More
Power to the President:
The
Line Item and Line Reduction Veto
Many
people have heard of the Line Item Veto.
It’s the type of veto that President Clinton used to strike provisions from
Federal spending bills before signing them into law. The Congress had the opportunity to overturn
these veto provision by vetoed provision with the traditional 2/3 override as
prescribed by the Constitution. However,
it was deemed by the Supreme Court to be unconstitutional for the Constitution
stipulates that the President can only veto an entire law, not individual
provisions. I think it is time though to
add the Line Item Veto to the Constitution.
The
Line Item Veto I want only applies to government spending. If say Congress wants to buy a missile, but
the military says they don’t need it, then President can use the Line Item Veto
to cut it from the spending bill while leaving everything else intact. It will only apply to budget items, the things
government spends our tax dollars on and nothing else.
To
get this addition you will need a Constitutional Amendment which outlines
exactly how it is to be used. It would
allow the President to veto the money going to specific programs, projects,
agencies or even entire Federal Departments which would result in there
termination. However, Congress must be
allowed to overturn those veto's with a 2/3’s majority on a one to one
basis. For example the President veto’s
a missile project and a new Federal Agency, Congress would have to overturn
these two veto's individually. Why
individually you ask? By having Congress
vote on each one individually it prevents the usual give and take politics that
politicians use to get their pet projects passed. So if both veto's were together the people who
liked the individual pieces being vetoed would overturn the veto. But separately these two groups would be a minority if they voted on each one
individually and thus preventing the unnecessary law from passing. It becomes insurance to make
sure the majority of Congress believes it’s worth the expense.
The
other veto I call for is the Line Reduction Veto. It works very similarly to the Line Item
Veto, but rather than an outright veto of a particular spending provision it
merely reduces the amount of money going to a particular project, program,
agency or department. The project,
program, agency or department will still remain, but the money going to it is
“reduced.” The President will not have
the power to reduce spending to one program only to increase another’s for this
would make the President more subject to lobbying than he/she already is and it
would hinder the checks and balances of the government. It also needs a constitutional amendment and
would compliment the Line Item Veto.
With
the Line Reduction Veto the President can only reduce the amount of money going
to a federal expenditure and then like normal he would sign the bill into
law. Congress would have its 2/3’rd
override and vote on each individual spending reduction if the reduction was
deemed worthy enough to try and be overturned.
The override process is exactly the same as the Line Item Veto. It works because say you can’t eliminate a
program with the Line Item Veto, and then you can just reduce its money to
minimize the damage to our society. Or
say the agency getting the money constantly has a surplus, but the agency in
question keeps getting even more money, so the President can reduce the amount
going to that agency.
We
need these two options to the traditional veto.
For one it allows the president more flexibility to get rid of arbitrary
federal spending by controlling it. At
the same time it forces integrity on the Congress through the veto override
process by having them vote based on the merit of the spending itself. Checks and balances are still maintained due
to the 2/3’s override by Congress while the courts maintain there judicial
review authority.
There
are a few objections to both these types of veto's. One of the fears is that the President will
horse trade with members of Congress, allowing certain programs and projects in
while saying no to others, or in the case of the Line Reduction Veto,
sabotaging others. It could even allow
the President to get political revenge on certain groups and politicians. However, this truly does not concern me. It does not concern me for much of the fluff
the President will horse trade and terminate are pet projects used by
politicians to continuously get elected as that money and projects go to
benefit their campaign financiers. Plus
its not like this is not already done, it instead will become much more visible
to the general public. So it really
comes down to my hope that superfluous spending will at least be reduced. Therefore we must rely on the integrity of
the President who we vote into office.
It’s
not like the President doesn’t have power over spending. He can freeze spending, but that program will
still be getting money that it has been allocated.
In other words the money will simply sit there. But with the Line Item Veto and the Line Reduction
Veto we give more flexibility to sure up Americas
I hope you enjoyed the article, tomorrow I switch from political reform to technology with "sonic Screwdrivers"....stay tuned :)
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