place upon the judiciary a burden for monitoring the scope of the
item veto but without clear standards and guidelines for the courts.
In the end, our political institutions would be weakened and our
resolve toward budget responsibility impaired. This is not a step to
be taken lightly. It is not a step to be taken at all.
I was somewhat amused when I heard some of the Governors
talk about how they balance their budgets, how they have to bal-
ance their budgets. They have the line-item veto, they say. They
have the line-item veto. They balance their budgets. What they do
not say is how much Federal money they get to help them balance
their budgets. They are right in along with everybody else for the
handout waiting for their check to come in.
They do not have to be concerned about the national defense.
They do not have the responsibility for the national defense.
Mr. THURMOND. Mr. President, I rise today to support the
amendment offered by the able Senator from Arizona, which would
give the President statutory line-item veto authority. Under this
approach, the President is authorized to rescind all or part of any
budget authority submitted to him.
I am pleased to be a cosponsor of this amendment, as well as S.
196, the underlying line-item veto bill.
Each year during the budget debate, much discussion is focused
on ways to enhance revenues. The Congress must address runaway
spending if we are truly going to establish a sound fiscal policy for
this Nation.
206
Mr. President, the Office of Management and Budget projects the
national debt to exceed $4 trillion by the end of fiscal year 1992
and $4.5 trillion by the end of fiscal year 1993. The payment on
the interest of this national debt is the second largest item in the
budget. Our Federal deficit exceeded $150 billion for fiscal year
1989, $220 billion for fiscal year 1990, $268 billion for fiscal year
1991, and is projected to exceed $399 billion in fiscal year 1992.
This must stop. We must take strong, disciplinary action to ensure
fiscal responsibility.
The Congress regularly enacts appropriations measures, totaling
billions and billions of dollars. Unfortunately, items are often
tucked away in these bills representing millions of dollars that
would have little chance of passing on their own merit. The Presi-
dent's hands are tied. He has no discretion to stop these unneces-
sary expenditures and must approve or disapprove the bill in its
entirety.
Presidential authority for line-item veto is a badly needed fiscal
tool which should provide a valuable means to reduce and restrain
excessive appropriations.
Forty-three Governors currently have, in one form or another,
the power to reduce or eliminate items or provisions in appropria-
tion measures. Mr. President, I enjoyed that power as Governor of
South Carolina and I saved South Carolina from many unnecessary
expenditures. Surely, the President should have the same discre-
tionary authority that 43 Grovernors now have to check unbridled
spending.
I have been a supporter for a constitutional amendment to pro-
vide for a line-item veto. In the 101st Congress, the Senate Judici-
ary Committee, of which I am ranking member, approved similar
legislation which proposed a constitutional amendment ensuring
the President's line-item veto authority. I reintroduced this legisla-
tion in the 102d Congress and it is pending in the Judiciary Com-
mittee. Although I much prefer a constitutional amendment provid-
ing for a line-item veto, I am pleased to support this statutory,
middle-ground approach.
Mr. President, it is my hope that this Congress will swiftly ap-
prove line-item veto and send a clear message to the American peo-
ple that we are making a serious effort to get our Nation's fiscal
house in order.
I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.
Mr. WOFFORD. Mr. President, I support this bill. Our industrial
base ā the heart of our Nation's economic strength ā is eroding. As
our competitors have worked to develop technological innovations ā
innovations that often originate here in the United States ā into
products and markets and jobs, our domestic manufacturers have
to work even harder to remain competitive.
Research and development in this country is excellent. But we
have to make it easier for companies to take the next step, to de-
velop their ideas into products, which will create jobs and benefit
workers here in America. The original National Cooperative Re-
search Act, passed in 1984, has shown us that the joint venture ap-
proach works: since its enactment, over 150 research partnerships
have brought advances in sectors ranging from high technology to
steelmaking.
207
It's time to extend this successful program to manufacturing. We
need to let our companies work together, to pool their resources to
promote the manufacture of new products here in the United
States. Our work force, the most productive in the world, is up to
the challenge. Let's pass this bill and make sure that American
ideas lead to American jobs.
