[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 55 (Friday, March 24, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H3740]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           THE LINE-ITEM VETO

  (Mr. WILLIAMS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. WILLIAMS. Mr. Speaker, my colleagues, have you seen the line-item 
veto bill that the Senate passed last night? In order to take care of 
their concerns, their legitimate concerns, that some of us in the House 
share about the potential unconstitutional nature of allowing a 
President a line-item veto, of allowing a President to reach inside of 
an appropriation bill and strike a section of it, in order to get 
around that constitutional provision, they passed a line-item veto bill 
which would require the President to veto not 1 of 13 appropriation 
bills that we would send him; we would now send him one bill for every 
item appropriated.
  We would now, under line-item veto, send the President a minimum of 
10,000 appropriations bills, 10,000 appropriation bills instead of the 
current 13.
  I think that, instead of trying to find Rube Goldberg convoluted ways 
to subvert the Constitution, we ought to pay more attention to trying 
to discipline our own spending habits.

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