Congressional Record, Volume 141 Issue 50 (Friday, March 17, 1995)

[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 50 (Friday, March 17, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4134-S4145]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

LINE-ITEM VETO

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I had the opportunity to listen to the
remarks made by the distinguished majority leader.
Let me say, I have just come from a meeting with the President --not
about this issue, but another issue--and I do not think there is any
question that the President is prepared today, tomorrow, or at any time
to reiterate what he said all along. He supports the line-item veto. It
is that simple. There is no question about it. We do not have to make
this a political issue. We do not have to try to put words in his
mouth. He does not need that. He can do that for himself. The fact is,
President Clinton supports the line-item veto. Period.
The fact is, so do most Democrats. I have supported a line-item veto
since coming to the Congress. I did 15 years ago and I do today. I
always have. I believe that it is an important aspect of good
legislating.
I recognize that 43 States have already done what we would like to do
here. Forty-three States have already acknowledged that Governors ought
to have an opportunity to review and send back for further review items
in legislation. Regardless of how many times it takes, if a Governor,
or a President for that matter, thinks that a line item ought to be
reviewed, he ought to have the right to send it back. That is the
issue.
Line-item rescission, as it really is properly called in this case,
is something an overwhelming majority of Democrats and Republicans
support. The trouble is defining what it is we are referring to when we
say line-item veto or line-item rescission. That is the issue.
I do not think there is any doubt that Democrats and Republicans
could come together this afternoon and agree upon an approach, if you
take our past positions and acknowledge that on the Republican as well
as the Democratic side there is a consensus about the need for a line-
item veto.
Unfortunately, what has happened over the course of the last several
days, in spite of the fact that two bills were reported out of
committee, in spite of the fact that there has been, as the
distinguished majority leader said, a great deal of consideration given
to the line-item veto in the past, there has been a backroom deal cut.
In the closet somewhere, in the Cloakrooms or in the back rooms, some
of our Republican colleagues have decided that whatever versions have
been considered in the committees are not good enough; that they wanted
to come up with a bill that we have not seen.
I remember so well the complaints raised last year by many of our
colleagues on the other side about not having been consulted, about
wanting our cooperation, but not having the opportunity to even see a
draft of a health bill and, as a result, they said, they vehemently
opposed many of the provisions in health bills that were offered time
and again on the Senate floor. ``We were not consulted,'' they said.
``That is not a good legislative process,'' they said. ``We ought to
take the committee process and make it work,'' they said.
Well, they were making some arguments that, frankly, I shared. In
fact, I thought we had consulted, but certainly not to their
satisfaction in some cases.
But the point was made over and over that we simply had not reached
out adequately to them and for that reason they were unwilling to
cooperate with us.
Well, now I hear the majority leader and others say that they hope
they can get Democrats to cooperate on this issue; that they can find a
way to ensure that we get a number of Democrats to support this version
of line-item veto that nobody has seen. It is a line-item veto proposal
that, to the best of our knowledge, takes a good idea to the extreme,
and, frankly, from a constitutional and a practical point of view, is
much in need of consideration and review as we go through the next
several days.
Mr. President, I think that just about every Democrat would like to
support the bill that was offered originally by the chairman of the
Budget Committee
[[Page S4135]] and the ranking member, Senator Domenici and Senator
Exon. That a bill that has received a good deal of consideration and,
as I understand it, has support on both sides of the aisle.
We would like to take that bill and say, ``Let Members begin with
this.'' This is a piece of legislation that obviously has merit. It is
a piece of legislation that is broad in scope. As introduced, it would
include not only appropriations but taxes. It would give Members an
opportunity to review more than just the appropriations process. It is
a bill, as I understand it, that Majority Leader Dole has cosponsored,
I have cosponsored, a number of other legislators have cosponsored in
the past that contains all the needed protections against an imbalance
of power between the President and the Congress, something that we
want, if we are going to do this right, to ensure that the balance
between the executive and the legislative branch is maintained. It
offers an approach that we all can support, something that we all
recognize is needed. That balance is critical on a whole range of
issues, not just appropriations.
Most importantly, we want to protect Social Security. We want to take
that off the table. Obviously, there is legislation pending that would
insist that we take Social Security off the table when it comes to
balancing the Federal budget over a period of time.
We also want a piece of legislation that will not permit a minority
in Congress to hold a majority hostage, that does not overturn the
central principle of democratic government: majority rule.
It is amazing to me how many times we find both sides of the aisle
lamenting how we are captive of the minority, how we cannot do the
people's work in part because a small group of people is holding
hostage a certain piece of legislation. Holding the majority hostage,
and keeping us from doing the kind of things that we know we should be
doing.
In essence, we want legislation, Mr. President, that allows Members
to do that, that protects majority rule, that protects the principles
enshrined in the Constitution, proven by 200 years of practice in
legislating, and providing the balance that we have all wanted between
the executive and the legislative branches.
The Domenici-Exon approach creates a fast-track procedure to make
sure Congress does not ignore the President's desire to review a
certain provision not to finance a particular project. That is another
concern. We want to be sure that when a President comes up with his
list of rescission items, that it is not ignored as it is today. Under
the bill, Congress would have the opportunity to review in a very
careful way each and every one of these items, with the understanding
that they will be reviewed within a specified, delineated period of
time. This would force the Congress to act, and ensure an open and
public debate and vote on particular projects within a designated
period.
Spending would then be dependent on the merits of that particular
proposal. Supporters will be held accountable. That is what I think all
advocates of line-item veto have argued is the central principle here.
That when we isolate out a given item, not buried in the paragraphs and
pages of thick bills in the future, that supporters will have to come
forth and say, ``I believe that it is in the best interests of the
country to support this particular item, and we are willing to have a
vote on it. We are willing to put it under the light of day.''
We should have an all-out debate on whether it merits majority
support. If it does, then obviously it ought to be enacted into law. I
think that is what the American people want: Accountable, open
Government, but Government that allows Congress in a more meaningful
way to specify with great authority those things we want from those
things we do not.
The line-item authority the President has under current law is too
weak. Everyone appreciates that because Congress can ignore the
President's proposal to cancel spending. There is nothing right now
that requires the Congress to act when a President rescinds something.
We are really in a situation that is untenable, frankly. The
President knows there are things within a bill that he is unwilling to
support, and yet he is faced with the dilemma of either supporting it
or vetoing the entire piece of legislation. He can rescind items, be
ignored by Congress, and nothing ultimately is accomplished, adding to
the public cynicism, and adding to the extraordinary difficulties we
have in making things work better, legislating with an understanding
that there has to be a better way. Spending goes forward, no money is
saved, cynicism goes up, and ultimately the system breaks down.
Since 1974, Presidents have proposed to cancel $72.8 billion in
spending. Congress has canceled only $22.9 billion of those requests.
In addition, Congress cut $70 billion out on its own.
That is an interesting point and I think people have to understand
that issue. The fact is that the Congress has cut more in the aggregate
from its appropriations than what the Presidents over the last 20 years
has proposed. We actually have a better budgetary record when it comes
to overall spending than what the Presidents have proposed in their
rescissions. The problem is we cannot agree on which line items ought
to be reduced or eliminated. Because we cannot agree, nothing is done.
We cut, the President proposes cuts, but those Presidential proposals
more times than not are ignored entirely.
The Domenici-Exon bill corrects the weakness in current law. First of
all it forces the Congress to vote. The President has 20 days to notify
Congress; 2 days later a bill with the President's proposals has to be
introduced; 10 days later the Congress must vote. That is what it says.
The President proposes within a 20-day timeframe what specific
rescission items he believes the Congress must review and act upon. Two
days later, a bill with all of those Presidential proposals is
introduced, and within the next 10 days the Congress is forced to vote
on each and every one of these items.
That, to me, is what the American people have said they want. That is
exactly what I think Democrats and Republicans probably could agree
upon, a process by which there would be a certain review, a certain
vote, and a reaction to the President's specific requests at a time
that I think most people would consider to be fair.
Second, it prevents filibusters of rescission proposals entirely. As
I said, this is a fast-track approach. The Senate gets 10 hours to
debate. And an equivalent time limit is imposed on the House. There is
no way to drag this out. We would have the certainty, the confidence in
knowing that when the President sends down his rescission message, the
Congress must act, and act within a certain period of time. When that
comes to the floor, there is 10 hours of debate, and it is over. We
have made our decisions.
We have enforced the deal and defended each and every one of these
items. Most importantly, it is done with the confidence in knowing that
everyone will have their opportunities either to defend or oppose these
rescission items in a time certain.
Third, it puts all the savings into deficit reduction. That is
another thing I think the American people say they want. Let Members
not take spending from one side of the ledger and put it into something
else. Let Senators recognize that, indeed, if we are going to do what
we said over 5 weeks we are going to do when we had our debate on a
balanced budget amendment, everyone said they would recognize the need
for a glidepath, and are unwilling, of course, to put in writing a
blueprint, at least to date. That is, our Republican colleagues have
been unwilling to show just how they will do it.
I think I have heard a number of our colleagues advocate certainly if
we are going to save money, it ought to be dedicated to deficit
reduction. Unfortunately, I hear my colleagues on the House side argue
just the opposite, that, indeed, we ought to have a $600-plus billion
tax cut and find ways to offset that tax cut with cuts in spending.
That has been the debate ongoing for several weeks over on the House
side.
The combinations of time certain, with the realization that
everything we do would be dedicated to deficit reduction, prohibiting
Congress to cancel spending on some unnecessary project and turning it
around and using it for tax cuts or some other purpose, is exactly what
I think this Congress and
[[Page S4136]] what the American people would like to see done.
The combination of these provisions make present law into a real
line-item veto power for this President and for all future Presidents.
Congress has to defend all of its questionable spending openly. Current
law gives Presidents only the opportunity to propose canceled spending,
but nothing to make Congress respond. That is the problem we have
today. The President proposes, and the Congress ignores.
The Congress ignores and ultimately nothing gets done.

