• Background: 2006 Line-Item Veto Act struck down by Clinton v. City of N.Y.
• Debate: Too much power to executive v. need to address pork
• Recent Legislation: 2006 Line-Item Veto Act

Background

• In the Line-Item Veto Act of 1996, Congress granted the President the power to nullify a specific provisions of appropriations bills passed by Congress without vetoing the entire piece of legislation. Congress could override the line-item veto only by passing another bill that contained the same portions the president had vetoed. The purpose of the line-item veto was to curb "pork-barrel" earmarks that result in egregious overspending and only benefit particular regions.
• In 1998, a U.S. District Court struck down the Line-Item Veto Act. This decision was echoed by the Supreme Court in the case Clinton v. City of New York.
• A "pork-barrel" project or an "earmark" refers to a line-item in an appropriations bill that gives federal tax dollars to regional projects and circumvents the established budgetary procedures. Lawmakers use earmarks to promote themselves in their home states or districts. The number of earmarks inserted into spending bills has increased from 3,055 in 1996 to 14,211 in 2004, according to the Congressional Research Service, and the overall cost has more than doubled to $52.7 billion. According to the 2007 pork-barrel project report published by the Citizens Against Government Waste, there were 2,658 projects that cost a total of $13.2 billion for the 2007 fiscal year.
• 43 of the US states give some form of line-item veto to the governor, the executive position analogous to the President. The states that do not are Indiana, Maryland, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

Debate

• The main argument in opposition to the line-item veto is that it gives too much power to the executive. It shifts the responsibility of appropriations from Congress to the president and blends the lines of power.
• Both supporters and opponents of the line-item veto say it would do little to fight deficit spending. The real problem is overspending on the military and big social programs.
• Most agree that earmark spending is an egregious waste of federal funds, especially when projects include $500,000 for the Sparta Teapot Museum in Sparta, N.C. and a $223 million for the Alaskan "Bridge to Nowhere."

Recent Legislation

• The Legislative Line-Item Veto Act of 2006, sponsored in the Senate by Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) and Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI), would let the President highlight earmarks and send them back for Congress to vote on whether to retain the highlighted earmark spending. The bill passed in the House and is awaiting a vote in the Senate.