Word: vetoes
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...PERHAPS THE most dangerous aspect of the proposal is that it gives the President legislative power in addition to his executive power. He can modify, reshape, or nullify laws as he sees fit through the item veto. Further, by exercising it, he can alter bills so drastically that they will bear little resemblance to the ones which Congress originally passed. In just a few strokes of the pen, he can practically create his own legislation, Congress need not really involve itself. If James Madison were alive today...
Currently, Congress thrives on compromise and give and take. And when the President either signs or vetoes a bill, he accepts or rejects all of the compromises made. But under the line-item plan, the President can undo and nullify compromises as he wishes. Suppose, for example, that liberal and conservative congressmen compromise on a spending bill, while a liberal president is in office. The President will, of course, veto the conservative provisions of the bill but will leave intact the bill's liberal aspects. The resulting law, bearing only partial resemblance to the measure which Congress originally passed...
...wise up. Realizing that the President might eliminate substantial portions of their compromises, they might then refuse to pass a budget at all, unless the President agrees beforehand not to cut certain items. It happened in 1983 in California, a state where the governor has a line-item veto. And the results were not exactly ideal: deadlock and delay which left state employees going unpaid for two and a half weeks...
...wishes, the President can use the line-item veto as a tool for rewarding, or as a weapon for punishing, individual congressmen. Used in this way, it can actually increase government spending. Congressmen have traditionally attached district-pleasing pork barrel to major spending legislation to protect their pet projects from vetoes. The President, proponents would argue, should have an item veto so that he can trim away this unnecessary spending. So far so good. But suppose that a new weapons system, which the President strongly favors, comes up. He now needs votes in Congress. Ordinarily, he would bargain, compromise, appear...
...line-item plan affords the President a new--and quite powerful--stratagem: he can threaten to item veto only the pork barrel projects of the congressmen who vote against the weapon system. Many congressmen, eager for re-election, might cave in to these threats and vote for a costly military device which they would ordinarily oppose. As a result, both the pork barrel and the weapons system pass Congress and are signed into law--not exactly what the line-item veto was supposed...