(Mr. SMITH assumed the chair.)
Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, this bill is going to change business as
usual. There will be less ability to sneak things in, less opportunity
for people late at night to put little provisions in the bill that we
only understand later to have consequential effects both budgetarily
and otherwise.
It gives the President the chance to highlight questionable spending
and force the authors to defend it publicly, discourages questionable
projects if authors know they may be forced to defend them in public.
So there is no doubt the legislation that many of us support, the
original Domenici-Exon bill is strong, it will work. Unfortunately, it
ought to be the bill that we are debating today, but we are not. We are
not because, for some reason, the Republicans have chosen to come up
with a new concoction, some other provision that does not have the
provisions that I just described, despite the broad bipartisan support
for a bill that throughout the process has shown to have the kind of
bipartisan support necessary to move this legislation along.
Mr. President, I wonder what the real motivation may be. Is the
motivation the desire to pass meaningful line-item veto legislation or
the motivation to try to embarrass the President or the Democratic
Members of the Senate? I do not know. I hope it is, as the majority
leader has indicated, a true desire to resolve this issue, to move this
ahead, to bring to the Senate, and ultimately to the President, a bill
that he can support, a bill that would do the kind of things that I
have outlined are necessary if, indeed, we are going to have a
practical, constitutionally sound piece of legislation that enjoys
broad bipartisan support.
The Republicans have arrived at a consensus to promote what I
understand is a completely different line-item veto than anything we
have seen so far called separate enrollment. As I have indicated, to my
knowledge, no Democratic Senator was invited into the Republican
discussions on this approach, even though some prominent Democratic
Senators have been strong supporters of this version of the line-item
veto.
The approach that I am told the Republicans are going to offer has
not been considered in any committee of this Congress, no hearings have
been held, no committee has voted on it. Both S. 14 and S. 4, by
contrast, were voted out of the Budget Committee and the Governmental
Affairs Committee. Hearings were held earlier this year. Democrats, in
the course of those hearings, have offered to work with our Republican
colleagues. Unfortunately, in response to that offer, the unilateral
compromise made on the other side apparently has been achieved without
any participation by Democrats.
As I understand it--and again we will have to wait until it is
proposed in order to know for sure just what the Republicans have in
mind, and we will have that opportunity next week--but as I understand
how separate enrollment would actually work, the approach requires that
each individual item of any appropriations bill passed in Congress be
broken up by the enrolling clerk into separate bills to present to the
President. The President would be able to veto any of the bills.
Take a bill, any one of the appropriations bills that we have had in
the past. This one is a good example. It is Public Law 103-316 passed
in the 103d Congress, the Energy and Water Development Appropriation
Act fiscal year 1995. This bill has approximately 20 pages with
hundreds and hundreds of line items. Line items that are listed here
include emergency funds for purposes of transportation; uranium supply
and enrichment activities; flood control and coastal emergencies; line
items for the Tucson diversion channel, $2.5 million; the Jefferson-
Jacksonville, IN, line item. It does not say what in particular that
line item is for.
The Wallisville Lake, TX, plant, $1 million. Line item by line item,
it has hundreds of specific line items listed one by one in this bill.
But as I understand, the Republicans are suggesting that we take each
one of these line items, separately enroll it, and send it on to the
President.
So what this bill did when we passed it in 1994--the Congress passed
the legislation, it went to the enrolling clerk, one bill with all of
these line items in it. The enrolling clerk then sent it to the
President. The President has the ability to take this bill, veto it,
send it back to Congress, or sign it into law, if he so chooses.
If he vetoes it and sends it back to Congress, the Congress could
override it and it could become public law. If the Congress failed to
override it, of course, it fails to pass and it is put in the trash
can, and we start all over. That is how a bill becomes a law. It is
pretty simple. It has five steps; that is it. That is all it is.
Enrolling, signing, vetoing, or overriding and the enactment into
public law. That is a pretty simple process and one that, as advocates
of paperwork reduction, we could all support. Keeping it simple is what
we all want.
This is what the Republicans are proposing. This is the separate
enrollment version of this bill. Each one of these line items, every
single one of the line items listed here--Red River emergency bank
protection; Red River below Dennison Dam levee; West Sacramento, CA;
Sacramento River flood control project; Savannah Harbor deepening in
Georgia; Casino Beach, IL; Lake Pontchartrain; Lake Saint Geneva, MO;
Hackensack Meadowlands, NJ; Salem River, NJ--every one of these would
be separately enrolled. The Congress would pass it. It goes to the
President. The President would sign each one of these line items into
law; he would veto some of the others. Congress, in every single case,
would either have to accept this as public law or consider each one of
these line items as a veto and repeat the process over and over and
over and over again, hundreds and hundreds and thousands and thousands
of times over the course of several weeks, I am sure, in order just to
pass this appropriations bill. That is what we are talking about.
This chart really does not depict it all. Here is what it would take.
I did not think we would want to spend all the money on the charts
required for that one appropriations bill, but it will take this piece
of paper with another chart on it, this one, this one, this one, and we
can just go right on down the list, Mr. President, page after page
after page. It would take 85 of these charts to detail what would
happen to one energy and water appropriations bill. I can probably find
something here for South Dakota, if I looked hard enough.
For the life of me, I cannot understand how somebody who would
advocate paperwork reduction would want all of us to go through this
every single time we pass an appropriations bill, and we are not even
getting to another issue that I wanted to bring up, and that is a tax
bill.
So, Mr. President, I know that sometimes back-room coordination and
compromise produces some interesting product, but I have to say, this
shows a real sense of imagination.
I am really excited to see how over the course of the next several
days our Republican colleagues will give us an opportunity to
understand how this works.
We are turning this process upside down. We are turning it upside
down and inside out, and taking what is a very simple, streamlined
process that has worked for 200 years and turning it into an absolute
nightmare, a paperwork jungle, the likes of which is going to take more
forests than we can count to produce one appropriations bill.
I hope we are into recycling because you could take one
appropriations bill and print several Bibles the next year. I mean, it
is going to take a long time for us to consider the enrollment
potential here for each and every one of these items to go on to the
President. The one thing it will do is keep the President in the White
House. You will not see him going out making many speeches because he
is going to have to do a lot of signing here, and with each
[[Page S4137]] signature, we have an opportunity to come back and have
a free-for-all when it comes to considering each one of these items,
one by one, as separately enrolled bills.
Mr. President, I am concerned about that, obviously, and I will not
belabor the point today, but we will get into this again later on.
I am also concerned about another provision of this approach. We are
not just dealing with the impracticality here. What troubles me is that
we would be putting the power in the hands of the minority, requiring
one-third of one House of the Congress to sustain a veto over any one
of these provisions. This Congress is run by majority rule. This
Congress has worked well under majority rule for a long time. We have
for purposes of closer examination the right to filibuster, and both
sides of the aisle have defended their right to extend debate on many
occasions. Democrats have used it most recently, but we have all had
that opportunity.
Do we really want to go even further than that and lock into law for
all perpetuity the right of even a smaller minority to hold hostage
every one of these public laws, every one of these specific line items?
Do we really want one-third of the Senate to keep us from doing our
work in a meaningful way? Why would we want to do that? Why would we
want to require that supermajority on something with this kind of
complexity?
Mr. President, I hope that as we consider the propriety of all this,
we also understand how important it is we not just limit ourselves to
appropriations here.
I could be accused of making the other side of the argument here, but
I am going to do it anyway because I think that what is fair is fair.
If we are going to do this, what I do not understand--and I guess the
only thing that the Republicans may be able to give as an answer to why
we are limiting this to appropriations is at least we would save a
couple of forests if we did not get into other scope questions like
taxes. We would not have to cut down all the trees of South Dakota to
produce a tax bill. But I believe a tax bill ought to be subject to the
same review. I believe a tax bill ought to have the same opportunity to
be considered--but certainly not like this.
Certainly if our Republican colleagues argue that review is good, I
do not understand why they say review of tax provisions is not good.
That just defies my ability to respond. I understand why we would want
to review appropriations. I am not sure what the position of our
colleagues on the other side would be on entitlements. I personally
would have no objection to that. But I do believe that if we are going
to look at all spending, we certainly ought to look at tax expenditures
as well. We ought to be looking at tax breaks just like we are looking
at those unique little deals that we put in appropriations bills.
As I understand it, our Republican colleagues, if they are willing to
do anything, are willing to only put in tax breaks affecting fewer than
100 people. Do you know how many tax breaks that actually includes?
What they want to do is exclude most every consideration of tax
legislation for reasons that are not entirely clear.
As the majority leader has said, this is not the first time we have
debated this issue. This separate enrollment proposal came up in 1985.
It was 10 years ago. I do not know if it had any more consideration in
1985 than it has had in the committees in 1995, but I do know that it
was the subject of a great deal of debate. In fact, a successful
filibuster was led at the time by the chairman of the Appropriations
Committee, Senator Hatfield, who, coincidentally, is chairman again.
At that time, Senator Hatfield described it as ``one of the most
dangerous proposals that has come before this Senate in my 19 years.''
He called it ``a mad piece of legislation,'' which he took great pride
in having stopped. Senator Hatfield eloquently described what would
result.

