Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, January 9, 1995                   TAG: 9501120046
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

NO PANACEAS

Are they right? Not according to economist John H. Makin, a leading student of fiscal policy, and prominent political scientist Norman J. Ornstein. In "Debt and Taxes," published last year by the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute with which both are affiliated, they say a balanced-budget amendment and line-item veto might well do more harm than good.

The amendment might provide marginal help, keeping a chronic headache from turning into critical illness. But in raising false expectations of doing more, the authors say, such structural tinkering ultimately deepens public cynicism toward government. Nor does it address the underlying issues - how big should government be? how should spending benefits be distributed? how should taxes be imposed? - for which deficits are both mask and metaphor.

And the likeliest consequence of a line-item veto, say Makin and Ornstein, would be to increase government spending - whether the president happens to be a liberal Democrat or a conservative Republican. The flaw, they say, is assuming that executives are better at cost controls than legislatures. Legislatures may like their little pork barrel, but it is presidents who like grand, expensive projects. By threatening to veto Congress members' individual pork projects, a president can get his wishes - with the pork retained.

Whatever the validity of each and every point in their book, surely Makin and Ornstein are correct in noting that procedural gimmicks are no substitute for making hard budgetary choices, and promised debt and deficit panaceas can have debilitating effects when they cannot live up to their claims.