stitutional. Even if it were not, there is npt any question that Con-
gress would figure a way to circumvent it.
Fingdly, Mr. President, if I were seeking a $15 million biotech
startup project at the University of Arkansas, and let us say a Re-
publican Senator has a project with a similar startup cost, we will
say, in Texas, maybe Senator Gramm, and the President is going
through the bill. He is going to say we have to cut some money out
of this budget. Who do you think is going to get vetoed? You do not
have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out, do you?
Of course, the line-item veto is a massive transfer of power to the
President of the United States, and people will stand up and wax
eloquent on the floor of the U.S. Senate, saying: Oh, if we only had
a line-item veto. Everybody here knows it will not make a dent in
the budget deficit. It is all entitlements, defense, and so on.
People will walk down into the well of that Senate in the year
1992, and they will vote for billions for SDI; billions for the B-2
bomber; billions for the space station; billions for the super collider;
$30 billion to spy on the Soviet Union, which does not even exist
anymore; and then go home and say: Oh, if we only had the line-
item veto.
Mr. President, I do not enjoy standing up here and saying things
that I know are unpopular with our own people in my home State.
But I did not come here to abdicate my responsibilities to the Con-
stitution or commonsensical Government.
I remember when Lyndon Johnson called Harry Byrd, Sr., into
his office during the time the civil rights bill was being considered,
and said, "McNamara wants to close that naval base down there
in your State." And Senator Harry Byrd, Sr., could not wait to get
back over here and vote for the civil rights bill.
I am not going to vote for this massive transfer of power.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, what is driving the debt is in large
measure something that the line-item veto will never touch; that
300
is, entitlements spending and mandatory spending. Yet, what this
amendment is directed to is the appropriations bills.
If this amendment were to be adopted, the President would not
be using the red pencil; faceless, nameless bureaucrats — unelected
bureaucrats — would be using the red pencil.
Our friends on the other side who offer this amendment are ask-
ing the American people to give up a lot; namely, the most impor-
tant power that the people have through their elected representa-
tives. We ought to think a long time before we turn an elected
President — unelected by the people; he is elected by electors who
are elected by the people — turn an elected President into a king.
This measure would effectively strip the authorizing commit-
tees — indirectly, of course — of power, as well. The President could
simply negate any authorized program by striking its funding. This
is a sham argument, crafted to take the focus off the real problem.
The real problem is the lack of political will on the part of the
White House and the Congress to cut entitlements or raise taxes,
or both, and really do something about the deficits.
A number of times, Senators have referred here to the occasion
when President Reagan stood before a joint session and held up the
conference report and slammed it down on the desk and talked
about how big and how heavy it was. That was the State of the
Union Address in January 1988.
President Reagan carried on a great deal about the size of that
package. Well, why was it sent to him in one package? Because in
the fall of 1987, after the stock market crash. Congress had entered
into summit negotiations with the Reagan administration, and the
administration then insisted that all appropriations measures — all
of them — and the reconciliation measure be submitted to the Presi-
dent concurrently.
That is the way we did it. We put them all into one package. It
was at the administration's own request.
But Mr. Reagan went on at great length about his desire for line-
item veto authority, so that he could line out portions of the bill
in these kinds of bills.
He went on to say that he would send to the Congress a list of
items that he would delete from the appropriations portions of the
1987 summit agreement. Well, 2 months later. President Reagan
sent such a list to Congress. I have the President's proposal here.
It is printed as House Document No. 100-174.
Let me read the President's message:
To the Congress of the United States:
I ask the Congress to consider the rescission or repeal of the
wasteful, unnecessary, or low priority spending projects that were
included in the full-year fiscal 1988 Continuing Resolution (P.L.
100-202). These are the projects that, if I were able to exercise
line-item veto authority, I would delete. They consist of Congres-
sional directives and amendments concerning activities which are
unnecessary and for which my Administration has not requested
funds. It is my hope that the funds appropriated for these projects
will not be spent as directed and can instead be spent on worth-
while projects or retained by the Treasury to lower the deficit. Ac-
cordingly, I am informally asking that the Congress review these
projects, appropriations, and other provisions line by line and ei-
301
ther rescind or repeal them as soon as possible. I reserve the option
of transmitting at a later date either formal rescission proposals or
language that would make the funds available for more worthwhile
purposes, for any or all of these items.
