The NYT reports this morning that Barack Obama, like many presidents before him, is now seeking line-item veto authority.
President Obama, in his latest effort to signal fiscal responsibility against the rising debt, plans this month to ask Congress to give him and future presidents greater power to try to delete individual items from spending bills.
In doing so, Mr. Obama will join a long line of his predecessors who have sought either line-item veto power or, after the Supreme Court in 1998 ruled such a veto unconstitutional, some other rescission authority that passes muster. Congress once again is unlikely to be receptive, though growing antidebt sentiment could give the proposal life.
Of course cynics like me would say “Now why would someone who has racked up a trillion or two in debt be suddenly interested in vetoing spending items from his own party?” The answer, I believe, is: “he isn’t.” The more likely scenario is that Obama is preparing for an increasingly-likely GOP takeover of the House and Senate, and (more importantly) he may be positioning to fight Republican efforts to repeal the now-passed healthcare “reform” legislation.
Since Obama is certain to veto any legislation to repeal HCR, the only real way for Republicans to push through a rollback would be to attach repeal measures to spending bills that Obama would not be likely to veto in total. A line-item veto would provide the means to cut those items while leaving spending intact. Now if a GOP-controlled Congress simply fails to fund HCR items, this obviously is irrelevant, since he could not veto what does not exist. But if the Republicans used other means to repeal, the line-item veto could provide Obama the ability to eliminate them.
Based on past history, the President is unlikely to succeed. But this could be the early warning sign that the Democrats are preparing for the inevitable battle royal on healthcare repeal.
Jeff Emanuel
Dan Spencer
Neil Stevens
Caleb Howe
Daniel Horowitz
Lori Ziganto
Moe Lane
How did Kennedy vote on the line item veto case in 1998
Leopard1996 (Diary) Friday, May 7th at 12:51PM EDT (link)If he voted with the majority to not allow Clinton to have it, then we are probably safe, but if decides to go ahead and lean toward his more progressive leanings, we will be screwed.
“The accumluated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout, “Save Us!”….and I’ll look down and whisper, “No”…The Watchmen
Line Item Veto = Disaster
Duke Friday, May 7th at 12:58PM EDT (link)Wisconsin has the line item veto, and is not in the process of trying to restrict it again, because it allows the executive to legislate. When Tommy Thompson was Gov. he turned it into what became known as the “Vanna White Veto.” He struck individual letters and numbers to make legislation, mainly the state budget, say something entirely different than what was passed by the legislature.
That was changed to require that only whole words could be vetoed. Gov. Doyle adapted that to, again, amend legislation by striking whole pages of words in order to get to the word he wanted to create a new sentence.
We’re now trying to amend the state constitution again to require the Gov. to veto entire items, not just words. It’s like we’ve moved from letters to words, and now we’re on our way to whole sentences and soon paragraphs. It’s like herding cats, or nailing Jello to the wall.
This would be a horrible power to give to the U.S. President, and especially to a social engineer like Obozo!
It’s not about a purge. It’s about an insurrection.
Opps
Duke Friday, May 7th at 1:00PM EDT (link)Change “Wisconsin has the line item veto, and is not in the process…” to “Wisconsin has the line item veto, and is NOW in the process…”
See, now, that’s how the stock market gets trashed!! It couldn’t be the ‘bamster’s fault.
It’s not about a purge. It’s about an insurrection.
That's not the kind of line item veto we usually talk about
Neil Stevens (Diary) Friday, May 7th at 1:22PM EDT (link)For DC we usually talk about a line item veto restricted to allowing the President to remove specific appropriations, and that’s it.
RS contributing editor and “a hardy variety of crabgrass.”
Read the RedState Posting Rules
Unlikely Voter: Poll Analysis, Election Projection.
“I rejoice that America has resisted.” – William Pitt, the Elder
File "Line Item Veto" under "things that sounded good at the time"
GCBWI (Diary) Friday, May 7th at 4:41PM EDT (link)Set up a system and sooner or later people will figure out how to use that system to do things that weren’t intended. Senators and representatives load bills with amendments/riders which don’t have anything to do with the original purpose of the bill because they’re allowed to do so.
It’s natural to think, well, just change the rules so that they can’t do that. Easily said, not so easily done. The line item veto is one such attempt.
As Duke notes above, it’s very hard to write up the constitutional language for a line item veto so that it accomplishes the only the intended goal without giving the executive more dangerous powers.
Wouldn't the more likely explanation just be more power?
earlgrey (Diary) Friday, May 7th at 1:05PM EDT (link)As much as I would like to be hopeful about Repeal HCR.
This is why Line-item veto is a disaster
crassus (Diary) Friday, May 7th at 1:08PM EDT (link)What about “comprehensive immigration reform”
Veto border security
Sign the rest
Mitt Romney advocated this in 2008 against Giuliani, and he was dead wrong. Whatever, “pragmatic” benefits it provides, it is a disaster waiting to happen.
