ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, April 2, 1996 TAG: 9604020036
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
THE LINE-ITEM budget veto approved last week by Congress, and expected to receive President Clinton's signature, may be worth a try. But don't look for fiscal miracles.
For starters, the line-item veto's delegation of power from Congress to the executive is constitutionally suspect, and may never go into effect. Failing to corral enough votes for an outright constitutional amendment, supporters settled for a regular bill containing procedural convolutions designed to withstand the inevitable court challenge. Those convolutions may not be enough.
At best, the bill's likely impact has been oversold. Federal budget difficulties are not basically a process problem, ungainly as the process often is. The fundamental sources of current fiscal difficulties are: (a) the need for reserves to cover coming demands on Social Security and Medicare when the baby boomers start retiring in a few years, (b) the load of debt accrued during the 1980s as a result of policy decisions agreed to by Republican presidents and Democratic congresses, (c) a popular wish, encouraged by politicians, to avoid hard choices, to enjoy the benefits of government largess without paying their costs, and to fix blame on expenditures benefiting people somehow different from us. Politically, the budget decisions needed to resolve these issues are no easier for a president than for the Congress.
At worst, the line-item veto could do the opposite of what its supporters hope. In their book "Debt and Taxes," John H. Makin and Norman J. Ornstein observe that states without a gubernatorial line-item veto spend no more per capita than states with one - and that strengthening executive power has tended, over time, to boost rather than curtail government programs and expenditures.
As Richard Leone argues on today's Commentary page, the line-item veto won't bring an end to, and in some cases could exacerbate, political gamesmanship. Members of Congress will propose local projects knowing they'll be vetoed. And the executive not only can kill pork barrel to punish opponents; he can approve pork barrel to reward allies.
At least the line-item veto in this instance would be a temporary (eight-year) expedient rather than a long-term structural change. The availability of the tool might at least make it harder for the president next year - whether it's Bill Clinton or Bob Dole - to evade responsibility by pinning the blame on Congress. Let's just hope it doesn't make it easier for Congress to evade its responsibility by pinning the blame on the president.
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