Since I assumed this office, the Congress has appropriated bil-
lions of dollars for questionable purposes, much of it in the context
of massive spending bills passed in great haste that not even Con-
gress had an adequate chance to evaluate. Because current law so
severely restricts my ability to impound or not spend appropriated
funds, I again appeal to the Congress to provide the Chief Execu-
tive with permanent line item veto authority. In the meantime, I
urge your prompt attention to this request for legislative action in
order to avoid these unnecessary expenditures of taxpayer dollars.
The details of these projects are set forth in the attached letter
from the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.
Signed Ronald Reagan, White House, March 10, 1988.
Well, here they are. How much did they amount to? How much
did this list of items amount to that the President said he would
delete if he were g^ven the Une-item veto? $969.6 million. It says
Total Wasteful Items, $969.6 million. That is a lot of money, to be
sure. But in the context of Federal budgets that are in the nature
of over $1 trillion, $969.6 million in budget authority is two-tenths
of 1 percent of the 1988 total discretionary appropriations. There
you are. That is what President Reagan would have deleted, be-
cause they were "wasteful items" in his words — two-tenths of 1 per-
cent. That speaks for itself, Mr. President.
That should speak for itself as to how effective this so-called elix-
ir of all of our budget problems would be. This is what the amend-
ment's sponsors call "budget reform."
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a table providing a
summary of wasteful items earmarked in the fiscal year 1988 full-
year continuing resolution be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the table was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
SUMMARY OF WASTEFUL ITEMS EARMARKED IN THE FISCAL YEAR 1988 FULL-YEAR CONTINUING
RESOLUTION (PUBLIC LAW 100-202)
[In millions of dollars]
Agency
Budget au-
thority fiscal
year 1988
Outlays fiscal
year 1988
Total Federal
project cost '
Candidates for rescission:
Department of Agriculture
Department of Commerce
Department of Defense-Civil
Department of Education
Department of Energy
Department of Housing and Urban Development
Department of the Interior
Department of Justice
Department of Transportation
Department of ttie Treasury
General Services Administration
Other Independent Agencies
Subtotal, candidates for rescission
116.4
116.4
156.0
17.0
8.2
34.3
49.4
33.3
1,971.7
6.4
0.6
14.1
182.3
84.6
419.8
1.0
.9
1.4
7.4
1.5
7.4
2.0
.2
2.0
85.2
17.1
786.1
8.4
8.3
8.4
19.0
20.0
20.0
45.0
45.0
45.0
539.5
336.1
3,466.2
302
SUMMARY OF WASTEFUL ITEMS EARMARKED IN THE FISCAL YEAR 1988 FULL-YEAR CONTINUING
RESOLUTION (PUBLIC LAW 100-202)— Continued
[In millions of dollars]
Agency
Budget au-
thority fiscal
year 1988
Outlays fiscal
year 1988
Total Federal
project cost '
Candidates for repeal or amendment:
Department of Agriculture
Department of Commerce
Department of Defense-Military
Department of Education
Department of Health and Human Services
Department of Housing and Urban Development
Department of ttie Interior
Department of Transportation
Department of the Treasury
Small Business Administration
Other Independent Agencies
4.0
4.0
152.0
1.7
.2
1.7
252.2
155.0
252.2
4.3
2.0
4.3
1.0
6.0
46.0
6.0
6.0
4.9
4.1
4.9
119.2
135.0
132.0
135.0
5.0
85.0
85.0
17.0
13.8
17.0
Subtotal, candidates for repeal or amendment
Loan asset sales:
Department of Housing and Urban Development ..