ENHANCED RESCISSION POWER MEANS ENHANCED
EXECUTIVE POWER
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, the title of this speech is "Enhanced
Rescission Power Means Enhanced Executive Power." I will speak
just a little while about the proposal to give to the President the
power of enhanced rescissions.
Mr. President, I have not had a chance to study the amendment
carefully. Just a cursory reading of it, though, is enough. To those
Members of both Houses who may be so myopically generous and
accommodating to any President as to want to give him an item
veto, this is their chance, but do not count me in. The item veto
would give to any President loaded dice, and I, for one, will not
play in that game.
I heard a Senator say recently that according to a Gallup poll
"some 70 percent" of the American people support the item veto.
This is understandable. The average citizen who is concerned about
spiralling budget deficits cannot be expected to understand the in-
tricacies of appropriations bills. He is worried about the economy,
about holding a job or getting another job, and to him the sugges-
tion that the President be authorized to strike so-called "pork bar-
rel" items ā one man's pork may be another man's sustenance ā
from bills passed by Congress has an appeal. But Members of the
House and Senate who peddle the item veto as a cure for deficits
ought to know better.
Can it be that while voting on appropriations bills every year
they have never taken the time to leaf through one of those bills?
Or are they just engaging in demagoguery by using the item veto
to avoid tough political decisions and knowingly playing upon the
ignorance of honest souls who are uninformed concerning the com-
plexities of the appropriations and budgeting process?
Unlike State legislatures. Congress does comparatively little
itemizing in its appropriations bills. Consequently, there are rel-
atively few "items" for a President to strike. This point can be dem-
onstrated by examining the Energy and Water Development Appro-
priations Act for fiscal year 1990. One will note therein that Con-
gress appropriated mostly by lump-sum amounts, not by items. For
example, under "General Investigations," there is a lump sum of
$131,086,000 for surveys, detailed studies, and plans concerning
rivers and harbors, flood control, shore protection, and related
projects. The paragraph contains some earmarkings of funds for
eight projects totaling $1,850,000. In the remaining section, seven
projects are specified, amounting to $1,265,000, making a grand
total of $3,115,000 for the fifteen earmarked projects which would
be stricken out of the act by an item veto. What about the remain-
ing $127.9 million? How is it to be spent? The Act signed by the
President does not say. The answer is to be found in the conference
report, which identifies over 350 items, which could not be elimi-
208
nated by a Bush item veto, because conference reports do not go
to the President for his signature. Even the 15 specific projects list-
ed in the act signed by President Bush could just as easily have
been identified by Congress in the conference report rather than in
the act, thus leaving the President with only the lump sum to veto
or to approve. Thus, for Senators to maintain that arming the
President with item-veto power would curtail spending, is vain pos-
turing.
Take another example from the same fiscal year 1990 Energy
and Water Appropriations Act. Under "Operation and Mainte-
nance, General," $1,377,504,000 was appropriated. Only four spe-
cific amounts are listed with projects earmarked for California,
Minnesota, Nebraska, and South Dakota, totaling $8.9 million,
which could be subjected to a line-item veto. What about the re-
maining $1,368,604,000, none of which is set forth in discrete
items? Again, the answer to the question can be found in the con-
ference report, which the President cannot veto. That report identi-
fies more than 700 projects, but the report does not go to the Presi-
dent for his signature or approval. Thus, if the President had had
the power to veto separate items, he could have vetoed only four
items in the Act, under "Operation and Maintenance, General," and
they would have amounted to a total of only $8.9 million, or six-
tenths of 1 percent (0.6) of the account! Can anyone seriously be-
lieve that giving an item veto to the President would be an effec-
tive tool in eliminating budget deficits? Let's stop trying to fool the
people.
The item veto operates differently at the State level, because
items are set forth discretely in the bills presented to the Governor.
