Congressional Record, Volume 152 Issue 82 (Thursday, June 22, 2006)

[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 82 (Thursday, June 22, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H4467-H4493]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

LEGISLATIVE LINE ITEM VETO ACT OF 2006

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 886, I call up
the bill (H.R. 4890) to amend the Congressional and Impoundment Control
Act of 1974 to provide for the expedited consideration of certain
proposed rescissions of budget authority, and ask for its immediate
consideration.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 886, the bill
is considered read.
The text of the bill is as follows:

H.R. 4890

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the ``Legislative Line Item Veto
Act of 2006''.

SEC. 2. LEGISLATIVE LINE ITEM VETO.

(a) In General.--Title X of the Congressional Budget and
Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (2 U.S.C. 621 et seq.) is
amended by striking part C and inserting the following:

``Part C--Legislative Line Item Veto

``Sec. 1021. (a) Proposed Rescissions.--The President may
propose, at the time and in the manner provided in subsection
(b), the rescission of any dollar amount of discretionary
budget authority or the rescission, in whole or in part, of
any item of direct spending.
``(b) Transmittal of Special Message.--
``(1) Special message.--
``(A) In general.--The President may transmit to Congress a
special message proposing to rescind any dollar amount of
discretionary budget authority or any item of direct
spending.
``(B) Contents of special message.--Each special message
shall specify, with respect to the budget authority or item
of direct spending proposed to be rescinded--
``(i) the amount of budget authority or the specific item
of direct spending that the President proposes be rescinded;
``(ii) any account, department, or establishment of the
Government to which such budget authority or item of direct
spending is available for obligation, and the specific
project or governmental functions involved;
``(iii) the reasons why such budget authority or item of
direct spending should be rescinded;
``(iv) to the maximum extent practicable, the estimated
fiscal, economic, and budgetary effect (including the effect
on outlays and receipts in each fiscal year) of the proposed
rescission;
``(v) to the maximum extent practicable, all facts,
circumstances, and considerations relating to or bearing upon
the proposed rescission and the decision to effect the
proposed rescission, and the estimated effect of the proposed
rescission upon the objects, purposes, and programs for which
the budget authority or item of direct spending is provided;
and
``(vi) a draft bill that, if enacted, would rescind the
budget authority or item of direct spending proposed to be
rescinded in that special message.
``(2) Enactment of rescission bill.--
``(A) Deficit reduction.--Amounts of budget authority or
items of direct spending which are rescinded pursuant to
enactment of a bill as provided under this section shall be
dedicated only to deficit reduction and shall not be used as
an offset for other spending increases.
``(B) Adjustment of committee allocations.--Not later than
5 days after the date of enactment of a rescission bill as
provided under this section, the chairs of the Committees on
the Budget of the Senate and the House of Representatives
shall revise levels under section 311(a) and adjust the
committee allocations under section 302(a) to reflect the
rescission, and the appropriate committees shall report
revised allocations pursuant to section 302(b), as
appropriate.
``(C) Adjustments to caps.--After enactment of a rescission
bill as provided under this section, the Office of Management
and Budget shall revise applicable limits under the Balanced
Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act, as appropriate.
``(c) Procedures for Expedited Consideration.--
``(1) In general.--
``(A) Introduction.--Before the close of the second day of
session of the Senate and the House of Representatives,
respectively, after the date of receipt of a special message
transmitted to Congress under subsection (b), the majority
leader or minority leader of each House shall introduce (by
request) a bill to rescind the amounts of budget authority or
items of direct spending, as specified in the special message
and the President's draft bill. If the bill is not introduced
as provided in the preceding sentence in either House, then,
on the third day of session of that House after the date of
receipt of that special message, any Member of that House may
introduce the bill.
``(B) Referral and reporting.--The bill shall be referred
to the appropriate committee. The committee shall report the
bill without substantive revision and with or without
recommendation. The committee shall report the bill not later
than the fifth day of session of that House after the date of
introduction of the bill in that House. If the committee
fails to report the bill within that period, the committee
shall be automatically discharged from consideration of the
bill, and the bill shall be placed on the appropriate
calendar.
``(C) Final passage.--A vote on final passage of the bill
shall be taken in the Senate and the House of Representatives
on or before the close of the 10th day of session of that
House after the date of the introduction of the bill in that
House. If the bill is passed, the Secretary of the Senate or
the Clerk of the House of Representatives, as the case may
be, shall cause the bill to be transmitted to the other House
before the close of the next day of session of that House.
``(2) Consideration in the house of representatives.--
``(A) Motion to proceed to consideration.--A motion in the
House of Representatives to proceed to the consideration of a
bill under this subsection shall be highly privileged and not
debatable. An amendment to the motion shall not be in order,
nor shall it be in order to move to reconsider the vote by
which the motion is agreed to or disagreed to.
``(B) Limits on debate.--Debate in the House of
Representatives on a bill under this subsection shall not
exceed 4 hours, which shall be divided equally between those
favoring and those opposing the bill. A motion further to
limit debate shall not be debatable. It shall not be in order
to move to recommit a bill under this subsection or to move
to reconsider the vote by which the bill is agreed to or
disagreed to.
``(C) Appeals.--Appeals from decisions of the Chair
relating to the application of the Rules of the House of
Representatives to the procedure relating to a bill under
this section shall be decided without debate.
``(D) Application of house rules.--Except to the extent
specifically provided in this section, consideration of a
bill under this section shall be governed by the Rules of the

