The Use of Presidential Veto

This power has come to be called a "line-item veto" because of its application to spending elevations: each "line-item" in a budget refers to a specific appropriation, so that the executive director (a governor, or in the view of proponents of a Federal line-item veto, the president) go off veto that particular appropriation while passing the stay put of the budget into law ("Line-Item Veto," Congressional Digest, 1990).

The principal argument in favor of a line-item veto is that it would permit the President to transfer so-called "pork barrel" items -- treasures that benefit mainly single(a) Congressional districts, and therefore are beneficial to individual members of Congress, besides are non relevant to national needs (Buckley, 1991). In particular, a line-item veto, supporters argue, would prevent the Congress from attaching unwanted "riders" onto important bills. A "rider" is an amendment to a bill, one which may have cryptograph at all to do with the main subject of the bill. For example, an amendment providing financial support for a local pork-barrel highway project in any(prenominal) congressional district -- big businessman be attached to a defense or foreign-aid appropriation bill.

Congress sometimes attaches such(prenominal) unrelated riders, requiring some expenditure, onto a "must pass" bill -- the main appropriation for the Defense Department, for example, or a measure to raise the legal ceiling on the national debt. adversity to enact such a measure into law might throw the government into chaos. Wh

In summary, there are three strong reasons to cast motion on the value of a line-item veto in compulsory Federal spending. First, even if it could in fact control spending, it would pitch to unbalance our constitutional system of government, and would probably lead to to a greater extent rather than less political gridlock in Washington. Second, there is weeny evidence that Presidents, under the present system, are really "held surety" by Congressional "riders" and other unwanted budgetary line-items.

triplet and finally, there is no evidence that modern Presidents, if they had greater budgetary power, would use it to actually cut total spending, rather than provided deflecting it to their preferred programs and priorities.

----. (1990, July 2). Bush's veto strategy. U.S. rude(a)s and World Report, 109, pp. 18-20.

Gerberg, Mort. (1987). The U.S. Constitution for everyone. New York: Perigee.

When a President does veto a bill, moreover, the veto has mostly been sustained. President Reagan won most of his veto fights. President Bush, indeed, has followed a "veto strategy" throughout his term ("Bush's Veto strategy", 1990). As this is written (November 6, 1991) Cable News Network reports that President Bush has, so far, had a unbroken record of victory in his vetoes to date. This record of Presidential vetoes, even of critical bills, suggests that when a President feels strongly enough about some line-item in a bill, he does not hesitate to veto the wide-cut bill in order to force Congress to obliterate that line-item. When a President has protested a line-item in a bill, but signed the bill anyway, it has generally been an indication that he did not really feel all that strongly about the line-item to which he objected.

----. (1990, June). The line-item veto: A logical starting point for monetary reform. Nation's Business, 78, p. 79.

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