General appropriations measures might be converted into
literally hundreds of separate bills.

True to his conservative nature, he was not as literal as I was. I
think it is thousands.

The President would be swamped with paper and would have
difficulty keeping track of things. . . We should be equally
concerned that legislative intent may be completely
overridden when items intentionally linked and sequenced
together are enrolled.

That was Senator Hatfield. That was the chairman of the
Appropriations Committee in 1985. Senator Hatfield, as he always is,
was eloquent, perceptive, and, thank goodness, successful in bringing
this Senate to its senses in dealing with this exact proposal 10 years
ago. Sometimes, it takes more than once to kill a bad idea. But this is
a bad idea. I thought it was killed 10 years ago, but it has reared its
ugly head apparently, and we are going to have to deal with it again.
But I hope the same vision and the same commitment and the same
appreciation of the magnitude, the enormity of the problem, will be
just as evident as we debate the issue this time.
During that same debate, my friend and colleague, Senator Hatch, now
the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, stated that the separate
enrollment approach ``is not good constitutional policy.'' Even the
Clinton administration has expressed concern, and obviously the
President, as I said earlier, has been very supportive of the line-item
veto. But if I were the President of the United States, wondering how I
am going to spend my time most productively, I would have to ask: Is
this how I wish to do it?
I do not know how strong his hand is, but I have to say he had better
have a very strong hand if he is prepared to sign into law 1,700 or
1,800 individually enrolled items each and every time we send an
appropriations bill to the President.
Walter Dellinger, the assistant Attorney General, has written,

We have not been convinced of the constitutionality of this
approach in the past. . . and we continue to question its
validity.

Questions arise because the Constitution is very clear on how the
veto process works. Article I, section 7, reads in part:

Every Bill which shall have passed the House of
Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a
law, be presented to the President of the United States; if
he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it,
with his Objections to that House in which it shall have
originated . . .

That is what the Constitution says,
that the President of the United States, if he approves it, he will
sign it, but if not he will return it, with his objections to that
House in which it shall have originated.

