THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 3, 1996 TAG: 9601030006
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines
President Clinton's veto last week of the $265 billion defense-authorization bill demonstrated one of the things that's wrong with the way Washington works. It also indicated the way to fix the problem - the line-item veto.
Congress sent the president a bill authorizing billions more in defense spending than he or the Pentagon requested. Included in the bill, for instance, is money to build more B-2 bombers of dubious utility and proven unreliability.
As much as $15 billion more could eventually be squandered on the B-2, though it's essentially a public-works program for California. Needing to win the state in the fall, however, Clinton didn't object to that spending.
More billions would be spent on an anti-missile system that defends against a vanished threat and violates an arms treaty. The B-2 is mostly pork. There's some of that in the Star Wars spending, but it's also an ideological challenge to Clinton - a program that has taken on a symbolic life of its own.
Another provision demands that a president ask Congress for funding within 45 days of any troop deployment. Like the War Powers Act that Republicans have denounced for years, this proposal is an attempt by Congress to usurp some of the president's power as commander in chief. Coming from the Republicans, it is both hypocritical and shortsighted. Things change, and it's easy to imagine a Democratic Congress using such power to twist the arm of a Republican president.
In addition, the bill was crafted to provoke a veto over hot-button issues like banning abortions at overseas military hospitals and expelling service members who test positive for AIDS. By including them and courting a veto, Congress gets to define itself. So does the president.
Congress also gets to claim a Clinton veto proves he's anti-military. But these controversies are a sideshow. Clinton and the Republicans agree on 90 percent of the defense bill, including a pay raise and an increased housing allowance. Much of the drama is simply a partisan game both sides agree to play. They wag their fingers at each other, Clinton vetoes, an override fails, a compromise is crafted, both sides declare victory.
Along the way, issues, soundbites and a record of votes useful for the fall campaign are stored up, as squirrels store up nuts for winter. And that's where the line-item veto comes in. Much of the squirreliness would be eliminated if Clinton had the power to line out individual items.
In this case, he would simply have struck out provisions he objects to. The rest of the bill would have become law. The troops would have their money. The contractors would have their pork. The bickering would continue only on disputed items. And voters would have a clearer idea of who is actually for what.
Of course, if the president did have the line-item veto, a bill like this wouldn't have been constructed in the first place. If you can line out individual appropriations, there's no point in huge, grab-bag bills intended to sneak through a little pork here, a little pork there.
And that's why the promised line-item veto has never been delivered. Congress likes the game just the way it is. by CNB