ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, March 29, 1996 TAG: 9603290093
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: ANALYSIS
SOURCE: TOM RAUM ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON
WITH EVERY LINE of the federal budget open to partisan assault, budget politics may never be the same.
Presidents since Jefferson have bemoaned the lack of power to strike specific items from spending bills. Now a Republican Congress and a Democratic president are providing that line-item veto, shifting vital purse-string powers to the White House.
Budget politics may never be the same - if courts uphold the constitutionality of the measure President Clinton is poised to sign. Sent to Clinton on Thursday by the House, the legislation could open every line of the federal budget to partisan assault.
One analyst said a president could use the power ``as a hammer,'' threatening to veto dam projects or federal buildings in a lawmaker's district unless he supported the White House on other issues.
It marks the biggest shift of power from one branch of government to another since 1974, when Congress passed legislation to stop then-President Nixon from ``impounding'' - or refusing to spend - money on projects he disliked.
Democratic Congresses routinely brushed aside pleas by GOP Presidents Reagan and Bush for line-item veto authority. But this year the stars lined up in the political firmament, with Republicans including the line-item veto in their ``Contract With America'' and Democratic President Clinton eagerly embracing it.
To try to get beyond the presidential election, and to satisfy GOP misgivings over handing such powers to Clinton, both sides agreed to make the effective date Jan. 1, 1997.
Thus, Republicans are betting Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, the expected GOP nominee, will be the first to use the new powers. And Democrats are hoping Clinton will be able to exercise them as he begins a second term.
The legislation will permit a president for the first time to cancel specific programs or projects from spending bills and to strike narrowly targeted special-interest tax breaks.
Among some more recent items Clinton would have stricken had he already had such powers, according to the Office of Management and Budget:
* Some $58 million in a 1995 agricultural bill in grants for university research programs that Clinton opposed.
* Various projects attached to a defense spending bill that Clinton signed because it contained funds for U.S. troops in Bosnia; $70 million in what Clinton deemed ``wasteful spending'' in a separate military-construction bill.
* Some $1.1 billion for 14 dam and other construction projects that were part of a 1995 spending bill on energy and water development.
Congressional sponsors and Clinton portrayed the line-item veto as an important tool for presidential control over spending, allowing him to strike down ``pork-barrel'' projects.
But Stanley E. Collender, a budget expert at Price Waterhouse, an accounting firm, doubts that the measure will have much overall impact on reducing federal deficits.
Instead, he said, it simply shifts power to the White House and allows a president to ``use it as a hammer over Congress' head.''
``The president will be in a position to trade projects for votes,'' Collender said.
Congress did vote to require the act to be renewed after eight years - giving lawmakers another shot if they decide they've given up too much authority.
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