But at the Federal level, as I have already demonstrated, funds are
appropriated mostly in lump-sum amounts, which allow adminis-
trative officials and executive branch personnel some flexibility and
discretion in utilizing the funds more efficiently. In moving money
around in large accounts, the agencies are required to report to
Congressional committees and secure their approval on any
"reprogrammings . "
Officials in the Reagan administration claimed that the framers
of the Constitution anticipated that Congress would pass separate
appropriations bills for discrete programs rather than bills that
would encompass a variety of related or unrelated matters. Those
Reagan administration spokesmen displayed an appalling igno-
rance of history. In the first two Congresses, the general appropria-
tions were made in single bills. The first appropriations bill of
record, in 1789, appropriated $639,000, as follows:
H.R. 32, an Act of 1789:
Civil list $216,000
Department of War 137,000
Board of Treasury 190,000
Pensions to invalids 96,000
Total, H.R. 32 639,000
H.R. 47, an Act of 1790, appropriated $551,491.71, for the follow-
ing:
H.R. 47, An Act of 1790:
Civil Ust $141,492.73
Department of Wair 155,537.72
209
Pensions to invalids 96,979.72
Expenses of Congress (Such sums)
Contingent charges 10,000.00
Treasury 147,169.54
Jehoiakim MToksin 120.00
James Mather 96.00
GiffordDalley 96.00
Total, H.R. 47 551,491.71
H.R. 120, an Act of 1791, appropriated $740,232.60, as follows:
H.R. 120, an Act of 1791:
Civil Ust $299,276.53
Department of War 390,199.54
Treasury 50,756.53
Total, H.R. 120 740,232.60
The claim of Reagan administration officials that, in the earlier
years. Presidents were able to veto or sign separate appropriations
bills for discrete programs or activities, in accordance with the an-
ticipation of the Constitutional Framers, was without a grain of
truth, as evidenced by the kind of bills enacted in 1789, 1790, and
1791, shown above. George Washington, who had presided over the
Philadelphia Convention, later stated, when he was President:
"From the nature of the Constitution, I must approve all parts of
a Bill, or reject it in toto." Moreover, the Members of the First Con-
gress included many of the framers who had attended the Philadel-
phia Convention. Evidently, they did not anticipate that Congress
would pass separate appropriations bills for discrete programs, as
Donald Regan, President Reagan's secretary of the treasury, main-
tained. As will be noted, each of the three Acts appropriated funds
for the Civil List, the War Department, and the Treasury. Pensions
to invalids, and other items were included, as in H.R. 120, of the
$390,199.54 appropriated for the Department of War, $100,000 was
earmarked for defrajdng the expenses of an expedition against cer-
tain Indian tribes, and $87,463.60 was earmarked for pensions to
invalids. There were also earmarks in H.R. 47. The acts also con-
tained authority for the president to authorize additional funding
from customs receipts. Consequently, the figures I have shown do
not accurately reflect the entire cost of Government operations for
the 3 years.
Authorizing the president to veto "items" in appropriations bills
may be a legitimate topic for debate, but the issue should not be
obscured by misconceptions and glib assertions that have no basis
in facts. Before undertaking major surgery on the appropriations
process, I submit that we must first understand it. Perhaps we will
then stop kidding ourselves into believing that the item veto is the
desideratum that its political hawkers claim it to be.
Mr. President, during the past century, the item veto proposal
has been offered in Congress as a constitutional amendment many
times but it has rarely received any serious consideration. More re-
cently, there has been an escalation of attempts to give the Presi-
dent item veto authority by statute. I submit, however, that the
President cannot be given the item veto by statute and that, if such
a statute were enacted, it would be ruled unconstitutional by the
courts.
210
The U.S. Constitution, in article I, section 1, vests all legislative
powers in Congress:
"All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested" ā
Not "may be vested" ā
"* * * in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of
a Senate and House of Representatives."
Article I, section 9, paragraph 7, vest the appropriations power
in Congress:
"No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Con-
sequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement
and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money
shall be published from time to time."