How do you return a bill when it has been broken into 1,800 pieces?
How can we constitutionally ensure we are living up to the letter of
the law when we are now going to require the President to put a jigsaw
puzzle together when it comes to signature, to figure out which pieces
he signs and which he does not as separate enrolled items? It does not
say he shall sign those parts he approves. He must approve it all or
nothing.
So this proposal seeks to bypass that very clear requirement by the
subterfuge of allowing the Clerk of the House to take apart every
appropriations bill and re-enroll it into separate bills to present to
the President. The Constitution grants no such power to Congress. It
clearly says, ``Every bill which shall have passed the House of
Representatives and the Senate . . . .'' Little bits of legislation
enrolled separately are not what have passed the House and the Senate.
So, the other side is proposing changing the current process--rather
than sending a single bill down as the Constitution requires. It is a
very simple process that our forefathers understood, that frankly works
in 43 States--no other State has ever tried this, by the way.
Mr. President, 43 States have tried this. This works. This is
something that Governors understand. Line-item rescissions work.
States do not try this. This does not work. It is impractical. In
fact, I would go beyond that, it is really a crazy notion that somehow
we could take one bill with every individual line item and page after
page after page, and enroll those separate things and put them on the
President's desk stacked this high every time we send an appropriations
bill to the President.
We will have a lot more time to talk about this next week, but I hope
those who may be listening to this debate
[[Page S4138]] can appreciate the enormity of what our colleagues are
suggesting here, the impracticality of what our colleagues are
suggesting, the problems it has, not only for appropriations bills, but
for any bill we may want to send to the President.
I hope they understand, too, that what the Republicans are saying is
they are unwilling to subject, to this or anything else, most tax
provisions. They do not want to do that. Then, on top of it all, they
want to say we are going to give the power to a minority in a minority
to respond directly to the President's specific line-item vetoes. We
are going to hold ourselves hostage to a very small minority within the
Senate.
We cannot do that. That is what this debate is all about. It is not a
debate about a line-item veto. It is not a debate about whether we
ought to review things and give a second look to those items the
President holds out to be of dubious nature. It ought not be a debate
about whether we limit this to appropriations or to taxes. Everything
ought to be on the table.
I hope it is going to be a good debate about whether we ought to have
majority rule or not. I hope it is going to be a good debate about what
ought to be the most practical way we can have a line-item veto. That
is what we ought to have the debate about--not separate enrollment. Not
something that is as amazing to me in its complexity as anything that I
have had to deal with in 16 years.
We will have a good debate about this, but I hope everyone
understands it would not be necessary--I think the vast majority of our
colleagues could come to an agreement this afternoon--if there was a
true, bipartisan spirit on how we take up line-item veto, how we
address these issues in a meaningful way.
If we are accused of holding anything up I will stand ready to be
accused of trying to do what we can to bring people to their senses
before we do something as crazy as this.
I hope we can pass meaningful line-item veto legislation. If we do
something like that, then I am convinced we are going to get a broad
consensus and not much debate.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I appreciate the remarks of the minority
leader. I would like to take this opportunity to respond to those
remarks.
First of all, let me say it is very welcome news to those of us who
have been advocating the line-item veto and attempting to get it passed
for the last decade--it is very welcome news that the minority leader
comes to the floor and says he supports a line-item veto, the concept,
anyway. It is very welcome news he announces on behalf of the Democrats
that, as he said, most Democrats, including himself, support line-item
veto. That is welcome news because that has not been the case in the
past.
The minority leader stated that the overwhelming majority of the
Democrat members of the Budget Committee, the committees that
considered the line-item veto, supported the line-item veto efforts.
That is not true either.
S. 4, the bill we are debating now, offered by Senator McCain and
myself, received the support of only one Democrat on that committee and
that was to report the bill out without recommendation. It was not an
endorsement of the bill. It simply said we do not feel so strongly
about it that we want to endorse the bill, but neither do we want to
hold it up, so it was reported to the Senate floor without
recommendation, either for or against it. It is the only way
Republicans could get the bill out of committee. So we had to provide
Republican support in order to get that accomplished because only one
Democrat supported that.
On S. 14, that is also news to us. It has just been recent news that
the Democrats now support that, because only two members of the
committee voted to report that bill out without recommendation.
It is also ironic that for the past several years, as this Senator
and Senator McCain have time and time and time again offered the line-
item veto to the Senate--and we had to offer it as amendments to other
legislation because the then-Democrat majority leader refused to bring
it up, and the then Democrat-controlled committees refused to report it
out--we, time and time and time again offered it as an amendment for
consideration by this Senate. And of course it failed time and time and
time again because we were unable to secure the necessary votes--not
from Republicans but from Democrats. In 1993, on March 10, on Senate
vote No. 27, the McCain amendment which Senator McCain and I offered,
only five members of the Democrat Party voted with us. And we lost that
vote by a vote of 45 for and 52 against. Senator Feinstein, Senator
Graham of Florida, Senator Kohl, and Senator Robb voted with
Republicans. Senator Shelby voted with Republicans. He was then a
Democrat. We have since welcomed him to the Republican Party.
So, to make the assertion that the Democrats have always been for
this and surely we can get together and come up with something just
flies in the face of the facts, not only with regard to past history
but also with regard to this current attempt to achieve a line-item
veto.
It is only just in the last couple of days that we have seen a
renewed interest in the line-item veto on the part of our friends
across the aisle. We welcome that, and we trust and we hope that it
will lead to the passage of a line-item veto that truly changes the way
that this Senate and this Congress do business.
As the majority leader said just a few moments ago, the House of
Representatives, in bipartisan fashion, overwhelmingly passed the
version that Senator McCain and I have offered with modest
modifications. Overwhelmingly they passed it, achieving 290 votes for
and only 135 against, and that obviously included a significant number
of Democrats that supported that effort. So all we are really asking
our Senate colleagues, the Democrats, to do, is to join their
colleagues in the House of Representatives in giving us the necessary
votes to achieve line-item veto.
I think equally telling here is the fact that some of the most vocal
opponents of line-item veto have been absent from this debate.
We were promised a vigorous filibuster. It has not occurred yet. We
hope it does not. We hope we have a genuine debate on this issue. I
think the Senate deserves that. But there really has been very little,
and so far only token, opposition to the attempts by this Senator and
by Senator McCain and others to debate this issue. There has been very
little opposition to that effort. We hope that this is a positive
signal that we are truly forming a consensus in support of the line-
item veto.
Mr. President, the minority leader also said that he hears that
Republicans are trying to put together some new concoction. Having
expressed his concerns about our current proposal, things he does not
like about it, he says now they are trying to put something new
together. He called it a ``new concoction.'' It makes me ask the
question. What does the minority leader want? He does not like our old
concoction, the one that has been before this body and debated. He
listed his reasons why he does not like it. So while we are attempting
to put together a new proposal, he says now suddenly behind closed
doors the Republicans are trying to put together a new proposal. My
question is, Where does he want us to go? Does he want us to stay with
the old one, or does he want us to go to the new one?
Let me tell you why we are proposing a new one. Because some of our
Members have suggested, I think rightly so, that we take the basic
heart and core of the McCain-Coats proposal and we expand it so that
its coverage includes more areas of spending and more areas of past
congressional abuse of the spending process and puts more elements of
the budget under the scrutiny and under the authority given to the
President under this line-item veto proposal. That is good. The more we
can bring in and the more we can highlight the abuses of the process,
whether it is appropriations or whether it is tax expenditures, the
better off we are.
In almost the same paragraph, the minority leader says that the
enrollment process--which is taking the appropriations bills and
separately turning each line-item, so to speak, into a separate bill,
is something that should
[[Page S4139]] not be followed. Yet some very prominent Members of his
own party are the ones who have proposed this, and there is a
historical record for that. The Senator from South Carolina, Senator
Hollings, has been a proponent of this new concoction. He has been so
for more than a decade. Senator Bradley in the last Congress offered
the separate enrollment procedure. It was supported by Republicans, and
by a number of Democrats under Senator Bradley's leadership. Senator
Biden, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has offered it.
So this new concoction is not a new concoction. It is a method used
to try to attempt to give the President line-item veto authority to
curb the excessive spending of Congress that has been proposed by some
of the most prominent members of the minority leader's own party. It
has been talked about and discussed since 1985. So there really is not
a whole lot new about it.
The minority leader's suggestion that the substitute that we are
looking at does little to restore the President's authority to withhold
spending, which he enjoyed prior to 1974, needs to be discussed. At
that time, Congress decisively grabbed the absolute power of the purse.
They were reacting to then-President Nixon's impoundment power. They
said under the Budget Act the President no longer could impound funds.
He now may only propose rescissions.
That is exactly where the minority leader wants to take us back to.
The so-called Democrat alternative that the minority leader says the
Democrats will introduce, and that ought to be the bill we put on the
President's desk, has very little teeth and cannot be in the same
breath called a line-item veto because it is not a line-item veto. A
veto is two-thirds. A veto requires more than normal to override the
President's decision. It requires a two-thirds vote to override the
President's decision.
We want to make it tougher to spend the taxpayer dollars, not easier.
We do not want to just keep the same level of requirement necessary to
pass legislation. But what the minority leader proposes is that we
simply endorse--require the same number of votes to continue the
spending habits of Congress as the spending measure received in the
first place. How does that make spending any tougher? Under the current
process that is used by this Congress, we have a dismal record. The
President sends up his rescissions, but they are never enacted, or very
few are enacted.
In 1976, 86 percent of the President's suggestions to rescind moneys
that Congress appropriated but he did not think was necessary to
spend--86 percent--was rejected. In 1983, 100 percent of President
Reagan's suggestions about unnecessary spending were rejected by the
Congress. In 1986 and 1987, 95 percent and 97 percent respectively.
So the minority leader's suggestion that we are somehow going to
eliminate pork barrel spending, that we are somehow going to
dramatically change the way the Congress now does business--a process
that so upsets the American taxpayer--that will not happen under the
minority leader's bill. The truth is that that proposal is endorsed by
those who basically want to continue the status quo. It has very little
change in it. As history shows, very little will change under that
procedure. If we want to get at the egregious abuse of the spending
power that Congress now currently has, we need to make it harder to
spend. We need to give the President some authority to highlight and to
spotlight the abuses of Congress. We need to do something that will
give us fiscal discipline.
It was Harry Truman, a Democrat President, who wrote that, ``One
important fact in the Presidential veto power, I believe, is the
authority to veto individual items in appropriations bills. The
President must approve the bill in its entirety or refuse to approve
it. It is a form of legislative blackmail.''
That is exactly the issue we are dealing with here on the line-item
veto. The legislature which has the power of the purse blackmails the
President. It blackmails the President because it sends to him massive
appropriations bills, massive pieces of legislation in the form of
continuing resolutions, which contain important have-to-pass items in
order to continue the functions of government, in order to provide
flood relief, as in the case of California, or hurricane relief for
Florida, or to provide needed defense spending to cover contingency
operations, or to provide for the efforts such as those we undertook in
Desert Storm and Desert Shield, things that Congress knows the
President has to sign. Those are the bills which receive all the little
goodies, all the stuff that appears later in Reader's Digest and on the
nightly news. And the taxpayers not only scratch their heads in
bewilderment saying, ``How in the world do you think that is an
appropriate expenditure of my hard-earned dollars?'' But they shake
their fist in rage at this institution, and thankfully went to the
polls on November 8, 1994, and said, ``Enough. We are tired of the
rhetoric. We are tired of the promises. We are tired of the same old
`same old'. We want a change in the way you do business. We want
something that has teeth in it. We want something that will make a
difference. We do not want some fine little tuning of the way you have
been doing business for the past few decades that we know will not
result in any dramatic difference. We want action. We want bold action.
We want dramatic action.'' And that is the line-item veto. That is why
we are proposing the line-item veto.
The minority leader also talked about the complexity of the
enrollment process. He put up the fancy charts. This is the age of the
fancy charts. The Republicans have used them also. That was a concern
of ours, frankly; take a piece of legislation, and you say, ``Now you
will have to break this down into separate pieces of legislation for
each item that the bill itself specifies for an expenditure.''
How is that process going to work? Is not that going to just
complicate the process beyond imagination? Is it not going to just
require hundreds of hours of the work of dozens of clerks to begin to
keep up with the process? We were concerned about that.
So I called up the enrolling clerk of the Senate and asked if I could
go down and speak with him about it. I asked if he could show me what
was involved. The minority leader, I believe this morning in his news
conference, said we are going to have to drive Mack trucks up to the
White House in order to carry the paperwork created by the complexity
of the enrollment process. So I went down and talked to the attending
enrolling clerk and asked him about it. He smiled and said, ``That is
what it would have been in the past.''
He said, ``Because we would have had to probably detail some people
over from the Government Printing Office and we would have to sort of
set up a back room operation.'' It was a mechanical process. But he
said, ``You know, this is not the age in which we have to do things by
hand any more.''

