THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, November 22, 1995 TAG: 9511220015
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines
The Republican revolution rolls on. House and Senate have agreed on a budget closer to the more austere House version. After a veto, negotiators will attempt to reach a compromise with President Clinton that he won't veto.
Republicans have agreed with President Clinton on a continuing resolution that puts the government back in business for a month while the aforesaid budget negotiations unfold.
Republicans removed extraneous riders from the bill and Clinton accepted GOP demands for a seven-year timeline and agreed to base the debate on conservative Congressional Budget Office economic assumptions. Republicans believe they have won a victory on substance, though Clinton seems to have reaped more public-relations benefits.
On one front, however, the GOP's offensive has stalled. The Contract With America promised to pass a line-item veto. Clinton also favors the idea. House and Senate have passed it, but conferees are sitting on it rather than send it to Clinton for signature.
Why? The line-item veto would give presidents the power to pick and choose which spending in huge grab-bag bills to accept and which to cut. It would prevent a Congress from forcing passage of provisions unacceptable to a president of the opposite party by attaching them to crucial legislation.
A Democratic Congress had no interest in giving Reagan and Bush a way to slip out of legislative hammerlocks. A Republican Congress is apparently no more eager to give Clinton such power. But consider how the budget battle would have proceeded if the line-item veto had been in force.
Congress might still have affixed riders to debt-ceiling legislation and the continuing resolution needed to keep government operating until a budget is approved. But the president would have simply lined them out. The result: no shutdown of government services and no paid vacation for 800,000 workers.
Even more dramatic, the budget agreed to by Congress would not present Clinton with an all-or-nothing decision. He'd be able to cancel out lines he opposes and to sign the rest. Negotiations and compromise would still be needed, but only on individual items.
Under such a scenario, Congress would have less leverage to impose unpopular provisions by tying them to essential services. The president would have more control over the shape of the debate. Issues not in dispute wouldn't be held hostage. Negotiations would be more focused.
Whether the process would be better or worse can be debated. We tend to believe it would streamline the process and eliminate a lot of partisan grandstanding. That's what the GOP has argued for 15 years. But enacting the line-item veto would certainly change the game by making the president less subject to legislative jujitsu. That is undoubtedly the reason the line-item clause in the Contract With America remains unfulfilled. by CNB