Small Business Administration
430.1
403.1
823.3
Subtotal, loan asset sales
158.0
643
801.0
Total:
Department of Agriculture
Department of Commerce
Department of Defense-Military
Department of Defense-Civil
Department of Education
Department of Energy
Department of Health and Human Services
Department of Housing and Urban Development
Department of the Interior
Department of Justice
Department of Transportation
Department of the Treasury
General Services Administration
Small Business Administration
Other Independent Agencies
Total, wasteful items
120.4
120.4
308.0
18.7
8.4
36.0
252.2
155.0
252.2
49.4
33.3
1,971.7
10.7
2.6
18.4
182.3
84.6
419.8
1.0
164.9
46.0
7.0
7.4
12.3
5.6
12.3
2.0
.2
2.0
85.2
17.1
905.3
143.4
140.3
143.4
19.0
20.0
20.0
5.0
728.0
85.0
62.0
58.8
62.0
969.6
1,540.2
2 4,289.5
' Includes both funded and unfunded portions.
'In addition, tl)e closing of small post offices would, If the prohibition were repealed, result In savings to the public in fiscal year 1988 of
$15,000,000. This would increase to an annual savings of $240,000,000 in 20 years.
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues on the opposing
side for their courtesies, as well. They have put up a good fight,
and I respect them for their viewpoints. I hope that the Senate will
resoundlingly defeat the motion to waive the Budget Act.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question now is on agreeing to
the motion offered by the Senator from Arizona to waive section
306 of the Budget Act.
The yeas and nays have been ordered.
The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from Iowa [Mr. Harkin]
and the Senator from Nebraska [Mr. Kerrey] are necessarily ab-
sent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. DODD). Are there any other
Senators in the Chamber desiring to vote?
303
The yeas and nays resulted — ^yeas 44, nays 54, as follows:
[RoUcaU Vote No. 33 Leg.]
YEAS— i4
Bond
Gorton
Boren
Graham
Brown
Gramm
Bvims
Grassley
Chafee
Hatch
Coats
Helms
Conrad
Hollings
Craig
Kassebavim
D'Amato
Kasten
Danforth
Lott
Daschle
Lugar
Dole
Mack
Domenici
McCain
Exon
McConnell
Gam
Murkowski
NAYS— 54
Adams
Durenberger
Akaka
Ford
Baucus
Fowler
Bentsen
Glenn
Biden
Gore
Bingaman
Hatfield
Bradley
Heflin
Breaux
Inouye
Bryan
Jeffords
Bumpers
Johnston
Burdick
Kennedy
Byrd
Kerrey
Cochran
Kohl
Cohen
Tiautenberg
Cranston
Leahy
DeConcini
Levin
Dixon
Lieberman
Dodd
Metzenbaxim
NOT VOTING— 2
Nickles
Packwood
Pressler
Robb
Roth
Seymoiir
Shelby
Simpson
Smith
Specter
Symms
Thurmond
Wallop
Warner
Mikulski
Mitchell
Mo3aiihan
Nunn
PeU
Pryor
Reid
Riegle
Rockefeller
Rudman
Sanford
Sarbanes
Sasser
Simon
Stevens
Wellstone
Wirth
WofFord
Harkin
Kerrey
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this question, the yeas are 44,
the nays are 54. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and
sworn not having voted in the affirmative, the motion is rejected.
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. METZENBAUM. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion to waive the point of
order made by the Senator from Tennessee, [Mr. Sasser] having
failed, the Chair now rules on the point of order.
The amendment by the Senator from Arizona affects title X of
the Budget Act and the process by which the budget authority may
be rescinded. This is a matter within the jurisdiction of the Budget
Committee proposed to a bill not reported by that committee.
Therefore, the amendment violates section 306 of the Budget Act.
The point of order is well taken. The amendment falls.
The Senator from West Virginia.
304
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank all Senators who voted
against the motion to waive the Budget Act.
Mr. President, there has been some considerable amount of dis-
cussion in the press and here on the floor to the effect that the
President ought to go ahead and exercise a line-item veto.
Mr. President, I hope that the President will not be led into that
thicket of confrontation. The vote here, I think, today, expresses
the view of the Senate. There is too much confrontation already be-
tween the executive and the legislative branches. And I hope that
the President will not be persuaded by hotheads to just go ahead,
exercise the line-item veto, and have a court test.
Well, he can do that. But what we need is less confrontation, Mr.
President, between the White House and the Congress — less con-
frontation. If the President were to make this attempt, it would en-
sure a good deal of bitter confrontation. God help the Nation if that
should ever be done and if the court should uphold the President.
