[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 49 (Thursday, March 16, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S4002]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                     [[Page S4002]] LINE-ITEM VETO

  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, we hope later today to be bringing to the 
floor the line-item veto. Senator McCain and I are leading that effort. 
We are in final stages of negotiation as to the final form of the 
legislation. It is something that has been discussed at length over the 
past several years. Senator McCain and I have offered it alternately 
and jointly several times. We have not been able to secure the 
necessary 60 votes to break a filibuster on the line-item veto or to 
secure a budget waiver.
  This is the year we believe that it is time for the Senate and time 
for the Congress to fulfill its commitment to the American people on an 
item that an overwhelming majority of the American people support. Poll 
after poll show the support for line-item veto in the 70 to 80 percent 
range; 43 Governors enjoy the line-item veto and have for many, many 
years and have effectively demonstrated that it works in their State.
  Line-item veto is simply a measure by which the President can provide 
a check and balance against the gaming that Congress has engaged in on 
appropriations bills, in particular, and also on tax bills, I would 
say, in terms of attaching an item that has not been exposed to the 
light of debate on that item and a separate vote on that item, but has 
been attached to an otherwise necessary appropriations bill or tax bill 
that is being sent to the President.
  Under the current law, the President has only one of two options: 
Either accept the entire bill as it is written--sometimes it covers 
thousands of items--either accept that or reject the entire bill. So 
the President, in a sense, is being held in a position that some will 
describe as blackmail but others will say is at least extraordinarily 
difficult because it allows Members of Congress, when they see a 
popular bill moving through the Congress, to attach an item that could 
at best be described as pork barrel, an item that does not benefit the 
national interest, but an item that goes to the benefit of a very 
selected parochial interest.
  We are annually embarrassed by the disclosure in the popular news 
media of some of the items that have been attached to these bills. 
Constituents say, ``How in the world could you pass that? How in the 
world could you allow a grant that studies the well-being of America's 
lawyers? How could you pass something that would allow the study of the 
bathing habits of South American bullfrogs? How in the world could it 
be made a priority the expenditure of money to refurbish the Lawrence 
Welk Museum,'' and on and on and on it goes, schools in France, special 
bridges, special buildings--items that go toward, I suppose, pleasing a 
selected constituency in someone's congressional district or someone's 
State, but certainly would not fall within the list of priorities and 
receive, I believe, a majority vote if that specific item was debated 
on the floor of the Senate and voted on.
  But Members know, if a bill is rolling through here that provides 
necessary funds for the Department of Defense, as this supplemental 
appropriations bill we have been dealing with this week does, or a 
measure provides earthquake relief or hurricane relief for either 
California or Florida or other parts of our country, or if a measure 
goes to fund something popular or needed or necessary health care 
measures, veterans' benefits, whatever, they know that the President is 
going to find it very, very hard to veto that entire bill to get rid of 
the extra pork that is attached to that bill.
  And so the President's only choice is to veto the whole thing and 
sometimes, as a consequence of that, shut down the entire Government or 
accept the bill, and more likely than not, he has to accept the bill.
  Line-item veto gives the President the opportunity to say, ``I'll 
take that bill, but I won't take this special interest provision that 
is on line 16 of page 273, and I'm going to line-item veto that 
particular item.''
  This is a check and balance on what I would say are the egregious 
habits of Congress to accomplish in the dark of night without the light 
of debate, without the risk of a yea-or-nay vote on a particular item, 
to accomplish something that could never be accomplished in full debate 
and with a vote. It is designed to check that practice.
  Congress, if it thinks that the President has not followed its 
wishes, can bring that item up, because under the Constitution, if the 
President vetoes an item, we can override that item. Yes, it takes a 
two-thirds vote. It ought to be harder to spend the taxpayers' dollars, 
particularly on those items that the executive branch does not think 
are appropriate and have not had the normal process of authorization 
and debate and vote so that their constituents, our constituents, know 
where we stand on these particular items. That is the whole concept and 
purpose behind line-item veto.
  The President of the United States has supported line-item veto. Some 
people have said, ``Why would Republicans want to give a Democratic 
President the line-item veto?'' We think the Presidency deserves that 
authority to check the excessive and unnecessary, unwarranted spending 
habits of Congress that do not follow the normal procedures in devising 
these spending items.
  So we will be debating that. I expect the debate to be fairly fierce. 
We probably will get a filibuster on our efforts. This is the year, 
though, that if we are going to fulfill our commitment to the American 
people to make substantive changes in the way we do business, this is 
the year to do it.
  We will hear all kinds of excuses about delegation of power and will 
this really work and how much will this save. I guarantee you, it will 
save more than if we do nothing. This is a debate between the status 
quo, let us keep doing things the way we are doing them; oh, we will 
promise to change, we will promise to do it differently, we will summon 
the will, we will do what is necessary--no, we will not, because we 
have not. Year after year, decade after decade, promises--just 
rhetoric--no reality, no fulfillment of the promise.
  This is the time. I am deeply and bitterly disappointed that we could 
not pass a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. That would 
have provided the mechanisms by which we can eliminate this debt which 
would force us to own up to our responsibilities, which we have not 
done over the past several decades. But at the very least let us enact 
line-item veto so that we can get at some of this problem and so that 
we can restore credibility with the American people that we are 
responsible in handling their money and we can eliminate this practice 
of providing pork-barrel spending that never gets the debate it 
deserves and is never subjected to a vote.
  Mr. President, we will be talking a lot about that later. I think my 
5 minutes has about expired. Given the fact no one was available to 
speak, I thought it might be more interesting than a quorum call.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from 
North Dakota [Mr. Dorgan] is recognized to speak for up to 10 minutes.

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