Posted on 03/09/2006 4:10:14 AM PST by RWR8189
In the last five years, the federal budget has done a good impression of major league sluggers, bulking up to such frightful proportions as to be almost unrecognizable. Baseball responded to the excess girth by cracking down on steroids. President Bush, however, wants to try stomach stapling. This week, he urged Congress to give him a line-item veto so he can "reduce wasteful spending."
In reality, he's about as likely to cut spending as he is to give the next State of the Union address in Aramaic. Since he took office in 2001, federal outlays have increased by $845 billion a year -- a 27 percent jump after adjusting for inflation. Says budget analyst Brian Riedl of the conservative Heritage Foundation, "He's expanded government more than any president since Franklin Roosevelt."
Bush has shown himself capable of dramatic reversals before. When he turned 40, he abruptly gave up drinking and has been a teetotaler ever since. So this proposal could indicate he's tired of hangovers and is ready to swear off budgetary binging once and for all.
But a line-item veto by itself does nothing to curb fiscal indiscipline. It's not the equivalent of pouring all your booze down the drain. It's more like buying a bottle-emptying machine so you can pour some of it out at some date in the future.
The beauty of this proposal from a politician's point of view, says Chris Edwards, a budget expert at the libertarian Cato Institute, is that "there's no heavy lifting involved." You get credit for taking action to reduce outlays, without antagonizing all the people who get upset when you actually reduce outlays.
Does Bush really want to put Washington on a diet? His latest budget could be taken as evidence that he does, since it would increase outlays by less than needed just to account for inflation. But this total doesn't include all the funds that will almost certainly be needed for Iraq. Nor does it count all the extras that Congress is likely to tack on and Bush is likely to accept.
The president can already veto any spending bill that exceeds his budget request. But Bush has never vetoed a spending bill or any other bill. His father, who was not known as a fiscal bulldog, used the veto 44 times in just four years.
As it happens, what Bush asked for is something less than advertised. Most governors have the power to delete specific items from measures passed by the state legislature. Without a similar check, Congress can attach lamebrained projects to measures the president wants, forcing him to either accept the waste or kill the whole bill.
But when Congress gave President Clinton a line-item veto in 1996, the Supreme Court struck it down. Bush's version wouldn't let him veto items -- merely send particular expenditures back to Congress, which would then be required to vote on them individually. This procedure is supposed to embarrass lawmakers into abandoning some of their most indefensible outlays.
Maybe it would. But Bush can already ask (though not compel) Congress to vote on rescinding individual items -- something he apparently doesn't do very often. When I asked his Office of Management and Budget for a list of "rescissions" he has proposed, I was told there is no such list. One of the few times he's used this prerogative was to excise $2.3 billion from a package of Hurricane Katrina aid last year.
So let's see: Bush rarely asks for rescissions, and he never vetoes spending bills. Why would he use a line-item veto when he doesn't use the powers he already has?
One justification for the change would be that it couldn't do any harm to give him another tool to impose fiscal discipline. In truth, there is some potential harm. Any enhancement of the president's authority can be used for bad purposes as well as good ones.
Suppose Bush, armed with a line-item veto, wanted to force Congress to approve more spending for, say, his Medicare prescription-drug program. One way to coerce individual members to go along is to threaten to kill projects in their home districts.
So the end result could be to enlarge the budget rather than shrink it. If Bush wants to cut spending, all he has to do is muster the will to stand up to Congress. A line-item veto is not what you need if you want to cut spending. It's what you need if you don't.
Copyright 2006 Creators Syndicate
How much of this spending is due to the war and disaster relief?
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
60% of ALL spending is on entitlements... which if cut, will lead to an outright revolution amongst the 42% leftists in this country.
NYT's headline:
GRANNY EATS DOGFOOD TO AFFORD MEDICINE! Republicans dine on caviar and steak!
LLS
Let's give it to him and see what happens. Why are you negative about almost everything having to do with this administration? Much good has come from President Bush.
I don't ask you to like him, just help him do the things you agree with. hildebeast will win if we do not Unite behind those things on which we agree.
Let me quote the Gipper, "Show me a man that disagrees with me 30% of the time, and I'll show you a man that agrees with me 70% of the time".
Reagan understood how to use power.
LLS
The previous bill was struck down by supreme court because it ( paraphase) "Seeded legislative power from congress to the executive branch. It required a 2/3 rds vote to overturn the veto".
This bill only requires a simple majority and is worded as ( paraphrase) "The president effectively asks the congress if they meant to pass that section of the bill". So its toothless unless the msm raises a fuss over it.
It's also kind of insulting as it truly pertains to the fact that most of these so called "legislators" never read a damn thing they vote for.
The constitution vests the power of the purse in the House of Representatives. Shine a spotlight there, if you want change.
I oppose the line-item veto because it doesn't address the need for long-term, structural decreases in government spending. All it does is let politicians beat their chests, smile at the cameras, and proudly declare that they're doing something about wasteful spending.
I am reading the Professors by Horowitz. We need a Horowitz who exposes congressmen, maybe.
Squeal like pigs because the Feds do nothing about spending. Squeal like pigs when the Feds do something about spending. Seems for the Freeper Fringers the only thing they want to do is bitch, bitch, bitch and bitch.
Politics in DC is not nearly as simplistic a game as some Freepers seem to think. A President can NOT just do what ever he wants when ever he wants. Some Freepers need to do more reading and a lot less TV watching. They seem to think US politics works the way they see it on their favorite TV shows. It does not. A President has to ride herd on a large number of competing interests. Thumping his chest and acting macho MAY make the Freeper Fringers all weak in the knees, it does NOT get anything done.
Love the way Freeper Fringers all worship at the shrine of Reagan. The same Reagan that signed two tax hikes, a real Illegal Amnesty and more then doubled the size of the Federal Govt. Reagan knew that compromise was necessary to get things done. Too bad the 100%er forget that element of Regan's Presidency.
I wonder if any of the Polly Annas ever bother to think that if we don't complain about the rotten things our pols do, they will take our silence as tacit approval.
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