Line Item

WASHINGTON -- Every year, Congress passes spending bills, and every year the president faces the same dilemma. It started with George Washington and it continues with Bill Clinton:This bill has some good things -- essential spending that will keep the government operating, the president figures. But it also has fat in it, pork-barrel projects. Does the country need a World War II-era Mohair wool subsidy -- 50 years after World War II? Is it necessary to move the FBI fingerprint lab to Appalachia, just because the Appropriations Committee chairman is from West Virginia?

At the end of a protracted budget battle with the City Council, Mayor Sheila Dixon took a rarely used - and legally questionable - step to get her way. Unhappy that the council trimmed funds from the inspector general's office, Ms. Dixon announced that she would use a line-item veto to reverse the cut. The city's charter does give the mayor the right to use a line-item veto to reverse an "appropriation" made by the City Council, but employing that power...

WASHINGTON -- With wide bipartisan support, the Senate voted yesterday to give the president unprecedented control of the federal purse -- the power to veto specific items in spending bills and some future tax benefits.The Senate passed the bill 69-29, nearly eight weeks after the House approved a different version of the line-item veto. A central piece of the Republican agenda, the veto is being pushed as a budget-cutting tool.Before the bill can be sent to President Clinton, who has said he will sign it, differences between the Senate and the House versions must be resolved by a conference committee.

CHICAGO -- Mitt Romney and Rudolph W. Giuliani have many differences and something in common: Each governed a liberal place, and each, while in office, often sided with liberals on particular issues. They are both making the presidential campaign more entertaining through strenuous but unconvincing attempts to live down those youthful indiscretions. Lately, they have been arguing over the line-item veto, which lets a president excise individual spending programs without killing an entire bill.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush asked Congress yesterday to give him limited authority to veto individual items in spending measures, resurrecting a top priority of fiscal conservatives. Expressing optimism that the measure would win congressional approval and pass court tests, the White House said its proposal took into account objections the Supreme Court had raised in 1998 when it said a version of the veto provision signed two years earlier by President Clinton was unconstitutional. In Congress, however, the outcome was less certain than presented by the White House.

WASHINGTON -- The House of Representatives celebrated Ronald Reagan's 84th birthday last night with passage of a line-item veto bill, a major goal of the former president when he was in office.With a strong bipartisan majority of 294-134, the House approved and sent to the Senate the presidential tool that could remove single parts of budget legislation without rejecting the entire measure. It was one of several procedural changes promised by the Republicans' "Contract with America" as part of their drive to curb federal spending.

Chicago. -- Bill Clinton, like Ronald Reagan, exercised a line-item veto while he was governor. And Mr. Clinton, like Mr. Reagan, wants to continue doing that in the presidency. Calling for the veto is a useful political symbol of opposition to congressional spending, though it is doubtful that any real economies would be effected. The record of states with the veto is not measurably more frugal than that of states without it.The argument that what is good enough for the states should be good enough for the federal government does not bear careful investigation.

WASHINGTON -- The short, unhappy life of the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 should end soon. A federal judge has declared it unconstitutional, a ruling that probably will be quickly reviewed by the Supreme Court, which should put this misbegotten law out of its misery by July.However, the court will say only that the statute conferring this veto power on the president is constitutionally flawed, as any such statute would be: A constitutional amendment would be necessary to confer such power. It is important to understand why that is so, but equally important to understand why no line-item veto should be given to the chief executive of the national government of a continental nation.

CHICAGO -- Mitt Romney and Rudolph W. Giuliani have many differences and something in common: Each governed a liberal place, and each, while in office, often sided with liberals on particular issues. They are both making the presidential campaign more entertaining through strenuous but unconvincing attempts to live down those youthful indiscretions. Lately, they have been arguing over the line-item veto, which lets a president excise individual spending programs without killing an entire bill.

WASHINGTON -- Acting speedily to get a major constitutional issue settled by this summer, the Supreme Court agreed yesterday to rule this term on the challenge to the president's new power to veto individual items in spending and tax bills.In a brief order, the court put the "line-item veto" issue on a fast track and set a hearing for April 27 -- an indication that it expects to rule before the term's end, expected in late June.Since last summer, when President Clinton began using the power given to him by Congress to veto parts of spending and tax legislation, he has used the authority against 82 items.

