Bruce Bartlett: Give Bush power to impound funds
[Mr. Bartlett is the author of "Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy," just published by Doubleday.]
Last Monday, President Bush sent legislation to Congress that would give him a kind of line item veto. Congress granted such authority to the president in 1996, but in 1998 it was struck down by the Supreme Court in Clinton v. City of New York. It ruled that the law granted the president unconstitutional authority to amend bills passed by Congress.
Until 1974, all presidents had a kind of line item veto called impoundment authority. In essence, if a president objected to a particular appropriation he simply didn't spend the money. According to constitutional scholar Louis Fisher, many presidents impounded money for public works and defense projects. While Congress complained, it did not challenge the president's right to impound. This began to change in 1972, when Richard Nixon began aggressively vetoing appropriations bills to get the exploding budget under control and help ease inflationary pressures. After Congress overrode his veto of a water pollution bill, Treasury Secretary George Shultz declared that Nixon would henceforth impound the funds in excess of what he asked for.
This enraged the Democratic Congress. In January 1973, it began moving legislation to take away the president's impoundment power. That it thought this necessary confirms that Congress saw the power as constitutional -- otherwise, legislators would have challenged it in the courts.
Soon thereafter, news about the Watergate scandal broke and Nixon was embroiled in a political crisis. Knowing that it was now impossible to head off the elimination of impoundment, Republicans worked to broaden the legislation to include budget process reforms. Finally, the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 entirely eliminated impoundment authority, created the Congressional Budget Office and implemented new budgetary procedures designed to impose an overall cap on federal spending. His power severely weakened by Watergate, Nixon reluctantly signed the bill into law shortly before resigning from office.
Ronald Reagan was especially distressed by the loss of impoundment authority. He had exercised a line item veto as governor of California -- a power 43 governors have -- and found it invaluable both as a means of controlling spending and as an enhancement to executive power vis-à-vis the legislature.
Reagan's efforts to get line item veto power went nowhere because Democrats controlled the House of Representatives throughout his presidency. But when Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, they gave it to Bill Clinton, even though they knew it would probably be used mainly against their projects. The law took effect on Jan. 1, 1997.
Mr. Clinton used the line item veto to cancel 82 spending and tax items in 11 different bills. However, the impact was quite modest, reducing the deficit by just $355 million. On June 25, 1998, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in a 6-3 decision and the line item veto was lost....
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Last Monday, President Bush sent legislation to Congress that would give him a kind of line item veto. Congress granted such authority to the president in 1996, but in 1998 it was struck down by the Supreme Court in Clinton v. City of New York. It ruled that the law granted the president unconstitutional authority to amend bills passed by Congress.
Until 1974, all presidents had a kind of line item veto called impoundment authority. In essence, if a president objected to a particular appropriation he simply didn't spend the money. According to constitutional scholar Louis Fisher, many presidents impounded money for public works and defense projects. While Congress complained, it did not challenge the president's right to impound. This began to change in 1972, when Richard Nixon began aggressively vetoing appropriations bills to get the exploding budget under control and help ease inflationary pressures. After Congress overrode his veto of a water pollution bill, Treasury Secretary George Shultz declared that Nixon would henceforth impound the funds in excess of what he asked for.
This enraged the Democratic Congress. In January 1973, it began moving legislation to take away the president's impoundment power. That it thought this necessary confirms that Congress saw the power as constitutional -- otherwise, legislators would have challenged it in the courts.
Soon thereafter, news about the Watergate scandal broke and Nixon was embroiled in a political crisis. Knowing that it was now impossible to head off the elimination of impoundment, Republicans worked to broaden the legislation to include budget process reforms. Finally, the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 entirely eliminated impoundment authority, created the Congressional Budget Office and implemented new budgetary procedures designed to impose an overall cap on federal spending. His power severely weakened by Watergate, Nixon reluctantly signed the bill into law shortly before resigning from office.
Ronald Reagan was especially distressed by the loss of impoundment authority. He had exercised a line item veto as governor of California -- a power 43 governors have -- and found it invaluable both as a means of controlling spending and as an enhancement to executive power vis-à-vis the legislature.
Reagan's efforts to get line item veto power went nowhere because Democrats controlled the House of Representatives throughout his presidency. But when Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, they gave it to Bill Clinton, even though they knew it would probably be used mainly against their projects. The law took effect on Jan. 1, 1997.
Mr. Clinton used the line item veto to cancel 82 spending and tax items in 11 different bills. However, the impact was quite modest, reducing the deficit by just $355 million. On June 25, 1998, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in a 6-3 decision and the line item veto was lost....