I do not believe that a court in its right mind would ever do that.
I yield to the distinguished Senator from Delaware.
Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I would like to compliment the Sen-
ator from West Virginia on the work he has done in the last 24
hours. And on the point he has just raised, note for him what
maybe a number of Members on the floor do not know.
The present Attorney General, whom I think is a fine man and
is a first-class Attorney General and a man of great integrity,
when, before the Judiciary Committee, for his confirmation hear-
ing, volunteered to make the point that he was not unwilling to
take stands on controversial issues and he was his own man, vol-
unteered — and I am paraphrasing — that he had done a great deal
of work on the issue of whether there was an inherent line-item
veto right that the President presently has, as the Constitution is
presently drafted. And he said he is not only certain he does not,
but that he feels very strongly that he does not, based on his re-
search.
So I would hope that the President, if he is considering what
some of his political advisers apparently have suggested to him to
test this, that he go to his chief law enforcement officer, the man
in which he said he has allowed to reside the greatest amount of
confidence on matters of legal weight and importance, and ask his
Attorney General, the Justice Department, for a judgment.
I am confident that if he does, that the Attorney General will re-
spond as the honorable man that he is, exactly how he did in the
committee — that there is no such inherent right in the Constitution
presently possessed by the President.
I thank the Senator from West Virginia for both his comments
and for yielding.
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator
from Delaware, chairman of the Judiciary Committee. I did not
know about the statement that the distinguished Senator has just
alluded to. I am reassured greatly upon hearing of that statement.
And I am all the more pleased that I voted for the confirmation of
the Attorney General.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed
as in morning business for 5 minutes.
305
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Alabama is recognized.
(The remarks of Mr, Shelby pertaining to the introduction of S.
2278 are located in today's Record under "Statements on Intro-
duced Bills and Joint Resolutions.")
April 30, 1992
[From the Congressional Record pages S5882-5884]
THE CRS EVALUATION OF THE GAO LINE-ITEM VETO
REPORT
Mr. BYRD. Mr, President, last January, the Greneral Accounting
Office issued an unsolicited report entitled, "Line Item Veto — Esti-
mating Potential Savings," which made exaggerated claims of the
budgetary savings that would have occurred if President Reagan
had had line-item veto authority for fiscal years 1984 through
1989. On March 17, I asked the Congressional Research Service to
evaluate the GAO report, and on March 23, the CRS responded
with a detailed analysis.
The Congressional Research Service found such serious flaws in
the GAO report as to invalidate its results. In summary, CRS said:
"We believe that a more realistic and more useful estimate of
savings would be $2-3 billion over a six-year period and probably
less. The following considerations lead us to the more modest figure
for savings from an item veto. The report reaches the $70 billion
figure by making a series of assumptions that inflate the estimated
savings: (1) accepting SAPs prepared early in the process as a reli-
able guide to what happens later when Presidents receive appro-
priations bills, (2) giving Congress no credit for deleting items
through the alternative rescission process, (3) double-counting pro-
gram terminations, (4) assuming that a one-time "saving" from an
item veto is not used elsewhere for another program or activity, (5)
ignoring presidential use of item-veto authority to promote execu-
tive spending initiatives, (6) giving inadequate attention to the
modest record of item-veto savings at the state level, and (7) as-
suming that Congress never overrides an item veto (pages 4 and
7)."
Estimated line-item veto savings of $2-$3 billion over 6 years
works out to between $333 and $500 million a year. Such savings
would amount to between two and three one-hundredths of 1 per-
cent of Federal outlays.
The most fundamental flaw, among the seven found by CRS, was
the use of selected 0MB Statements of Administration Policy
[SAP's] as the basis for estimating potential line-item veto savings.
GAO chose SAP's reacting to House and Senate Appropriations
Committee actions, and not later SAP's sent just prior to House-
Senate conferences, because they maximized the potential savings.
As GAO noted, those later SAP's are usually much smaller than
the earlier ones. CRS found that:
"To be precise, SAP-based estimates overstate savings by a factor
of 23 for 1988. If that ratio is applied to the six-year period, likely
savings drop from $70.6 billion to $3.03 billion.