All the Senators have these quill pens at their desks. It is a kind
of anachronism. Nobody ever uses them. But it is a reminder of the way
the Senate used to do business.
We have an inkwell here and a little powder to dry the ink. It is
just one of those holdovers from the past.
But, lo and behold, the computer age has also reached the U.S. Senate
and the U.S. Congress.
So the enrolling clerk pointed to a machine about 18 inches high and
about 24 inches wide, a computer sitting at his desk. It was a
Microcomp printer. Then he pulled out a little disk called the Xywrite
software package.
He said, ``This is especially designed for the enrollment process.
All I do is take this disk and put it in the computer.'' He said,
``What used to take days and days and days and days and dozens and
dozens of people now is done in a matter of minutes or a matter of
hours.''
That is something that some of our generation have a hard time
understanding. Our kids understand it. They start learning that in
elementary school. My kids are as familiar with the computer and as
unintimidated by the computer as I am by the telephone or sitting down
and writing a letter. It is just second nature to them.
And so the Senate is caught up with the information age and the
Senate enrolling clerk and the House enrolling clerk, which also has
the same system. It has a Pentium hard drive, by the way. We did not
buy the defective Pentium chips. Ours work beautifully.
[[Page S4140]] And, as the enrolling clerk told me, ``It is at least
1,000 times faster than the old system. It is state of the art. They
can now do in an hour or 2 what used to take days.''
``In fact,'' he said, ``it will be easier and faster to separately
enroll an appropriations bill with today's technology than it was to
enroll a single appropriations bill 5 years ago.''
Then I asked him to do a trial run. ``Yes,'' I said, ``OK, good.
Mechanically we can do that. But isn't it just going to pour out reams
and reams and reams of paper? Aren't we going to have to back a truck
up to the Senate in order to cart it down to the White House? Isn't the
President just going to be overwhelmed with what we dump on his
doorstep?''
So I said, ``Would you take the largest bill that we passed in the
last Congress''--which was the Commerce, Justice, State, and judiciary,
and related agencies appropriations. Here it is. It is about maybe an
inch thick. This is the most comprehensive bill that we passed.
I said, ``If we had to take this and separately enroll it''--now, if
you look at the minority leader's chart, you would come away with the
conclusion that this was going to be an absolute nightmare, and it
would, as he said this morning, take a Mack truck to cart it down to
the White House.
So here is what it ended up being if it is separate enrollments. It
is a pile of paper. But it would fit in my grandson's Mack truck. He
has a little Mack truck, a little miniature Mack truck, and it would
easily fit in the back of that.
So visions of massive 18-wheelers backing up to the enrolling clerk's
office and detailees from the Government Printing Office shoveling
bushel baskets full of paper on the back and dumping them on the front
lawn of the White House are slightly exaggerated.
This is what we are going to send the President instead of this.
But, in doing so, guess what is going to happen? All the little pork-
barrel stuff, all the stuff we discover months later--half a million
dollars for the Lawrence Welk boyhood home restoration, money for the
grant that went to study the well-being of America's middle-class
lawyers.
Boy, that one went over well with my constituents. They were really
interested in the well-being of America's lawyers. They thought that
was a terrific expenditure of their tax dollars. All the studies for
the reproduction of the South American bullfrogs, the money that went
to fund a school in France--all the little stuff that adds up to
billions and billions of dollars, sometimes tens of billions of
dollars, all the stuff we hear about months later that are tucked into
these bills, they are each going to have their own separate page.
The President is going to be able to say: ``That looks like something
someone slipped in in the dark of the night, thinking that I have to
pass this bill and so I will sign it and it will slip through. I think
I will just take this red veto stamp''-- ``veto''--``and send it
back.''
And here is another one, a funding memorial or a tribute for maybe a
former Member of Congress or somebody that needs a special favor back
home. ``I think I will veto that one.''
What is going to happen is that the light of exposure is going to be
shined on the darkroom, the backroom, late-at-night practices of the
Congress, which slips this stuff through in all these bills that they
know the President has to sign.
Then it is going to be sent back to the Congress. And when it is sent
back to the Congress, if the Member that slipped that in there wants it
for his district, he is going to have to bring it to the floor and he
is going to have to stand up and talk about it. He is going to have to
convince two-thirds of the Congress that the President made a mistake
or that the President was wrong in vetoing his particular item. The
press is going to be able to write about it. Each Member who votes on
it is going to have their vote recorded on that item.
No longer will we be able to go home and say, ``Well, that was for
funding of the judiciary and for the Commerce Department and for the
State Department. As you know, there is a crisis in `Xcelania' right
now and, by gosh, if we cut off their funds, we might not be able to
solve that problem.'' Or, ``I had to vote for that. I did not realize
that one of my colleagues slipped something in there. I certainly would
not have done that had I known that.'' Or, ``Even though I knew there
might be some stuff in this, it was so important that we get that
funding for this emergency''--as we just passed the emergency
supplemental. That was another one of those trains. That was funds for
our military expenditures in Haiti, Rwanda, and Somalia. A lot of us
here did not necessarily support those decisions of the President, but
once our troops were there, the money was spent, and we had to pay for
it somehow. So that was an emergency.
And so Members go home and say, ``Well, I could not jeopardize that
funding. I could not shut down functions of the military.'' And that is
what you have to accept if that is what you are going to do.
That practice ends because the emergency funding can go forward, the
essential funding can go forward. The funding for needed functions of
Government can go forward, but the little line-item stuff that adds up
to billions of dollars gets kicked out, and the President does not have
to accept or reject the entire bill.
That will do two things: One, it will give the President a check and
balance against the abuses of spending by this Congress. It is a
practice everybody here worth their salt knows how to do. We are
probably all guilty of it. It is time it stopped. We ought to do this
to save ourselves, if nothing else. It is time to stop. Now is the time
to stop, and to stop real legislation, not with the same number of
votes it took to pass it in the first place, but a veto, a real veto,
that has teeth in it, a veto that will make a difference.
So, we are going to save billions of dollars because the President
will be able to veto that stuff out. But the other thing is, what we
will save is an amount of money nobody can calculate because it will
change the spending habits of Congress. Members are no longer going to
say, ``I will carry this list around and when I see a popular bill go
through I will slip it in and get something for the special interest
folks,'' or do a favor for a friend, or do a favor for a lobbyist, or
do a favor for a special interest. We will never know the amount of
money we save for items that will not be put in these new bills for
fear of exposure. Because the President has the line-item veto, it will
change the way we put the bills together in the first place. Members
will say, ``I will not slip that one in because I do not want to suffer
the potential embarrassment of the President vetoing that particular
item.''
Mr. President, we have a lot to debate today and Monday and next
week. The minority leader says, ``Why do we want to put the power in
the hands of the minority--one third?'' I think it is the other way
around. I think it is the other way around. I think we want to put some
power in the hands of the two-thirds that will require two-thirds to
overturn a check and balance against the spending abuses of this
Congress.
In answer to why, why do we need to do this? A $4.8 trillion
deficit--that is why; a Congress that refuses to make structural
changes in how it does business. We rejected, to my great dismay, the
balanced budget amendment, which I think was a change in the status quo
and a change in the way we do business. It was absolutely essential to
our ability to get control of spending.
This is the second tool. Will this balance the budget? No. There is
not one Member who supports the line-item veto who contends that it
will balance the budget. We keep hearing that argument. People still
think it balances the budget. No. It is a poor second to the
constitutional amendment, but at least it is a second. It is a second
way, a second tool.
I cannot imagine why Members would want to first defeat a balanced
budget amendment, then second say, well, we are not going to do
anything else except we will summon up the will. We have not summoned
up the will in 40 years for this budget. And we have seen all kinds of
promises and commitments to do that. It just did not happen. The debt
mounts and the interest mounts and now we are at $4.8 trillion and
growing.
We will show how the enrollment bill that we will present is
constitutional.
[[Page S4141]] Presidents throughout time have asked for the line-item
veto. They were not afraid of our having to bring a bigger bill down.
Recent Presidents have all asked for it, and this President has asked
for it. We are tired of having to pass bills that hold the President
hostage. It is not Congress that is held hostage to the minority, it is
the President that is held hostage to the Congress, as Harry Truman
said, blackmailing him, take it all or nothing.
It is clear that under article I, section 5, each House of Congress
has unilateral authority to make and amend rules governing its
procedures. Separate enrollment speaks to the question of what
constitutes a bill. It does not erode the prerogatives of the President
as the bill is presented. Under the rulemaking clause, our procedures
in defining and enrolling a bill are ours to determine alone.
Mr. President, I know others are waiting to speak. I will save some
of my arguments relative to the constitutionality of this for a time
when there is a break in the process. I note that the Senator from
Wyoming is on the floor. I am happy to suspend at this point. If we
have additional time, I will pick up from there. The Senator from
Alabama is waiting to speak.
Mr. President, let me first ask the clerk how much time remains on
each side?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Nineteen minutes for the Senator from Indiana
and 46 minutes on the other side.
Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from
Wyoming.
Mr. THOMAS. Thank you, Mr. President.
I want to address these issues. When we are in prolonged debate, one
could say everything has been said. We go on because everyone has not
yet said it. Nevertheless, this is an issue that is very important, and
we do need to have a process in which the issue will be brought fairly
to the Senate for the Senate to act upon.
Let me talk just a little bit in more general terms. The gentleman
from Indiana has spelled out very eloquently and very completely the
detail of a line-item veto. It is not a new issue. It has been talked
about for years.
