Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 27, 1990 TAG: 9004300206
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A14 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Bush has sent proposals to Congress asking for (1) a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget and (2) the line-item veto. Referring to the second request, he said:
"The president needs the power to make the tough calls on spending, take the heat - and I'm perfectly prepared to do that."
Every indication is that presidents already have the power to make those tough calls, and that this president wants to avoid making them or taking the heat. Asking for a constitutional amendment mandating a balanced budget is buck-passing, a request that the law supply the will and backbone that politicians lack. As for the line-item veto, if anything it would furnish the White House a surgical knife where a meat ax is needed.
Conditions may dictate occasional overspending for the sake of economic stimulus or to meet emergency needs. Proposals for a constitutional amendment usually allow that loophole, which effectively negates the amendment's intent.
Even if such a change in the nation's fundamental law were desirable, it would be impractical and unenforce-able. Federal budgets - now over the trillion-dollar annual level - are not based on firm income and outgo data. They are a compilation of projections and guesses that can be thrown awry by many uncontrollable factors, including the health of the economy and the varying needs of entitlement programs. And if the books didn't balance at the fiscal year's end, who would go to jail? The president? Congress?
Governors of 43 states have the line-item veto, and the idea of giving that power to presidents is not a partisan one. Adlair Stevenson spoke for it; so did Dwight D. Eisenhower. Ronald Asking for a constitutional amendment mandating a balanced budget is buck-passing, a request that the law supply the will and backbone that politicians lack. Reagan advocated it, as did Michael Dukakis.
At the state level, the line-item veto has its uses. But its potential for political mischief - especially, encouraging governors to use it to threaten individual legislators - would be magnified many times at the national level.
A 1988 study by the Congressional Research Service concluded that for the federal government to adopt this device would not reduce spending much. For one thing, it would affect only discretionary budget items; the rest, about two-thirds of total spending, is determined by law or contract.
However, the study says that the line-item veto would profoundly alter the relationship of Congress and the White House, tipping the advantage to the president. It would also increase the number of confrontations and bring about an entirely new field of litigation between the two branches.
The nation already has seen clashes between the branches over the executive's authority to sequester funds voted by Congress for particular programs. More confrontation is not needed.
Obviously, cooperation is. That, along with genuine leadership from both the White House and Congress by people willing to take (and share) the heat that Bush mentions. Gimmickry such as a constitutional amendment and the line-item veto are no substitutes.
by CNB