THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, April 9, 1996 TAG: 9604090337
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Short : 30 lines
With a stroke of his pen, President Clinton today will give the next president - perhaps himself - the authority to cut specific items from spending bills.
The line-item veto, sought by presidents since Ulysses S. Grant in the 1870s, goes into effect Jan. 1.
It fulfills a GOP ``Contract With America'' promise, and Clinton has maintained that it served him well when he was governor of Arkansas.
The legislation does away with a requirement, in place since the nation's founding, that a president must approve or reject legislation in its entirety.
Opponents characterized it as a dangerous ceding to the executive branch of Congress' power of the purse. But Congress decided the president needed a new tool to combat the federal deficit. He will be able to strike out individual items from spending bills and kill low-priority or pork-barrel projects. by CNB