[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 22 (Friday, February 3, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H1166]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             LINE-ITEM VETO

  (Mr. PORTMAN asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, with the passage of the unfunded mandate 
reform bill and the balanced budget amendment, we are actually starting 
to change the way Washington works. We are laying the groundwork for a 
new era of accountability. The next important step is the line-item 
veto.
  For too long Congress has sent the White House jampacked, all-
encompassing spending bills. This has meant the President has had to 
choose between signing unnecessary spending into law or shutting down 
the Government.
  Every year questionable projects and tax benefits are included and 
buried in spending and tax bills. Let me give you a few examples. We 
have all heard them: $500,000 to build the Lawrence Welk museum in 
North Dakota. Hundreds of millions to stockpile helium for the 
military, when we already have enough helium in storage to meet the 
entire world's needs for helium for the next 10 years; $11.5 million 
for power plant modernization at the soon-to-be-closed Philadelphia 
Naval Shipyard; and $25 million for an Arctic region supercomputer at 
the University of Alaska to study how to trap energy from the aurora 
borealis.
  The line-item veto is needed because it would allow the President 
flexibility to weed out and strike other wasteful spending items in an 
otherwise good bill.


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