It was talked about, as a matter of fact, in developing the
Constitution. Many constitutional scholars from time to time have
argued that there is no need for a line-item veto; that, in fact, the
language of the Constitution provides that. Unfortunately, the Court
has never agreed to that idea even though it clearly does give the
President the opportunity to return bills to the Congress.
So it is not a new issue. Neither is it a new issue in terms of
having been tried. It is done in many States. It is done in my State of
Wyoming, and done very successfully, I might add. From time to time,
the legislature overrides the Governor's veto. More often, I suppose,
they do not. I suspect that that is an indication that that element of
the bill should not have prevailed.
We are really here to talk about change: change in procedure and
change in structure, structure in the operation of Congress, that will
result in changes in the product of Congress.
I think the most compelling truism is that if we as citizens have not
been happy with the performance of Congress over time we cannot expect
any different results if we continue to do the same thing.
If there was one clear message that came, certainly, from this past
election, it was that people wanted change, wanted structural change,
wanted procedural change. Now we have an opportunity in this Congress
for the first time in a very long time, an opportunity to rethink some
things, an opportunity to look at new ideas, an opportunity to actually
do some of the things that have been talked about for a very long time.
There is reason to do that. We have had a history in recent years of
continuing to simply do the same thing, and the Congress would
appropriate more money to show that, if we had more money, we could
cause it to happen. The fact is, that many of the programs have failed,
are failing. Welfare--welfare is not doing the thing that it is
designed to do. Welfare is designed to provide help for the needy, to
help them get back into the marketplace. It is not doing that.
How many years have we had a war on poverty? And the fact is that
poverty is more prominent now than it was when we started the war.
These programs are failing. Financial responsibility--certainly one
cannot look at the size of Government, one cannot look at the deficit
and suggest that the effort for financial responsibility has been
successful. It has not. Pork barrel? Of course, we have pork barrel.
So we need structural changes, and this is one of them. There were
several and they are talked about often because I think they are very
important and should, indeed, be talked about: Balanced budget
amendment, the proper thing to do. And really, there are a lot of
details one can go through but you really start with the basic
question. In that instance, the question is, Is it morally right, is it
fiscally right to balance the budget, to not spend more in outlays than
you take in, in revenues? And the answer is almost unanimously yes, of
course, it is right.
Then you deal with the issue of how do you accomplish it, how do you
get there. Unfunded mandates--something that has been needed for a very
long time--has finally been accomplished, not as thoroughly as some
would like, but, nevertheless, accomplished, and very important. If we
are to begin to downsize Government and to begin to shift some of the
responsibilities to States, there needs to be the protection against
unfunded mandates.
Accountability, it is almost unbelievable that the Congress had a
bill saying Congress has to live under the same laws as everybody else.
I cannot believe that has not always been true, but it has not.
Line-item veto is a structural change that needs to take place. It is
not going to balance the budget, of course, but what it is going to do
is to change the way we look at budgeting. It is going to give the
President--by the way, he is really the only political person that has
a broad enough base to reach into bills and veto things that should not
be there.
I guess my greatest example is in the House, when we had a highway
bill, a highway bill that everybody wanted to pass, of course,
everybody wanted it so we could go forward with the highway program,
and in it was the Lawrence Welk Museum, half a million dollars for the
Lawrence Welk Museum. Never would it have passed on its own merits. Had
it been an individual bill, it never would have passed, but we had no
way to reach in and get it.
I told that story, by the way, in a speech I made in North Dakota.
That was the wrong place to do it. They were sort of excited about
having that. In any event, we should have a way to deal with those, and
that is what this is all about.
So, Mr. President, there will be a great deal of discussion, and
there should be. There will be a great deal of talk about details and
alternatives, and there should be. There can be alternatives, but the
fact is there is a principle involved here, and the principle is to
change the structure so that we can have a line-item veto to help
balance the approach to financing and to budgets.
I rise in strong support for passage of a line-item veto. I yield the
floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.
Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Wyoming for his
statement and his support and contributions as a new Member of the
Senate. He certainly brings a perspective from the grassroots, having
just spent a great deal of time in the cafes, marching in the parades,
and talking with the people where they live and work. He brings that
perspective, and we certainly appreciate his support.
Mr. President, I inquire how much time is remaining.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thomas). The Senator has about 11 minutes
under his control.
Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I yield 7 of those 11 minutes--I believe we
have one other speaker coming to the floor--to the Senator from New
Hampshire, and I believe the minority side on this issue has agreed to
allow him an additional 10 minutes of their time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire has 7 minutes.
Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I may speak
[[Page S4142]] for an additional 10 minutes from the minority side.
This has been agreed to by the minority side.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. President. I thank my colleagues on the
minority side, as well.
Mr. President, this has been a very interesting debate, as we have
heard from the other side. The same arguments that had been used by our
colleagues on the balanced budget amendment are now being used against
the line-item veto.
This debate is really the same. The players are the same. The issues
are essentially the same. No one expects that we are going to balance
the Federal budget with a line-item veto. But if we are going to ask
people on Medicaid or Medicare, or some other program, to take a hit to
help us balance this budget, surely we can start with some of these
ridiculous projects that we find tucked away in these appropriations
bills. I am going to talk a little bit about that.
First, I want to commend Senator McCain and Senator Coats for their
leadership. They have been tenacious in the pursuit of this legislation
for a number of years. I am pleased to be an original cosponsor of S.
4, the Legislative Line-Item Veto Act of 1995. I hope that we will pass
it. We fell short on the balanced budget amendment, but I hope that at
least we can pass the second-best effort, which is the line-item veto.
I am not surprised really that many of the same forces that lined up
against the balanced budget amendment are also now seeking to kill
this, because they are defenders of the status quo. They want to see
things remain the same. They want to keep on spending, providing more
pork for their States. Their addiction to wasteful spending has created
a budget deficit crisis that makes these countermeasures so necessary.
But in seeking to defend the status quo, the opponents of the line-
item veto legislation often cite the checks and balances in the
Constitution that give the authority to Congress to appropriate the
money, the power that is checked by the authority of the President to
veto appropriations bills.
They say they want to preserve this balance of power between the
legislative and the executive branches. Of course, that is an excuse.
The Founding Fathers never imagined--never even imagined in their
wildest dreams--these massive spending bills, often containing core
unnecessary spending that is then larded with layers of pork. They
never expected that.
This is a process that has been built up over the years by the
legislators and the legislatures, especially in recent history, to help
them pass things that would not pass if that Congressman or Senator had
to stand out on the floor and advocate that kind of a ridiculous
expense. They could not face their constituents to do it. They could
not face the voters across the country to do it. So they tuck it away
in these appropriations bills.
That is why we need the line-item veto. The President can make that
choice between shutting that program down or signing it. He is the
President of all the people. It is easier for him to do it than some
Congressman or Senator who may not have the courage to do it.
So, basically, the President is, in effect, without the line-item
veto, faced with an all-or-nothing ultimatum. So we get an emergency
earthquake relief bill, and it is amazing the number of things you find
tucked away in the emergency earthquake relief bill. There are things
in there for sewers in Chicago. And we also see dire emergency for
natural disasters. There was a $1.3 million add-on to train attorneys
at Drake University in that. The district of then House Chairman Neal
Smith in Iowa had some interesting things. So it is crafty wording. It
is slick, it is easy; it is done in a back room somewhere and nobody
ever finds out about it. And that is the bottom line.
As Senator Coats has said, they go back home and they say, ``Gee, I
voted for emergency earthquake. I didn't know that was in there.'' Of
course, they knew it was in there. Of course, they did. That is the
whole issue.
Let me give you an example. Sometimes, after looking at the minority
leader's charts--he showed these very, very complicated charts, as if
to say this somehow is going to be so much work for the President, he
was not going to have time to get out of the White House. He was not
going to have time to do anything except sit at his desk and deal with
all of these measures that are coming down.
Well, first of all, if we pass the line-item veto, there is going to
be a lot less of the stuff put in the bill in the first place. That is
for sure.
Second, if the President and the Congress have to spend a little more
time on these things, on the appropriations of the taxpayers' hard-
earned dollars, so be it. That is the way it ought to be. If the
President has to take a little less time running around the country
somewhere and a little more time saving the taxpayers' dollars, so be
it. If the Senators and Congressmen have to spend a little more time
taking care of the taxpayers' dollars instead of running around the
country somewhere, so be it. That is the way it ought to be. That is
what we are here for.
Now, this was very complicated. I was in the chair at the time
watching the charts that the minority leader had up there, but let me
make it simple for those of you out there who are wondering just what
this is all about and why we are trying to pass this thing called a
line-item veto.
There are many things in a bill. Sometimes we call it an omnibus
bill. These are huge, and they are loaded with items, and most of us do
not read it. It would take us forever to read them all. But the problem
is things get tucked in there that do not belong.
Here is a very simple example to make you understand. We have all
been to the supermarket. We go to the supermarket. We take the kids
