on the debt-limit package and the line-item veto was touted by GOP leaders as a refutation of criticism from Democrats and other analysts that this is shaping up as a “do-nothing Congress” with few legislative accomplishments.

“This bill proves the pundits wrong,” said House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas). “The ‘contract with America’ is alive and well.”

But Democrats tried to rain on the GOP parade by disrupting debate with delaying tactics and an effort--ultimately unsuccessful--to force a vote on increasing the minimum wage.

“For all its fancy sloganeering, the ‘contract with America’ represented the greatest redistribution of income from the middle class to the wealthy since the days of the robber barons,” said House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.).

Even as Republicans sought to claim credit for their legislative accomplishments and to put an end to months of dithering over the debt limit, they were still struggling to reach agreement among themselves and with the White House on a separate measure to fund much of the government for the rest of the fiscal year.

In an unusual parliamentary maneuver, the line-item veto measure was approved when the House voted, 232 to 177, to adopt a resolution setting the terms of floor debate for the debt-limit bill. The issues were brought to the floor together to blunt conservative Republicans’ opposition to raising the debt limit, but the resolution called for sending the line-item veto to the president as a separate measure.

The line-item veto, one of the most significant legislative accomplishments of the GOP-controlled Congress, grants a power sought by every modern president.

“Today we really are entitled to say [that] . . . this is indeed an historic bill,” said Rep. William F. Clinger (R-Pa.).

For much of the nation’s history, presidents enjoyed a power that was the functional equivalent of the line-item veto: They could impound, or refuse to spend, money that Congress appropriated. That impoundment power was taken away in 1974.

The annals of history give some guide to the kind of spending items that past presidents might have targeted with a line-item veto. President Jefferson refused to spend $50,000 for gunboats on the Mississippi River, which he deemed no longer necessary after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Several 20th century presidents, from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Lyndon B. Johnson, impounded or deferred domestic funds to save money during wartime.

Richard Nixon, however, sometimes refused to spend money simply because he did not like a program. He once withheld as much as $18 billion in money provided by Congress--including federal funds for highways, sewers and education.

The line-item veto bill now headed for Clinton’s signature would allow the president to cancel individual items in appropriations bills, block targeted tax benefits aimed at 100 or fewer beneficiaries and veto any new entitlement spending. Under current law, the president faces an all-or-nothing choice between vetoing a spending or tax bill in its entirety or signing it, and so he often has to swallow spending provisions that he opposes.

The new power will not go into effect until Jan. 1, 1997--after the 1996 election decides whether a Republican or Democratic president will be the first to wield it. A Democratic effort to make the power effective immediately was defeated on a 256-159 vote.

Proponents of the legislation called it a powerful new tool to combat wasteful spending, especially the sort of pork-barrel projects with which lawmakers typically lard appropriations bills.

“This may not be a good week for pork, but it’s a great week for the American taxpayer,” DeLay said.

Opponents said the measure represents a reckless transfer of power to the White House that is likely to disrupt the balance of power designed by the Founding Fathers. They predicted that it would give the president undue power to punish lawmakers by killing projects for their districts.

“Mark my words. We will live to regret the usurpation of power we invite by future presidents of the United States,” said Rep. David E. Skaggs (D-Colo.).

Under the line-item veto measure, Congress will have a chance to override the president by passing a bill to restore items canceled by the president. The president could veto that bill, and a two-thirds majority of both chambers would be required to override.

The debt-limit bill was needed because the government’s authority to borrow is due to expire at midnight tonight. The bill raises the ceiling on the national debt from $4.9 trillion to $5.5 trillion--enough to keep the government solvent until about October 1997.

That puts the sensitive fiscal issue out of the line of political fire until long after the 1996 elections, ending uncertainty about the nation’s credit-worthiness for the first time since December, when the debt limit became embroiled in the larger budget dispute between Clinton and the GOP.

Many Republicans in Congress, especially in the House, had said they would not approve a long-term increase in the debt ceiling unless Clinton agreed to a seven-year plan to balance the federal budget. After it became clear that an agreement was out of reach, Republican leaders decided to festoon the debt-limit measure with a few items from their unfinished legislative agenda.

The Social Security provision would allow the elderly to earn more in wages before their benefits are reduced. At present, people age 65 to 69 who earn more than $11,520 annually have their benefits reduced $1 for every $3 they earn. The bill sent to the White House would raise that limit gradually to $30,000 by the year 2002.

The debt-limit bill also includes a regulatory reform measure designed to ease the burden of federal rules on small businesses. It would require government agencies to consider the adverse impact of proposed rules on small businesses and give small businesses new power to mount court challenges to rules.

Although the debt-limit crisis is resolved, White House and congressional negotiators are still struggling to address another budget problem by midnight today. That is when temporary funding for much of the federal government will expire, and negotiators are at work on an appropriations measure to provide funding for the rest of the fiscal year and avoid another government shutdown this weekend.

The appropriations measures passed by the House and Senate include less for education and the environment than Clinton wants as well as amendments on environmental protection and other issues that the White House opposes.

Negotiators reported some progress toward an agreement, when House Republicans began softening their opposition to higher funding levels for Clinton priorities such as education, the environment and anti-crime programs. However, significant areas of controversy remained, such as antiabortion provisions that the administration opposes and a Senate proposal, opposed by House Republicans, to repeal a law requiring the discharge of military personnel who test positive for HIV, the virus that cause AIDS.

If agreement is not reached by the end of the week--when Congress is expected to begin a two-week recess--GOP leaders have indicated that they would pass another three- or four-week stopgap spending bill to keep the government running until a compromise can be reached.

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Vote on Line-Item Veto

Here is how members of the California delegation voted Thursday in the 232-177 roll call by which the House passed legislation giving the president authority to veto separate items in appropriations bills:

Republicans for--Baker, Bilbray, Bono, Calvert, Campbell, Cox, Cunningham, Doolittle, Dornan, Dreier, Gallegly, Herger, Horn, Hunter, Kim, Lewis, McKeon, Moorhead, Packard, Pombo, Radanovich, Riggs, Rohrabacher, Royce, Seastrand, Thomas

Democrats for--None

Republicans against--None

Democrats against--Becerra, Beilenson, Berman, Brown, Condit, Dellums, Dixon, Dooley, Eshoo, Farr, Fazio, Harman, Lantos, Lofgren, Martinez, Matsui, Miller, Pelosi, Roybal-Allard, Stark, Torres, Waters, Waxman, Woolsey

Democrats not voting--Filner