White House, Senator lament loss of line item veto

President Clinton Wednesday signed the $520 billion fiscal 1999 omnibus appropriations package passed by Congress, but White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart said the President will miss the line item veto power struck down by the Supreme Court earlier this year as unconstitutional.

"Unfortunately, there are some things in there [for] which, if we still had the tool of the line item veto, we might exercise [it]," Lockhart said, without elaboration. But he added, "On balance, we think the right thing to do is to sign the legislation based on the gains for the American people that the budget provides, especially in the area of education."

Meanwhile, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., one of the Senate's leading line item veto proponents, blasted the omnibus spending bill in a floor speech.

"This bill exceeds the budget ceiling by $20 billion for what is euphemistically called emergency spending, much of which is really everyday, garden- variety, pork barrel appropriations," McCain said. He said that while the bill calls for more than $9 billion in supplemental defense spending, Congress did nothing to improve the retirement benefits for military personnel, the highest priority of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

In a written statement, McCain also cited several projects he called "egregious pork barrel spending." Those included $250,000 for an Illinois firm to research caffeinated chewing gum, as well as $750,000 for grasshopper research in Alaska; $1 million for peanut quality research in Georgia; $1.1 million for manure handling and disposal in Starkville, Miss.; $5 million for a new international law enforcement academy in Roswell, N.M.; $200,000 for research on a turkey carnovirus in Indiana; and $2.5 million for the Office of Cosmetics and Color. In addition, he said, he had a 52-page list of items that meet the traditional definition that he and other "pork watchers" have used in the past.

McCain criticized the process, which he said trampled on his jurisdiction as an authorizing chairman. He said funding for the Advanced Technology Program exceeded both the House and Senate authorized levels.

"What is the purpose of authorizing funding levels, when the appropriators simply ignore it and alone decide how much money to appropriate?" he asked.

McCain said that while the bill included worthwhile spending, he could not support the "wanton fiscal irresponsibility this legislation represents."

McCain has created a "Pork Barreling" Web site listing the spending items he considers wasteful.