The two foregoing sections in article I, clearly and unequivocally
place the appropriations power in Congress and only in Congress,
for if appropriations can only be made by law and only Congress
has power to make law, then only Congress can make appropria-
tions. To argue, therefore, that any transfer to the executive of the
congressional power over appropriations can be accomplished by
statute is but an excursion into Alice-in-Wonderland fantasy. A
power which has been vested in Congress by the Constitution can-
not be taken away, transferred, or given away by statute. I would
be ashamed as a United States Senator, to demonstrate my igno-
rance of the Constitution by maintaining that such could be done.
It can only be done by an amendment to the Constitution, and I
do not view that likelihood as an immediate threat.
What I consider as a greater danger to Congress' power over the
purse, however, is a proposal making the rounds of late that is
commonly referred to as "enhanced rescissions." This is a Trojan
horse, a back-door approach to the item veto and, in effect, a super
item veto. That it indeed might be capable of achievement by stat-
ute should be very disquieting to all who view the power over the
purse as the master balance-wheel in the constitutional mechanism
of checks and balances.
When Congress passed the Congressional Budget and Impound-
ment Control Act of 1974, it was responding to a perceived shift of
power to the President, demonstrated by the refusal to spend ap-
propriated funds by the executive during the Lyndon Johnson and
Nixon administrations. The act was designed to protect Congress'
power over the purse, and to protect the constitutional balance be-
tween the executive branch and the legislative branch. It required
the approval by both houses before any Presidential rescissions of
appropriated funds could become effective. Congress having passed
an appropriations bill, and the President having signed it into law
or having let it become law without his signature, his rescissions
could only prove successful if Congress acted favorably to approve
them. If Congress did nothing within a prescribed 45-day period,
the budget authority proposed by the President to be rescinded had
to be made available for obligation. Under "enhanced rescissions,"
however, the situation would be reversed and the burden would be
shifted. If Congress did nothing or were not to succeed in dis-
approving the President's proposed rescissions, then the budget au-
thority would not be made available for obligation,
Mr. President, on June 6, during the debate on the "Americans
with Disabilities Act of 1990," an amendment was offered to grant
211
to the President the power to reduce budget authority. The amend-
ment fell because a motion to waive a budget act point of order
failed to attract the necessary 60-vote majority. The amendment
would have added to the Congressional Budget and Impoundment
Control Act of 1974 a new title: "Title XI ā Legislative Line Item
Veto Rescission Authority." Under the amendment, the President
could, within 20 calendar days (excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and
holidays) after the date of enactment of a regular or supplemental
appropriations bill or continuing resolution, notify Congress by spe-
cial message of his decision to rescind all or any part of any budget
authority contained therein.
The President could also notify the Congress of such rescissions
by special message at the time he submits his budget message to
Congress, provided such rescissions had not been proposed pre-
viously for that fiscal year. In other words, following the beginning
of the new fiscal year on October 1 in a given year, the President
could wait until he presents his new budget the following January,
at which time he could propose rescissions of budget authority con-
tained in all previously enacted 13 regular appropriations bills and
supplementals if no such rescissions had been proposed previously
for that fiscal year which began three months earlier.
Such budget authority so rescinded would be deemed canceled
unless a bill disapproving the full rescission were to be enacted by
Congress and presented to the President within 20 calendar days
of session for his approval or disapproval. The President would
have an additional 10 days (exclusive of Sundays) in which to sign
or veto the rescission disapproval bill, which must disapprove the
rescission "in whole."
One of my favorite old-time songs and fiddle tunes is 'The Rov-
ing Gambler." But one does not have to be the roving gambler to
know that to give to any President an enhanced rescissions power
is to hand the President a stacked deck to be used against the
elected representatives of the people and against the people them-
selves.
The difficulties that would confront Congress are obvious. First
and foremost, for any projects, programs, or activities on a Presi-
dent's selective hit list. Congress in all likelihood would have to
produce the votes from three to four times before such budget au-
thority could be finally locked in. As a scenario, for example, the
President vetoes an appropriations bill but the Congress overrides
the veto and the bill becomes law, after which the President re-
scinds part of the budget authority in the act, and Congress then
passes a bill disapproving the rescissions; the President then vetoes
the disapproval bill, and Congress attempts to override the veto. In
such a not-unlikely scenario, not only would Congress have voted
four times on the same appropriations items, but a two-thirds ma-
jority in both Houses would also have been required on two of the
votes in order for Congress to succeed in nailing down the budget
authority.
