I like the idea of the line item veto.
Take this ports thing for example. The Congresscritters today use big bills to slip other things into it. They are connecting the ports thing with a defense bill.
It isn't right to do things that way. I just use that as an example. There have been many other bills that had horrible additions to them, but the main part of the bill included something this President ran on so he signed it. A lot of it came when the Senate was still split relatively evenly between the relatively conservative and the liberal GOP and dems, but things are shifting again I think.
Well I don't. It gives the President too much power over Congressmen, as I indicated, while providing too little protection against actual abuses.
I might be able to see the argument if the President had been in the habit of pointing to portions of bills that he'd been "forced" to sign and criticizing Congress for them and saying that he would have vetoed them if he had the option of doing so. But he refuses to even take that much of a stand. How's that supposed to earn anyone's confidence that he has the right motivation for wanting this power?
If Congress passes bills with unacceptable riders, he should really get in the habit of vetoing them until they get the message.