President Clinton blew his chance to cut billions of dollars in pork barrel projects by ineffectively using the line item veto in its first year of existence, Senate Commerce Chairman McCain charged Wednesday.
"I think he's bungled an enormous opportunity to delete wasteful and unnecessary spending," McCain said in an interview. "We identified billions of dollars that should have been vetoed."
Clinton vetoed 82 items totaling just $1.9 billion.
McCain sent Clinton letters on several of the appropriations bills, pointing out projects he believed should have been cut. McCain said he used criteria developed by budget watchdog groups, but that the administration never established standards for cutting spending.
"They should use some criteria," he said, adding the lack of guidelines led to charges the administration was politicizing the power.
A Clinton administration official disputed McCain's argument that one set of standards should be developed for all funding measures. "We simply disagree that one distinct set of criteria will cover all the different types of spending in the 13 appropriations bills," OMB spokesman Lawrence Haas told CongressDaily.
In addition, the administration attempted to make it clear that "we want to respect Congress' role in the appropriations process," Haas said. While the administration admitted it made some mistakes in vetoing a few military construction projects, Haas said when the administration was not sure about a project, "we gave deference to Congress."
McCain said the administration should have made the appropriations committees aware of its criteria ahead of time and told them, "If it falls within that criteria, we will veto it. Period. End of story."
The lack of criteria, McCain argued, led to successful passage of legislation overturning Clinton's veto of projects in the Military Construction appropriations bill. Although Clinton then vetoed the bill nullifying his line item vetoes, McCain predicted Congress would override the veto of that bill when it returns. That action, he said, will show the line item veto did not result in a "huge shift of power" to the executive branch, as some critics feared.
McCain said he was most disturbed by wasteful spending in the Defense appropriations bill, contending that 12,000 military families are living on food stamps at the same time that Congress funded pork barrel projects.
Asked how members reacted to his letters recommending vetoes of their projects, McCain said it ranged from "amusement to anger."
Asked how the line item veto could be improved, McCain bluntly replied, "Get an administration with some guts."
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