Democrats To Prove Their Fiscal Restraint By Opposing Line Item Veto?
I have it on good authority from a source in the Republican Senate leadership that a partisan battle is brewing in the Senate over an amendment favored by Senators Judd Gregg and Jim DeMint which would give the President “rescission” power over Congressional spending.
Basically, this would be kinda sorta like the line-item veto except that it would really only delay spending rather than necessarily overturn it. What it does is allow the President to delay spending for 10 days during which Congress has to give it another up or down vote. It’s effectiveness would probably lay with the fact that it would allow the President to shine a spotlight on some of the more egregious examples of exorbitant spending, but a simple majority vote of Congress would by pass the President’s delay. You can read more on that here.
The legislation authorizing this rescission power actually passed the House last year, but it’s yet to get through the Senate. Which brings us to Senator Gregg’s introduction of it today.
Harry Reid is currently on the floor of the Senate arguing against voting on Senator Gregg’s amendment because it would delay other earmark and lobbying reform the Democrats have in the works. Though if the Dems are serious about earmark reform you’d think they’d want to allow Gregg’s amendment an up or down vote.
Obviously, they’re not all that serious about earmark reform. Something that was in evidence last week when Reid and his fellow Senate Democrats got all flustered at Senator DeMint’s insistence that the Senate adopt the restrictive earmark rules Nancy Pelosi introduced and passed in the House.
I like to see the Republicans sticking it to Democrats like this. The rescission authority would give the chief executive more power to combat profligate Congressional spending, and that’s a good thing, though I’d still prefer Congress to restore the President’s impound power where he essentially orders the Treasury not to fund appropriations passed by Congress which he does not like. Every President from John Adams to Richard Nixon had the ability to “impound” funds appropriated for expenditure by Congress. You see, the Constitution states that Congress has the power to appropriate funds for expenditure but it does not say that those funds must actually be spent. The U.S. Treasury is a department in the Executive branch of our government, and the Secretary of the Treasury is appointed by the President. Thus the chief executive can simply order the Treasury not to provide funds for specific programs.
This power was, unfortunately, taken away from the Executive branch with the passage of the 1974 Budget Act by what was arguably the most liberal Congress in the history of this country in response to President Nixon impounding some 4% of all spending appropriated by Congress in order to reduce deficits.
It’d be nice to give the President that power back, but we aren’t likely to get it with the Democrats in control. So the Gregg amendment is a nice alternative.
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