[[Page H4468]]

House of Representatives. It shall not be in order in the
House of Representatives to consider any bill introduced
pursuant to the provisions of this section under a suspension
of the rules or under a special rule.
``(3) Consideration in the senate.--
``(A) Motion to proceed to consideration.--A motion to
proceed to the consideration of a bill under this subsection
in the Senate shall not be debatable. It shall not be in
order to move to reconsider the vote by which the motion to
proceed is agreed to or disagreed to.
``(B) Limits on debate.--Debate in the Senate on a bill
under this subsection, and all debatable motions and appeals
in connection therewith (including debate pursuant to
subparagraph (D)), shall not exceed 10 hours, equally divided
and controlled in the usual form.
``(C) Appeals.--Debate in the Senate on any debatable
motion or appeal in connection with a bill under this
subsection shall be limited to not more than 1 hour, to be
equally divided and controlled in the usual form.
``(D) Motion to limit debate.--A motion in the Senate to
further limit debate on a bill under this subsection is not
debatable.
``(E) Motion to recommit.--A motion to recommit a bill
under this subsection is not in order.
``(F) Consideration of the house bill.--
``(i) In general.--If the Senate has received the House
companion bill to the bill introduced in the Senate prior to
the vote required under paragraph (1)(C), then the Senate may
consider, and the vote under paragraph (1)(C) may occur on,
the House companion bill.
``(ii) Procedure after vote on senate bill.--If the Senate
votes, pursuant to paragraph (1)(C), on the bill introduced
in the Senate, then immediately following that vote, or upon
receipt of the House companion bill, the House bill shall be
deemed to be considered, read the third time, and the vote on
passage of the Senate bill shall be considered to be the vote
on the bill received from the House.
``(d) Amendments and Divisions Prohibited.--No amendment to
a bill considered under this section shall be in order in
either the Senate or the House of Representatives. It shall
not be in order to demand a division of the question in the
House of Representatives (or in a Committee of the Whole). No
motion to suspend the application of this subsection shall be
in order in the House of Representatives, nor shall it be in
order in the House of Representatives to suspend the
application of this subsection by unanimous consent.
``(e) Temporary Presidential Authority To Withhold.--
``(1) In general.--At the same time as the President
transmits to Congress a special message pursuant to
subsection (b), the President may direct that any dollar
amount of discretionary budget authority proposed to be
rescinded in that special message shall not be made available
for obligation for a period not to exceed 180 calendar days
from the date the President transmits the special message to
Congress.
``(2) Early availability.--The President may make any
dollar amount of discretionary budget authority deferred
pursuant to paragraph (1) available at a time earlier than
the time specified by the President if the President
determines that continuation of the deferral would not
further the purposes of this Act.
``(f) Temporary Presidential Authority To Suspend.--
``(1) In general.--At the same time as the President
transmits to Congress a special message pursuant to
subsection (b), the President may suspend the execution of
any item of direct spending proposed to be rescinded in that
special message for a period not to exceed 180 calendar days
from the date the President transmits the special message to
Congress.
``(2) Early availability.--The President may terminate the
suspension of any item of direct spending at a time earlier
than the time specified by the President if the President
determines that continuation of the suspension would not
further the purposes of this Act.
``(g) Definitions.--For purposes of this section--
``(1) the term `appropriation law' means any general or
special appropriation Act, and any Act or joint resolution
making supplemental, deficiency, or continuing
appropriations;
``(2) the term `deferral' has, with respect to any dollar
amount of discretionary budget authority, the same meaning as
the phrase `deferral of budget authority' defined in section
1011(1) in part B (2 U.S.C. 682(1));
``(3) the term `dollar amount of discretionary budget
authority' means the entire dollar amount of budget authority
and obligation limitations--
``(A) specified in an appropriation law, or the entire
dollar amount of budget authority required to be allocated by
a specific proviso in an appropriation law for which a
specific dollar figure was not included;
``(B) represented separately in any table, chart, or
explanatory text included in the statement of managers or the
governing committee report accompanying such law;
``(C) required to be allocated for a specific program,
project, or activity in a law (other than an appropriation
law) that mandates the expenditure of budget authority from
accounts, programs, projects, or activities for which budget
authority is provided in an appropriation law;
