Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 25, 1995 TAG: 9503300011
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
But unlike the amendment, it's a gimmick that might do more good than harm.
Also unlike the amendment, dead at least for another year, the line-item veto is very much alive: Passed by both houses of Congress, it awaits only reconciliation of conflicting language by a conference committee and the promised signature of President Clinton.
The proposed amendment would not have called for a balanced budget until the year 2002, then would have stayed in effect indefinitely, enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. The line-item veto, by contrast, is to go into effect immediately, as a provision of statutory rather than constitutional law, and is to expire at the end of the decade.
The sunset provision may be the result of political calculation. At bottom, the line-item veto is a power transfer from the legislative to the executive branch. A GOP Congress is willing to hand power to a Democratic president in part because many Republicans think they'll have one of their own in the White House after 1996 - but are less sure of what'll happen in the presidential election of the year 2000.
Whatever the calculations (which could, of course, turn out to be miscalculations), the result is serendipitous. As a deficit-cutter, the effect of a line-item veto is untested; if it fails, it'll be relatively easy to dispose of.
Failure is definitely within the realm of possibility. The idea of a presidential line-item veto gained currency in the mid-'80s, when then-President Reagan endorsed it - mainly, say economist John H. Makin and political scientist Norman J. Ornstein in their 1994 book, "Debt and Taxes," to maintain his cover as a budget balancer while running huge deficits in his own administration's budgets.
Most states give their governors the line-item veto, but some do not. Back when Reagan was pushing the idea, a study by Wall Street Journal writer Benjamin Zycher concluded that states with the line-item veto appear to turn in fiscal performances no better or worse than those of the states without it.
Even working well, the line-item veto could have an impact only on federal spending subject to the appropriations process - that is, the "discretionary" spending that makes up only 17 percent of outlays. Adjustments in entitlement spending - Social Security, Medicare and the like - would require changes in other laws.
And at least in the view of Makin and Ornstein, the central defect in the argument for a line-item veto is the assumption that the executive branch is less inclined toward big spending than is the legislative branch. Actually, they say, the reverse has been true throughout American history, and is clearly true today when you examine the dynamics of democratic government throughout the world.
Over time, in other words, the line-item veto would likely make deficit reduction harder to accomplish, because it gives more power to the branch of government that as a rule favors more spending.
But popular sentiment now seems in favor of deficit reduction not just in theory but also in practice. If so, then the political will to defer tax cuts, and to hold the line on spending for more than just programs that are unpopular anyway, may manifest itself in the White House and on Capitol Hill.
The will is the important part. But if such will is in fact emerging, then a line-item veto with a limited lifespan might serve to help carry it out.
by CNB