THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 17, 1995 TAG: 9503170026
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A20 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 50 lines
The big three provisions of the Contract With America were the Balanced Budget Amendment, term limits and the line-item veto. The Balanced Budget Amendment is gone, term limits is going and the line-item veto isn't looking very healthy either.
It is scheduled to come to a vote in the Senate soon, perhaps as early as today. But there are competing versions on the table authored by Sen. John McCain and Sen. Pete Domenici. An inability to reach a compromise could mean no version.
Under present law, the president can propose deleting items from budget bills, but Congress must vote to adopt the rescissions. It can choose to ignore presidential suggestions. In practice, it has adopted only 366 of 930 rescission requests made by Presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush.
McCain's version of the line-item veto is what most people imagine when the subject comes up. The president would have unilateral authority to delete any item funded in an appropriations bill. To put the spending back in the budget, a two-thirds vote in each house of Congress would be required.
Domenici is offering a broader but weaker version in which the president would propose cuts that Congress would be required to vote up or down. But that would give either house of Congress the real veto. The bill also includes an unnecessarily restrictive ``lockbox'' provision to guarantee any savings go to deficit reduction.
However, the Domenici proposal does extend line-item-veto authority beyond discretionary spending to entitlement and tax benefits. By exempting those, McCain puts more than half of all federal spending off-limits to the line-item veto.
McCain has expressed willingness to compromise on the scope of the bill. ``If we are talking about whether tax benefits should be part of it, whether there should be some entitlement issues, fine.'' But he draws the line-item line on who should have the ultimate authority to cut. He thinks the president must be able to strike a budget line and force Congress to override.
He's right. The McCain compromise, with more spending subject to the veto but the executive in charge, gets out vote. For a line-item veto to work, the executive must be able to cut the spending he chooses. Anything less leaves Congress in control and assures that the same old back scratching, log rolling and pork ladling that have plagued the budget process will continue. by CNB