along. They are traveling along behind us, and we are pushing the cart.
We decide that we are going to get the essentials today. We are going
to get a loaf of bread; we are going to get some milk, maybe meat and
potatoes, the essentials, whatever we are going to have for dinner that
night or that week. They are the basics. We know what the budget is and
what we are going to do.
What are the kids doing? They are trailing along, and while we are
picking up the loaf of bread, they are over there picking up the Reeses
candy or the box of Cheerios and tossing them into the cart while we
are pushing it along, and we are taking them out and putting them back
because we do not want these things. We do not want our kids to have
them; these are the goodies, these are the add-ons.
That is exactly what these bills are. We push through the bill, and
all these Congressmen and Senators are loading it up, hoping that Mom
and Dad are not going to take those things out, and when they get home
they will have the cookies and candy, or whatever else they want.
That is exactly what is happening. That is the best way I know to
explain exactly what is going on.
Now, when we look at some of these examples, in 1995, this year,
there is a study called the ``Congressional Pig Book,'' and I suppose a
good analogy would be to say there are a lot of things piggybacked on
these bills.
Now, it is interesting, in these 88 projects that are highlighted in
this pig book, what are the criteria to decide whether this is pork or
not on these fiscal bills? Well, if it is only requested by one chamber
of commerce, if it is not authorized specifically, if it is not
competitively awarded, if it is not requested by the President, and it
exceeds the President's budget request or previous year's funding, and
it has not been the subject of hearings, I say it is pork. I do not
care how good or bad the project is.
There are many, many good projects that get put in here. That is not
the issue. Should they be in there, in this particular bill? Should a
sewer in Chicago be on an emergency earthquake relief bill in San
Francisco? I do not think so. I do not think that is honest. I think
that is dishonest.
Now, when we look somebody on Medicaid in the eye and we say, you
know, we are all going to have to bite the bullet; we have a $5
trillion debt; it is going to be $6.5 trillion under the President's
budget in the next 5 years, and it is going up--not down, up--we look
those people in the eye and we say everybody has to pitch in, well,
when I do that, Mr. President--and we are all
[[Page S4143]] going to have to do it if we are going to bite the
bullet here and balance the budget--I do not want to have to say to
that elderly woman or gentleman who is desperately in need of something
that we may have to reduce a little bit, well, you know what, I am
going to cut you, but we are not, Congress is not going to take these
kinds of things out: $93,000 added in conference for the National
Potato Trade and Tariff Association; or $294,000 for regionalized
implications of farm programs; or $119,000 for swine research at the
University of Minnesota; or $8,783,000 for miscellaneous projects in
the State of Arkansas, including a rice germplasm center in Stuttgart,
AR; or $1,184,000 for an alternative pest control center at the
University of Arkansas; or $946,000 for alternative pest control in
general; or $624,000 for increased staffing at Fayetteville, Stuttgart,
Bonneville, and Pine Bluff for forestry.
I do not want to have to look those people in the eye and say we are
funding that, and that this Congress does not have the courage to take
those items out. Not this Senator. I do not want to have to do that. I
wish to say, yes, we are going to have to take these hits because it is
our children who are going to lose, not us. You will get your benefits.
It is our children who are going to lose. And I do not want this stuff
funded. If you are going to fund it, if you want to come in here and
say you want $950,000 for the Appalachian Soil and Water Conservation
Laboratory, then come down on the floor of the Senate and fight for it
after the President vetoes it. Tell the American people you want it,
and it is in your State, and why you need it. And if you get the votes,
you can have it. But come down here and talk about it, fight for it, if
you think that is important, if you think that is more important than
Medicaid or Medicare or national defense or cleaning up a Superfund
site. If that is more important, come down here.
If you think $200,000 for Appalachian fruit research is more
important than national defense or cleaning up a Superfund, come down
here and fight for it. Come down here and say, Mr. President, I am
sorry you took that out. You should not have vetoed that, Mr.
President. I want that $200,000 for fruit research. That is important.
By golly, that is more important than anything else you have out there,
and I want it.
Go ahead. Come down here and fight for it.
How about $11 million for an Estuarine Habitats Research Laboratory
in Lafayette, LA? How about this one: $1 million added in conference
last year for construction of Mystic Seaport Maritime Education Center
in Mystic, CT. Is that more important than Medicaid? Is that more
important than Medicare? Is that more important than giving our troops
who are defending us all over the world a 2-percent pay raise? If you
think so, come down on the floor and fight for it.
That is what the line-item veto does. That is why it is being fought
over here, and that is why we are running up a debt of over $5
trillion. That is why we are going to keep on running it up, because
they would not pass the balanced budget amendment, and now they are not
going to pass this either, because not only do they not want to take
the big numbers out, they will not even take the little numbers out,
the little projects, because they are all so important to them.
That is why we have this debt, and that is why our children and our
grandchildren are going to pay for it and suffer for it. That is what
is wrong with this place. That is what the American people voted for on
November 8, to change it. But what do we do in the Senate? The
``McLaughlin Report'' calls the Senate the ``killing field''; we kill
all the good legislation that passes the House. It comes over here and
we kill it.
Well, my colleagues and American people, take a look at who is doing
the killing. Watch the votes. Watch the votes.
Now, $750,000 for Hawaiian fisheries development; $15 million for the
construction of a footbridge from New Jersey to Ellis Island. Do you
know where that was? That was on an Interior appropriations bill. That
thing comes rolling in here and everybody says, ``We can't cut the
Interior appropriations bill. We have to pass it. It is an
appropriations bill. We will shut down the Government. The Interior
Department will not be able to function.''
That is exactly why the $15 million for the footbridge is in there,
folks, because they know you are not going to cut it; you are not going
to stop it. They know you are going to pass it, and they know the
President is going to sign it.
If you have the line-item veto, he can sign the bill and he can take
that out, and that is why they are showing you the charts over here.
This is why they are complicating the process. What is so complicated
about that? The President takes a look at the bill, and he says $15
million for a footbridge? No. He takes the veto pen out.
There is nothing complicated about that. If it is complicated, good.
So be it. It is worth it. That is $15 million saved for the taxpayers
and $15 million less for the debt.
The national debt is growing at $7,500 per second--not minute, not
hour, per second. Add it up, if you are listening to this debate, at
the time I finish speaking from the time I started, and see how much
the debt was added to, how much more we added to it.
That is what is wrong with this place. That is why we voted for
change. And the status quo is still over here fighting it every inch of
the way.
The line-item veto; $10,912,000 for foreign language assistance. I do
not know what that is, foreign language assistance. I could see
learning to speak it. What is foreign language assistance? You have to
dig in here and find it out. The Senator who put it in here is going to
have to come down on the floor and he is going to say, ``Boy, that
$10,912,000 for foreign language assistance is critical for our
country. The taxpayers have to spend this money, by golly. And if they
do not spend it, I cannot imagine what will happen.''
And that, again, is what we are faced with. That was on the Labor,
HHS, Education appropriations bill. If somebody says we want to cut the
Department of Housing or HHS, they will say, ``My goodness, I will lose
my $10,912,000 for foreign language assistance.''
How about $936,000 for the Palmer Chiropractic School? Lord knows
what that is.
I have nothing against chiropractors. I have used them. But do the
taxpayers of America have to fund this?
Last, but not least, from the ``Pig Book,'' the infamous ``Pig
Book.'' I encourage my colleagues to take a copy of the ``Pig Book''
and read it. It is really insulting to pigs, frankly. They are very
intelligent creatures, and I think it insults them to use the term
``pig'' and associate it with this. But there is $400,000--listen to
this one--$400,000 for Maui algal bloom crisis. Not for Maui algal
blooms; there is a crisis out there somewhere in Maui on this algae. So
cut the Medicaid, cut the Medicare, cut defense, cut the environment,
cut this--and fund that.
You say, ``Come on, you are oversimplifying it, Senator.''
If I am oversimplifying it, why are we spending the money? There is
nothing complicated about it. Contrary to the chart, there is nothing
complicated about it. The fact is, if the President had the line-item
veto, he could veto it.
I thank my colleagues for listening and thank certainly my
colleagues, Senator McCain and Senator Coats, for their strong
leadership. I hope the Senate, finally, will conclude that at least
second best is better than nothing at all and pass the line-item veto.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I was going to inquire if there were any
other speakers waiting to speak. I see the Senator from Pennsylvania
has arrived. I might inform the Senator from Pennsylvania there are
only 4 minutes left under the time controlled by the proponents of the
line-item veto.
The minority has consented to allow 10 minutes of speaking time to
Senator Smith. Since they do not have a speaker on the floor, they may
do so for the Senator from Pennsylvania under a unanimous-consent
request. Other than that, because we are under a unanimous-consent
agreement to quit at 3 p.m., in accordance with the majority and
minority leaders' wishes, I regret that is the only time I have
available for the Senator.
[[Page S4144]] Mr. SPECTER addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Indiana.
In the absence of any other speaker on the floor, I ask unanimous
consent that I might be permitted to speak for up to 15 minutes. I may
use less than that.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Hearing none, it is so
ordered.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I support the line-item veto and have
done so consistently in my 14 years-plus in the U.S. Senate. As I have
observed the appropriations and expenditures practices of the Congress
as we have run up enormous deficits year after year and have a national
debt which is now approximating $5 trillion, it has been obvious to me
that we needed restraints, we needed institutional change in the form
of the balanced budget amendment, and that we need the line-item veto
to enable the President of the United States to take a look at the
budget and to act in the national interest to strike an item, item by
item, without vetoing the entire bill.
It has been my legal judgment that the President of the United States
currently has the constitutional authority to exercise the line-item
