GovernmentExecutive.com

Presidential line-item veto power would probably not have a major impact on government spending, a Congressional Budget Office official told legislators Wednesday.

At a hearing before the House Rules Subcommittee on the Legislative and Budget Process, Donald Marron, the acting director of CBO, testified that proposed legislation to allow the president to veto individual legislative provisions would most likely have a limited effect on actual spending.

Citing a recent precedent, Marron said former President Clinton, who briefly held line-item veto power in 1997 before it was found unconstitutional the following year, accumulated less than $600 million in savings from its use, while total spending in 1998 amounted to about $1.7 trillion.

Presidents have long had the power to recommend rescission of spending authority after its approval, based on the 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act. But between 1976 and 2005, presidents have proposed rescinding only $73 billion, amounting to less than one half of 1 percent of discretionary budget authority, Marron said. Only a third of those proposed cuts were enacted by Congress, he testified.

Historically, Marron said, rescissions have been used not to reduce overall spending but to reallocate funds. Furthermore, the proposed legislation would apply only to discretionary spending, leaving untouched the existing mandatory programs that make up the majority of the federal budget.

While the current rescissions process does not require Congress to vote on presidential proposals (they automatically lapse if not approved within 45 days), a significant change is that current legislation would require Congress to act on any proposals made by the administration.

This change would close a loophole that allows legislators to tacitly turn down a presidential rescission proposal without affecting their voting record.

Marron said the proposed legislation could prompt a subtle shift of legislative and executive branch power, where "the threat of the president's authority to propose rescission of earmarks could restrain the Congress from including some provisions that it might otherwise have incorporated."

On the other hand, he said, the provisions could increase total spending if they resulted in legislators funding presidential priorities in exchange for assurances that their own earmarks would not be vetoed.

Budgetary tools "cannot establish fiscal discipline unless there is a political consensus to do so," Marron concluded. "In the absence of that consensus, the proposed changes...are unlikely to greatly affect the budget's bottom line."

COMMENTS

• Back when George H. Bush was president, Congress passed a line item veto bill. Then Clinton was voted in and some Republican lawmakers went to court and had it declared unconstitutional. In California, which has the line item veto, most of the time it's used to cut budget items of those the governor dislikes. Gray Davis always used it to cut out Republican budget items. Quit with the line item veto. GovExec.com reader Posted March 19, 2006 3:03 AM
• Taxpayer, Did you actually read the entire article, especially the part I quoted below? The threat of public disclosure is the only "weapon" we can use against the "never met a tax dollar I couldn't spend" politicians. "While the current rescissions process does not require Congress to vote on presidential proposals (they automatically lapse if not approved within 45 days), a significant change is that current legislation would require Congress to act on any proposals made by the administration. This change would close a loophole that allows legislators to tacitly turn down a presidential rescission proposal without affecting their voting record. Marron said the proposed legislation could prompt a subtle shift of legislative and executive branch power, where "the threat of the president's authority to propose rescission of earmarks could restrain the Congress from including some provisions that it might otherwise have incorporated." Ted Posted March 20, 2006 9:30 AM
• I would love to see the President be given a line item veto. So much so, that even if we end up with another President Clinton, I want the CEO to have the power to just cancel out the earmarks that my grandchildren, great-grandchildren and likely additional later generations to come will have to pay because of those burros we have in D.C. that can't learn not to spend what they don't have. Hold them accountable for the debt. Not some made-up deficit where they congratulate themselves as not overspending as much as they had planned, but the actual debt. I know this seems to be a foreign concept to most in our society today, but we currently are giving each a $30K debt assigned to every baby born. By giving the President a line item veto, there is someone that can be held accountable by the majority of citizens, not just those that have a stake in keeping the status quo. Remember the "Throw the Bums Out" campaign a few elections ago? The dust settled and it ended up that each district only wanted everyone else to throw their bum out -- they wanted to keep their own who kept the pork flowing home. Skeptical Posted March 20, 2006 9:39 AM