Presidential Veto

It has been frequently argued -- particularly by recent Presidents, their spokespersons, and their supporters, that the President should be granted a so-called line-item veto in order to strengthen his hand in controlling federal spending. However, as we shall see, there is essentially no evidence to show that a line-item veto would have the desired effect, and several strong reasons for believing that a line-item veto would have virtually no effect on Federal spending levels.

Under the Constitution, Article I, Section 7, the President has the power to veto bills sent to him by Congress, returning the bill with a message stating why he vetoed it. The bill can then be enacted into law only by a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress. (There is another form of veto, the so-called "pocket veto" in which a President simply refuses to act on a bill sent to him in the final days of a Congressional term. The bill then "dies" at the end of the Congressional session. See Gerberg, 1987, pp. 16-18).

However, the Constitution, as generally interpreted, gives the President the power only to veto bills in their entirety. The language of the Constitution does not specify this, but it says nothing about portions of bills, and it has always been interpreted as giving the President veto power only over entire bills. In contrast, most state constitutions give governors the power to veto individual portions of bills, while permitting the rest to become law ("The Line-Item Veto," N

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ar in the Persian Gulf without ever seeking Congressional authorization. Congress was virtually forced to give him the war powers he demanded -- to do otherwise would either have triggered a Constitutional crisis (if President Bush defied Congress and went to war anyway) or else have left the President unable, at the eleventh hour, to follow through on international commitments he had already made. Since the President already has so much power to have his own way, should the Constitution be changed to give him even more? Apart from the philosophical argument over the power of the branches of government, the actual effect of a line-item veto might be to vastly increase Congress' workload, producing even more opportunities for paralysis of government. Today, the Congress can pass broad bills as a single measure, for the President to take or leave as a whole. If the President dislikes one line-item enough, he can veto the whole measure. If the President had a line-item veto, Congress could no longer safely send him such package bills. It would never know which parts would be accepted, and which parts would be vetoed. Congress might have to hold divisive override votes on each vetoed lineitem. Alternatively, every individual

Category: Government - P