veto. I draw that conclusion from learned studies which have been made
on this subject. One very prominent one is by Prof. Forrest McDonald,
who traces the history of the relevant constitutional provision and
notes that it was based on a provision from the Massachusetts
constitution of 1733, where the Governor of Massachusetts has exercised
the line-item veto. That constitutional provision has been incorporated
into the constitutions of many other States: Georgia, Pennsylvania--my
own State--where the chief executive officers, the Governors, have
exercised the line-item veto.
In the early days of the Republic, the President of the United States
took action which was in effect the exercise of the line-item veto. A
review of the history of the Constitution and the comments of the
Founding Fathers supports the conclusion that the President of the
United States was intended to have line-item veto under clause 3,
article I, section 7, of the U.S. Constitution.
I have endeavored to persuade the last two Presidents--President Bush
and President Clinton--that they should exercise the line-item veto. I
have had occasion to talk to former President Bush about it on a number
of occasions. One of the interesting aspects of being a U.S. Senator,
and one from Pennsylvania, is to have traveled with President Bush on a
number of occasions to Pennsylvania. When we travel on the plane
together there is time for a variety of subjects, not quite as hectic
and hurried as it is in the regular schedule. On a number of occasions
I had a chance to talk in a leisurely way to President Bush about the
line-item veto. He was always interested in the issue but always told
me the same thing, and that was that his lawyer told him he could not
do it.
My response to President Bush was that he ought to change lawyers.
I immediately followed that suggestion with the request that he not
tell anybody I had said that, because that might be frowned upon by the
bar association and who knows, I may be practicing law again one day,
sooner rather than later.
But in a very serious vein, President Bush did not take the bold
approach and exercise the line-item veto, which I think he could have
done under the constitutional authority and which he should have done.
In President Clinton's first year in office, I had occasion to travel
with him to Ambridge, PA. Again, another plane ride gave us an
opportunity to talk at leisure about a number of subjects. I made the
suggestion to President Clinton that he should exercise the line-item
veto and gave him a brief statement of what I considered to be his
constitutional authority.
President Clinton said, ``Send me a memorandum of law.''
I did so. He wrote me back a short time later, saying he did not want
to tangle with congressional leaders on this subject. And I can
understand that, because the congressional appropriation power is
zealously guarded. And I am one of the appropriators. I sit on the
Appropriations Committee, which has the authority to allocate the
spending of $1.6 trillion a year. Notwithstanding that position on what
many call the most powerful committee in the Congress, the
Appropriations Committee, it has long seemed to me that the line-item
veto would very well serve the interests of the country at large.
We had a very dramatic commentary on massive appropriations bills,
where the President did not have the opportunity to even veto one of
the 13 appropriations bills side by side when we passed a continuing
resolution during the administration of President Reagan.
A continuing appropriations bill, for those who may be watching on C-
SPAN 2, if anybody is, is a document which comes at the end of the
fiscal year shortly before September 30 to authorize continued spending
and continuing operations of the Federal Government after midnight on
September 30 into the new fiscal year which begins on October 1. There
had been a period of time where we had not passed all the
appropriations bills and, in fact, had not passed many of them. We sent
to President Reagan an enormous continuing resolution which was about 2
feet thick. President Reagan, in one of his speeches to a joint session
of Congress, objected to the continuing resolution which denied him the
power of not only, as he saw it, to exercise the line item veto but he
could not even veto a bill on a major department; for example, the
Interior bill or the District of Columbia appropriations bill. But they
were massive--as many, I think, on some occasions as all 13 of the
appropriations bills.
For illustrative effect, President Reagan brought into the House
Chamber where we had the joint session of Congress the continuing
resolution which, as I say, was about 2 feet thick.
Senator Coats was elected in 1988. Senator Coats was in the House. Of
course, he remembers it. President Reagan had it on the edge of the
podium. I was sitting closer than I am to the Chair. I became
immediately apprehensive that this continuing resolution so bulky was
in peril of falling over the podium. As the President continued to
speak, the situation was more tenuous with each moment.
Then, finally I figured out that President Reagan knew exactly what
he was doing. He was not only keeping me in suspense but keeping the
television viewers in suspense that this enormous document might fall.
It was, I think, President Reagan's way of dramatizing the effect on
this ponderous overwhelming bill which had come to him but could not
even be managed very well on the podium, let alone managed in terms of
perusal to see what was in the national interest. He was being denied
the opportunity as President to at least veto a single appropriations
bill.
He made it through the speech. It did not fall. But I have remembered
that occasion. Further underscoring the interest and the necessity in
allowing the President to have the power to veto at least an individual
appropriations bill, and the Congress has done better on that in modern
times--sending the appropriations bills over, really on the need to
have the President with the authority to strike individual items.
This is an especially timely matter today in the wake of the Senate's
failure to pass the balanced budget amendment. I have supported the
balanced budget amendment and the line-item veto during my entire
tenure in the U.S. Senate. It may be that the balanced budget amendment
will return to the Senate agenda and by virtue of the motion pending
for reconsideration that there may be a change of a single vote, and
the matter may come back and we may yet pass the balanced budget
amendment to provide the discipline to have a balanced budget in the
Congress just as States have constitutional provisions mandating a
balanced budget, just as cities do, as counties do, and as individuals
we do because, if we do not live within our own means, we will wind up
in a bankruptcy court.
Recently I had the great pleasure of becoming a grandfather. My son
had a baby daughter, Silvi Specter, who will be 14 months old on
Sunday. I had always thought about and talked about the impropriety of
having a credit card which attached obligations to our children and to
our children's children and
[[Page S4145]] to succeeding generations. But I came into sharp focus
as I saw this infant and held her in my hands when she was less than a
day old back on January 20, 1994, and seeing her grow up, and seeing
what is really happening every day as we burden her generation and
future generations on a credit card where we would not consider even
remotely charging something to her account. But that is in effect what
we are doing as a Nation.
During the course of the debate on this line-item veto there will be
many statements about how the interest rate is mounting. Senator Smith
pointed out in dramatic fashion the increase on a moment-by-moment
basis. That is just unfair to the next generation and the generations
which follow.
That is why we are working currently on a rescissions bill sent over
by the House of Representatives just yesterday. The appropriators met
yesterday afternoon to take a look, to do our job in cutting expenses
on the Federal budget.
In my capacity as chairman of the appropriations subcommittee of
Labor, Health and Human Services and Education, the cut was especially
onerous, some $5 billion. But I am committed to balancing the budget by
the year 2002 which is the target set by the Congress, whether or not
we have a balanced budget amendment. I think we have to move on a path
to reach the balanced budget by that year. I have some differences of
judgment with what the House sent over. But I am reasonably confident
that the Senate will meet that target of the $17 billion rescission.
I have concerns, Mr. President, as to cuts which will affect summer
jobs where I think in America today there has been a reliance for the
young people to have activities for the summer where they cannot find
jobs in the private sector, a matter which keeps the lids on our big
cities and our smaller communities. I have some concerns about cuts in
the education line where there will be moneys taken away from drug-free
schools. But this is a matter of establishing our priorities.
I believe that a much, much better job can be done on establishing
the priorities for America's spending. If we are not prepared to tax
for it, we ought not be prepared to spend for it. If there is one thing
that will not pass in the U.S. Senate or the U.S. House of
Representatives today, it would be a tax increase.
It is my hope, Mr. President, that we will soon one day take up
Senate bill 488, which I introduced 2 weeks ago yesterday, which would
simplify the tax system in America, which would enable taxpayers to
fill out their tax returns on a simple postcard.
If I may show what could be done under my proposal for a national
tax, it would be a 20-percent national tax which has been worked out
very carefully by Professors Hall and Rabushka of Stanford University.
It will allow only two deductions for charitable contributions and for
interest on home mortgages, and it would be simplicity personified. Who
knows?
There may be someone in America today watching C-SPAN 2 who is
filling out his or her tax return. I know that individual would love
the opportunity to fill it out on a single postcard as I would myself.
There is an amazing amount of some 5 billion hours spent by Americans
on their tax returns and some $200 billion on the cost of filing
returns. But tax simplification is somewhat off the subject. But I
mention a national tax just in passing.
I compliment my colleague in the House of Representatives, Majority
Leader Dick Armey, who has proposed a similar measure. It is my hope
that we will take up the issue of a national tax and tax reform. But I
believe it would be unthinkable to have a tax increase given the mood
of the American people where the mandate of the last election was very
direct and very blunt; that is for smaller Government, for lesser
spending, and for less taxes.
Certainly, the minimum is to have the balanced budget and the line-
item veto, which would be a very, very important and significant step
on an institutional change which would provide the mechanism to cut
spending, which has not really been a priority item, and would help
lead us on the bath--it might lead us on a ``bath,'' too, which is a
Freudian slip--on the path to cut expenditures. But the pending line-
item veto would certainly give the President the clear-cut authority
and the confidence to exercise the line-item veto.
In the unlikely event that this measure does not pass, I hope that
President Clinton will again review the constitutional authority for
the President to exercise the line-item veto under the current legal
constitutional provisions.
I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.
Mr. D'AMATO addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair announces that all the remaining
time is under the control of the minority.

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