President Bush on Tuesday assured the Senate that his proposal for a line-item veto, unlike a 1996 version, would pass constitutional muster and would slash pork barrel spending.
“It will shine the light of day on spending items that get passed in the dark of the night,” Bush told a gathering of the Manhattan Institute think tank in Washington.
“A line-item veto would be a vital tool that a president could use to target spending that lawmakers tack on to the large spending bills,” he said. “That’s called earmarking.”
On June 9, Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., promised to ramp up earmark spending if Democrats win control of the House in November, making Moran eligible to head a House appropriations subcommittee.
“When I become chairman, I’m going to earmark the s— out of it,” he vowed at the Arlington County Democratic Committee’s annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner.
Bush said that is precisely the attitude that has allowed earmarking to spiral out of control. He noted that the number of earmarks has skyrocketed from 3,000 to 13,000 over the last decade.
“I don’t think that’s healthy,” he said. “I’m proposing a way to help deal with this problem. And that way is to pass a line-item veto.”
Congress gave President Clinton a line-item veto in 1996, but it was struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional because the president could unilaterally change a law passed by Congress. Bush said his version will avoid that fate.
“When the president sees an earmark or spending provision that is wasteful or unnecessary, he can send it back to the Congress,” he explained. “And Congress is then required to hold a prompt up or down vote on whether to retain the targeted spending. In other words, the Congress is still in the process.”
The House has already passed the line-item veto, which enjoys bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress.
Bush praised Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., for supporting the measure and said it deserves the support of other Democrats who voted for the 1996 version.