Again, not if it's limited to appropriations (nt)
Neil Stevens (Diary) Friday, May 7th at 1:22PM EDT (link)RS contributing editor and “a hardy variety of crabgrass.”
Read the RedState Posting Rules
Unlikely Voter: Poll Analysis, Election Projection.
“I rejoice that America has resisted.” – William Pitt, the Elder
Nope
crassus (Diary) Friday, May 7th at 8:29PM EDT (link)Will it really be limited to “appropriations”? Reconcilliation was supposed to be used only for budgetary matters that reduced the deficit. Did Obamacare meet either of these qualifications? Not a chance. But it was still allowed to go through anyway. Furthermore, I agree with Rudy (which isn’t too often) that it is unconstitutional. Line-item veto is no way to reduce the deficit. In fact, not even cutting programs will do it. Sevaral departments need to go- Re- Education, No Energy, Homelessness & Urban Destruction.
Line-item veto, like term limits, is great when it applies to the other guy,
Achance (Diary) Friday, May 7th at 1:26PM EDT (link)but it really sucks when it applies to you. We have it at the state level here and it is simply used as a means to reward friends and punish enemies and you constantly have a state of war between governors and finance committee chairs. In some cases it results in MORE spending because you have to buy chits to over-ride the vetoes in order to pass things.
In Vino Veritas
I was thinking about term limits the other day...
crassus (Diary) Friday, May 7th at 8:43PM EDT (link)Two of the big things from the famed “Contract With America” are being talked about a lot today. Additionally, they are both Constitutional amendments.
(1) Term Limits
(2) Balanced Budget
First off, forgetting whether or not it is feasible, I do not support term limits. It will not, in my opinion, reduce ‘corruption’- if anything it might do the opposite. The bigger point is that there are just as many scoundrels in their first term (Bernie Sanders, Jeff Merkely) as there are who’ve been in the senate for decades (Harry Reid, Dick Durbin). In fact, even in the Republican caucus, some of our best have been in congress for a long time- Jim Inhofe, Jim Bunning, Michael Enzi.
The Balanced Budget is good, but it is obviously used as a political pawn by most politicians. One, there is no way that 3/4 of the states will ratify this, because they get tons of money from the feds. Two, if they actually thought the budget needs to be balanced then they wouldn’t vote for exploding deficits. Just think, in the 1990s Joe Biden voted for a Balance Budget Amendment! Rather than take a pledge to vote for an amendment, politicians should do as Rand Paul did, and pledge not to vote for a budget that is not balanced, or at least any budget that doesn’t reduce the previous years budget by half.
HCR repeal presupposes that congressional repubs grow a pair.
Next93 (Diary) Friday, May 7th at 1:17PM EDT (link)Apparently in this regard, the boy president hold the GOP in higher regard than I do.
Obama was The One in 2008.
He’ll be a BIGGER one in 2012.
Unconstitutional?
petrarch Friday, May 7th at 1:21PM EDT (link)I thought the line-item veto has already been ruled unconstitutional, and to create one would require a Constitutional amendment. I don’t see that happening before the 2012 election, those things take time.
But if it were done that way, we should support it, because it would be really useful for a Republican president. And if the Rs take over Congress, they can always gut Obamacare simply by not funding any of it, which the line-item veto can’t fix.
I do think we should take elementary precautions, like requiring complete sentences or clauses to be vetoed in toto, so as to avoid the Wisconsin problem. Which is pretty funny, I hadn’t heard about that.
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Yeah, that's mentioned in the quote
Bill S (Diary) Friday, May 7th at 1:32PM EDT (link)And i forgot to link to the original NYT article. I just added the link to the story.
The real news here, by the way, is that by seeking the line item veto, Obama is tacitly admitting that the Dems are likely to go down in November. Why else would he need such power to carve up his own party’s legislation?
“It’s such a fine line between stupid, and clever.” – David St. Hubbins
Smoke screen
indyjohn Friday, May 7th at 1:59PM EDT (link)Obama is not serious about this. He knows that the line item veto does not pass constituitional muster. He is trying to distract attention from his fiscal profligacy with a mock show of newfound concern for the way that taxpayer money is spent.
By the way, if you were a Democrat in Congress, would you actually give Obama the line item veto? Everyone in Washington now knows that Obama is a self-serving fraud. I doubt that anyone trusts him to keep his word. If given such power, he would use it to grandstand, even if it hurt his party.
But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.
Edmund Burke
I suspect this is about defence spending !!!
jimc1969 Friday, May 7th at 5:15PM EDT (link)Healthcare ?
I think Obama wants to veto the defence budget, maybe homeland security too ?
Thats the only thing about this thta REALLY scares me. We have a line item veto in NJ, and it works out ok, But we are talking GOVERNORS. I’m not comfortable with an Obama, Carter or a Clinton being about to kill defence spending in this manner………..