``(D) represented by the product of the estimated
procurement cost and the total quantity of items specified in
an appropriation law or included in the statement of managers
or the governing committee report accompanying such law; or
``(E) represented by the product of the estimated
procurement cost and the total quantity of items required to
be provided in a law (other than an appropriation law) that
mandates the expenditure of budget authority from accounts,
programs, projects, or activities for which dollar amount of
discretionary budget authority is provided in an
appropriation law;
``(4) the terms `rescind' or `rescission' mean to modify or
repeal a provision of law to prevent--
``(A) budget authority from having legal force or effect;
``(B) in the case of entitlement authority, to prevent the
specific legal obligation of the United States from having
legal force or effect; and
``(C) in the case of the food stamp program, to prevent the
specific provision of law that provides such benefit from
having legal force or effect;
``(5) the term `direct spending' means budget authority
provided by law (other than an appropriation law);
entitlement authority; and the food stamp program;
``(6) the term `item of direct spending' means any specific
provision of law enacted after the effective date of the
Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006 that is estimated to
result in a change in budget authority or outlays for direct
spending relative to the most recent levels calculated
pursuant to section 257 of the Balanced Budget and Emergency
Deficit Control Act of 1985 and included with a budget
submission under section 1105(a) of title 31, United States
Code, and with respect to estimates made after that budget
submission that are not included with it, estimates
consistent with the economic and technical assumptions
underlying the most recently submitted President's budget;
``(7) the term `suspend the execution' means, with respect
to an item of direct spending or a targeted tax benefit, to
stop for a specified period, in whole or in part, the
carrying into effect of the specific provision of law that
provides such benefit; and
``(8)(A) the term `targeted tax benefit' means--
``(i) any revenue-losing provision that provides a Federal
tax deduction, credit, exclusion, or preference to 100 or
fewer beneficiaries under the Internal Revenue Code of 1986
in any fiscal year for which the provision is in effect; and
``(ii) any Federal tax provision that provides temporary or
permanent transitional relief for 10 or fewer beneficiaries
in any fiscal year from a change to the Internal Revenue Code
of 1986;
``(B) a provision shall not be treated as described in
subparagraph (A)(i) if the effect of that provision is that--
``(i) all persons in the same industry or engaged in the
same type of activity receive the same treatment;
``(ii) all persons owning the same type of property, or
issuing the same type of investment, receive the same
treatment; or
``(iii) any difference in the treatment of persons is based
solely on--
``(I) in the case of businesses and associations, the size
or form of the business or association involved;
``(II) in the case of individuals, general demographic
conditions, such as income, marital status, number of
dependents, or tax-return-filing status;
``(III) the amount involved; or
``(IV) a generally-available election under the Internal
Revenue Code of 1986;
``(C) a provision shall not be treated as described in
subparagraph (A)(ii) if--
``(i) it provides for the retention of prior law with
respect to all binding contracts or other legally enforceable
obligations in existence on a date contemporaneous with
congressional action specifying such date; or
``(ii) it is a technical correction to previously enacted
legislation that is estimated to have no revenue effect;
``(D) for purposes of subparagraph (A)--
``(i) all businesses and associations that are members of
the same controlled group of corporations (as defined in
section 1563(a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986) shall
be treated as a single beneficiary;
``(ii) all qualified plans of an employer shall be treated
as a single beneficiary;
``(iii) all holders of the same bond issue shall be treated
as a single beneficiary; and
``(iv) if a corporation, partnership, association, trust or
estate is the beneficiary of a provision, the shareholders of
the corporation, the partners of the partnership, the members
of the association, or the beneficiaries of the trust or
estate shall not also be treated as beneficiaries of such
provision;
``(E) for the purpose of this paragraph, the term `revenue-
losing provision' means any provision that results in a
reduction in Federal tax revenues for any one of the two
following periods--
``(i) the first fiscal year for which the provision is
effective; or
``(ii) the period of the 5 fiscal years beginning with the
first fiscal year for which the provision is effective; and
``(F) the terms used in this paragraph shall have the same
meaning as those terms have generally in the Internal Revenue
Code of 1986, unless otherwise expressly provided.