306
"Curiously, the report "judged that SAPs are a reasonable indica-
tor of the maximum savings that might have been achieved if a
President had used line item veto authority in the period we stud-
ied" (p. 9). From its own analysis, SAPs appear to be an unreason-
able indicator, unless they are used solely for the purpose of esti-
mating "maximum" savings rather than likely savings. Also on
page 9, the report states that "it is impossible to determine conclu-
sively whether or not the SAP-based estimates developed for this
report accurately reflect the way a President who had actually had
line item veto authority in the period 1984 through 1989 would
have used that authority." If the analysis is that difficult to prove
conclusively, why release a report that gives readers the impression
that $70 billion could have been saved over a six-year period?
Why indeed, Mr. President? CRS finds that GAO estimate to be
unfounded in the extreme, so I caution those who may read the
GAO study to avoid leaping to the same conclusions as GAO has.
I ask unanimous consent that my letter and the CRS analysis be
entered into the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed
in the Record, as follows:
Congressional Research Service,
Washington, DC, March 23, 1992.
To: Senator Robert C. Byrd, Chairman, Senate Committee on Ap-
propriations.
From: Louis Fisher, Senior Specialist in Separation of Powers.
Subject: GAO's report on "Line Item Veto" (January 1992).
This memorandum responds to your letter of March 17, request-
ing us to evaluate a General Accounting Office report entitled "Line
Item Veto — Estimating Potential Savings" (January 1992).
The report estimates that a presidential line item veto, applied
to fiscal years 1984 through 1989, could have saved $70 billion over
the 6-year period. The report's methodology rests primarily on an
examination of Statements of Administration Policy (SAPs) that
0MB provides to Congress, stating administration objections to
specific items in appropriations bills being considered.
As indicated in the title and explained in the text, the report was
intended to discover the maximum possible savings that could be
achieved through an item veto. As noted on page 3: "The objectives
of this study were to estimate the maximum savings likely . . . ."
And on page 14: "In all cases, we tried to give the benefit of the
doubt to the President; that is, we used the broadest possible inter-
pretation of SAP items to show the maximum possible savings esti-
mates."
We believe that a more realistic and more useful estimate of sav-
ings would be $2-3 billion over the six-year period and probably
less. The following considerations lead us to the more modest figure
for savings from an item veto. The report reaches the $70 billion
figure by making a series of assumptions that inflate the estimated
savings: (1) accepting SAPs prepared early in the process as a reli-
able guide to what happens later when Presidents receive appro-
priations bills, (2) giving Congress no credit for deleting items
through the alternative rescission process, (3) double-counting pro-
gram terminations, (4) assuming that a one-time "saving" from an
307
item veto is not used elsewhere for another program or activity, (5)
ignoring presidential use of item-veto authority to promote execu-
tive spending initiatives, (6) giving inadequate attention to the
modest record of item-veto savings at the state level, and (7) as-
suming that Congress never overrides an item veto (pages 4 and
7).
1. Use of SAPs. The $70 billion estimate results primarily from
the way the report relies on SAPs. The report assumes that the
President "would have used line item authority successfully to re-
ject each and every specific item to which objections were raised in
the SAPs" (p. 4). TTie report selected a SAP reacting to a House ap-
propriations action and a SAP reacting to a Senate appropriations
action for each of the appropriations bills. However, the report did
not use SAPs "sent just prior to House-Senate conferences" (p. 14).
Had it done so, estimated savings would have been less. As the re-
port explains, SAPs sent just prior to House-Senate conferences are
not "as inclusive as SAPs sent earlier in the process. The adminis-
tration sometimes 'gives up' on objectionable items that will not be
affected by conference action and dwells only on those which can
still be altered (so-called 'conferenceable' items)" (p. 14). The selec-
tion of early SAPs inflates potential savings from an item veto.
SAPs are not a reliable guide to what Presidents might item
veto. As appropriations bills move through the legislative process,
the President's position on specific items shifts in many cases from
a firm No to an accommodation. In the end, what counts are not
the SAPs produced when a bill clears a committee or passes one