MARYLAND Ehrlich vetoes BGE rate plan Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. vetoed the legislature's BGE rate deferral plan yesterday, saying he wanted a new plan that was more "consumer friendly." Legislative leaders said the veto would be overridden today and accused him of wasting taxpayer money by making them spend another day in session. pg 1a Duncan withdraws from race Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan dropped out of the race for governor yesterday, revealing that he was diagnosed with clinical depression this week.

WASHINGTON -- Under pressure from the recent growth in spending and federal deficits, the House approved yesterday a measure that would give President Bush a line-item veto. Republicans said it would help him slash wasteful spending and delete expenditures for specific projects from bills. Congressional Republicans have been facing demands from fiscal conservatives in their party to rein in federal spending, which has grown rapidly with the GOP controlling the White House and Congress.

WASHINGTON -- Rob Portman, President Bush's new budget chief, still practices his kayaking moves in the House of Representatives' pool. The former Cincinnati congressman still catches himself during meetings on Capitol Hill referring to lawmakers as "we." But his office is at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue now and, despite his roots in the legislative branch, he's squarely on the president's side of a battle between the White House and Congress over the power of the purse. The House is to weigh in on the issue today with a vote on Bush's bid to resurrect the line-item veto, which would allow the president to reach into spending bills and single out items for removal, putting lawmakers' most prized prerogative - their ability to secure federal money, or earmarks, for their districts - in peril.

CHICAGO -- In the last five years, the federal budget has done a good impression of major-league sluggers, bulking up to such frightful proportions as to be almost unrecognizable. Baseball responded to the excess girth by cracking down on steroids. President Bush, however, wants to try stomach-stapling. Last week, he urged Congress to give him a line-item veto so he can "reduce wasteful spending." In reality, he's about as likely to cut spending as he is to give the next State of the Union address in Aramaic.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush asked Congress yesterday to give him limited authority to veto individual items in spending measures, resurrecting a top priority of fiscal conservatives. Expressing optimism that the measure would win congressional approval and pass court tests, the White House said its proposal took into account objections the Supreme Court had raised in 1998 when it said a version of the veto provision signed two years earlier by President Clinton was unconstitutional. In Congress, however, the outcome was less certain than presented by the White House.

The Anne Arundel County Council continued the extensive task of revamping the county's commercial zoning code last night in an effort to meet a mid-February deadline.More than 40 amendments to a bill that would change the code were introduced last night. Council members hesitated to say the work would be done in time.If the revamped code is not approved by the deadline, the council would have to introduce a new bill and start over. The bill before the council has been two years in the making.

WASHINGTON -- One of the top items in the Republicans' Contract With America, a "line-item veto to restore fiscal responsibility to an out-of-control Congress," appears to be dead.Despite passing both houses by overwhelming margins earlier this year, the proposal became a victim, in large part, because of a loss of enthusiasm among Republicans.Last week, in an interview published in the Washington Times, House Speaker Newt Gingrich was asked about the line-item veto and another stalled Republican measure that would overhaul the nation's product liability rules.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court, pressed by President Clinton for a swift constitutional decision on his power to delete individual items from spending bills passed by Congress, is likely to rule before summer.Under a procedure laid down by Congress when it created the "line-item veto" a year ago, the court must put the administration's appeal on a fast track, pushing it along to "the greatest possible extent."The Clinton administration formally began an appeal yesterday to challenge Thursday's ruling by a federal judge that the line-item veto unconstitutionally transfers lawmaking power from Congress to the White House.

CONGRESS can't abuse the Constitution just to solve a political problem of its own making. That is the gist of the Supreme Court's logic in tossing out the 2-year-old line-item veto lawmakers had given to the president to help dampen overzealous congressional spending.The law's objective was sound, but its application sharply altered the balance of power between executive and legislative branches. Congress ceded to the president huge new authority to shape legislation to his wishes.He could reject spending provisions he found objectionable, while accepting other sections of budget bills.

"Clinton in China." They could make an opera of that.The line-item veto was too good to be true. The Supreme Court did its duty, ordering Congress to do its.A professor of media says crime on television drives folks from the city. Students of life say it's crime on the streets.Four midshipmen broke the rules, so the Academy expelled three who want to stay, keeping the one who wants out.Pub Date: 6/26/98