Every bit helps - Line-Item Veto

Every president - Democrat and Republican - wants to be able to cut out frivolous spending. Until Richard Nixon was weakened by Watergate the president could just refuse to spend some of the allocated funding. But Congress made it illegal and made Nixon sign the bill.

The Republicans passed a line-item veto in the Contract for America in 1995, but the courts knocked it out. But there was one side benefit - or was it term limits? - Tom Foley, who was the Speaker of the House, sued the voters of the State of Washington and the voters in his district returned the favor and voted him out.

Maybe a way has been found to make it legal again. The AP reports:

Bush asks Congress for line-item veto power...

In its 1998 ruling striking down the Line Item Veto Act of 1996, the Supreme Court concluded that the Act “g[ave] the President the unilateral power to change the text of duly enacted statutes.” The Legislative Line Item Veto Act does not raise those constitutional issues because the President’s rescission proposals must be enacted by both houses of Congress and signed into law.

Here is hoping. We need it. Even the elected Republicans are breaking the bank on spending. Via PowerLine Blog.