Obviously, enhanced rescissions authority for any President
would give him a "heads, I win-tails, you lose" advantage over the
Congress. As we all know, throughout the 200 years of our history,
very few Presidential vetoes have been overridden, and that is be-
cause the President needs only one-third plus one of the Members
212
voting in either House to have his veto sustained. Yet, from time
to time, Congress has been able ā on a matter of national signifi-
cance ā to muster the necessary two-thirds to override. But if the
President were to be given an enhanced rescissions authority, it
would be necessary for Congress to marshal a two-thirds majority
in both Houses, not once but twice in order to enact any budget au-
thority to which he objects, and the usual situation would involve
a veto of one or more items that could be of importance only to a
single region or a few States ā or even only to a single State or con-
gressional district. Under such circumstances, the already great
odds favoring sustention of a President's veto would be increased
exponentially. As the geographical area directly affected by such a
veto would, in most cases, be less than nationwide, fewer Members
in both Houses would be interested in overriding the veto. Add to
this the fact that in the House, where representation is based upon
population, the possibility already exists for a mere handful of
States, in a given situation, to thwart the will of the majority in
both bodies. Take, for example, five States: California, with 45
votes; New York, with 34; Texas, 27; Pennsylvania, 23, and Illinois,
with 22 votes; these five States have a total of 151 House votes ā
more than one-third of the membership. Banded together, these
five States alone can thus sustain a presidential veto of a bill that
is important, in varying degree, to the other 45 States.
Conversely, a minority of States with large populations can
produce a two-thirds vote to override. It is theoretically possible for
16 States ā less than one-third of the total number of States ā to
override a Presidential veto in the House. The following tabulation
of 16 of the larger-populated States shows a total of 293 votes ā
three votes more than the 290 needed to override when all 435
members cast their votes: California, 45; New York, 34; Texas, 27;
Pennsylvania, 23; Illinois, 22; Ohio, 21; Florida, 19; Michigan, 18;
New Jersey, 14; Massachusetts, 11; North Carolina, 11; Indiana,
10; Virginia, 10; Georgia, 10; any two ā ^Wisconsin, Missouri, or
Tennessee ā with 9 each, 18; for a total of 293.
The point I am making is that the less-populated States would
find their collective strength in the House significantly diminished
from the standpoint of overriding a veto in a situation where only
a region or a few States were impacted adversely by a veto. For in-
stance, the six States of Maine (2), New Hampshire (2), Vermont
(1), Massachusetts (11), Rhode Island (2), and Connecticut (6), in
the Northeast collectively have only 24 votes in the House ā a sub-
stantial contribution to an override on a matter of nationwide sig-
nificance, and most Presidential vetoes are in regard to matters of
importance nationally. But the collective members of the same six
States would find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to inter-
est two-thirds of the total House membership in overriding a veto
of budget authority of importance only to the Northeast region.
With enhanced authority to rescind budget authority, the Presi-
dent could be expected to exercise the veto power more often be-
cause he would know that if a veto of an entire bill were not sus-
tained, he could come back with his new rescission power and, in
effect, veto the separate and specific budget authority items that he
finds particularly objectionable, with little chance that both Houses
would pass a disapproval bill of importance only to a few States or
213
a few members, and with an even less likelihood of an override of
his veto of a disapproval bill of such limited interest to the overall
membership of both Houses. Enhanced rescission authority would,
therefore, provide an enormous incentive to any President to follow
a divide-and-conquer policy, and he would virtually be assured of
success in totally dominating the appropriations process. Such an
expansion of executive power, with a corresponding reduction of the
power of the legislative branch, would effectively emasculate the
balance between the two branches. I should think that even Alex-