Word: vetoes
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After all, the proposal does significantly alter the balance of power between the President and Congress, placing substantial new authority in the executive. The item veto is a powerful political tool, and there is no limit to how the White House can use it. In addition to simply cutting spending, the President can use his new veto for narrow ideological purposes or as a threat to individual congressmen...
...provisions appropriates, say, a small sum of money for enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. Even though this item would cost peanuts in the scheme of things, it would be among the first that a conservative President who opposes extension of the Voting Rights Act (such as Reagan) would veto. Thus, the President can legally take a tool ostensibly designed to reduce spending and use it instead to thwart the will of Congress and to kill programs to which he is ideologically opposed. Is this what we mean when we speak of representing the "national interest"? The merits of extending...
...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...