Well now, it seems Bush jr wants to grab a little more power. Rove and Cheney got him the Supreme Court, a slim majority in both houses (until Nov at least), he has his fun with 'signing statements'...now he wants authority for line item veto on funding approved by Congress. The reason be believes this is a good idea: 'One pinhead is better than all of Congress.'
'Pappy, I wanna be appointed DICTATOR next!" jr tells Bush sr..."I wanna be the BIG Decider!" Well OK georgie honey, time you string all those vacations together into one BIG vacation! Hows about you just concentrate on clearing shrub, drinking heavily and doing Condi....until the Federal Marshals come by to take you on that long Federal vacation??? Hmmm??? Folks, vote in November...and take 10 friends with ya. White House steps up effort to gain line-item veto House expected to vote on bill today; Dem leaders mostly opposed to plan By JULIE MASON Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau WASHINGTON - The White House on Wednesday intensified a last-minute campaign to win line-item veto authority from Congress, but a top administration official conceded that the outcome was far from certain. The House today is expected to vote on a bill that would allow the president to red-line specific expenditures in appropriation bills. "It's not going to be easy to get this to the president's desk," said Rob Portman, director of the Office of Management and Budget. "This is a major change." Portman, a former Republican congressman from Ohio, has been pushing the issue on Capitol Hill, and on Wednesday met with reporters from 13 regional newspapers, hoping to drum up more support for the plan. "This is not about President Bush, this is something that's for the presidency," Portman said. "Forty-three governors have something quite similar to this, so it's not untested." Congress in 1996 gave President Clinton line-item veto power, but two years later the courts struck it down as unconstitutional, in part because it gave too much power to the executive branch. In its new incarnation, the president's line-item veto could be reversed by a simple majority in both House and Senate. The old line-item veto required a two-thirds margin of both House and Senate to override the president. The Democratic leadership in the House is mostly opposed to the plan, along with some Republican appropriators. Rep. Gene Green, D-Houston, said he supported line-item authority in the 1990s but worries that Bush already is grabbing too much power from Congress. "I really don't feel comfortable having a stronger executive branch in our country," Green said. "I would rather look at it again, sometime, when we don't have an executive taking a lot of power unto themselves." In a worst-case scenario, a president could use the line-item veto threat as a wedge to punish or blackmail lawmakers, said Rep. Al Green, D-Houston. "I am opposed to it," Green said. "I think it could become terribly politicized in the long run." But Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands, called line-item veto authority "a great idea." "They ought to call it the 'public embarrassment for obscene pork bill,' and hopefully it will be a deterrent for some of these ridiculous earmarks," Brady said. Spiraling federal spending is a potent election-year issue, and the Republican-led Congress feels pressure to appear fiscally responsible. A wave of lobbying scandals and renewed focus on thousands of earmarks, which are expenditures added to spending bills by individual lawmakers, have prompted criticism of congressional extravagance. Stephen Hess, a communications professor and government scholar at George Washington University, said that neither earmarks nor line-item vetoes make a significant dent in the massive federal budget. "It's just around the edges," Hess said. "Clearly line-item is aimed at keeping the budget down, but when you look at the expenditures it can keep down, given the size of the budget, you realize that although it shouldn't sound like petty change, it really is." Clinton used his line-item veto 82 times in two years, and cut about $1 billion in federal spending. The current federal budget is about $2.7 trillion, and the national debt is $8.4 trillion. The Senate Budget Committee recently approved a similar measure, as well as other budget reforms, but it was unclear when the full Senate might consider it. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> See what's inside the new Yahoo! Groups email. http://us.click.yahoo.com/2pRQfA/bOaOAA/yQLSAA/KlSolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> ForumWebSiteAt http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Libertarian Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Libertarian/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