[[Page H4469]]

``(h) Application to Targeted Tax Benefits.--The President
may propose the repeal of any targeted tax benefit in any
bill that includes such a benefit, under the same conditions,
and subject to the same Congressional consideration, as a
proposal under this section to rescind an item of direct
spending.''.
(b) Exercise of Rulemaking Powers.--Section 904 of the
Congressional Budget Act of 1974 (2 U.S.C. 621 note) is
amended--
(1) in subsection (a), by striking ``and 1017'' and
inserting ``1017, and 1021''; and
(2) in subsection (d), by striking ``section 1017'' and
inserting ``sections 1017 and 1021''.
(c) Clerical Amendments.--(1) Section 1(a) of the
Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 is
amended by--
(A) striking ``Parts A and B'' before ``title X'' and
inserting ``Parts A, B, and C''; and
(B) striking the last sentence and inserting at the end the
following new sentence: ``Part C of title X also may be cited
as the `Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006'.''.
(2) Table of Contents.--The table of contents set forth in
section 1(b) of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment
Control Act of 1974 is amended by deleting the contents for
part C of title X and inserting the following:

``Part C--Legislative Line Item Veto

``Sec. 1021. Expedited consideration of certain proposed
rescissions.''.
(d) Severability.--If any provision of this Act or the
amendments made by it is held to be unconstitutional, the
remainder of this Act and the amendments made by it shall not
be affected by the holding.
(e) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this Act
shall--
(1) take effect on the date of enactment of this Act; and
(2) apply only to any dollar amount of discretionary budget
authority, item of direct spending, or targeted tax benefit
provided in an Act enacted on or after the date of enactment
of this Act.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The amendment in the nature of a substitute
printed in the bill, modified by the amendment printed in House Report
109-518, is adopted.
The text of the amendment in the nature of a substitute, as amended,
is as follows:

H.R. 4890

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the ``Legislative Line Item Veto
Act of 2006''.

SEC. 2. LEGISLATIVE LINE ITEM VETO.

(a) In General.--Title X of the Congressional Budget and
Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (2 U.S.C. 621 et seq.) is
amended by striking all of part B (except for sections 1016
and 1013, which are redesignated as sections 1019 and 1020,
respectively) and part C and inserting the following:

``Part B--Legislative Line Item Veto

``line item veto authority

``Sec. 1011. (a) Proposed Cancellations.--Within 45
calendar days after the enactment of any bill or joint
resolution providing any discretionary budget authority, item
of direct spending, or targeted tax benefit, the President
may propose, in the manner provided in subsection (b), the
cancellation of any dollar amount of such discretionary
budget authority, item of direct spending, or targeted tax
benefit. If the 45 calendar-day period expires during a
period where either House of Congress stands adjourned sine
die at the end of a Congress or for a period greater than 45
calendar days, the President may propose a cancellation under
this section and transmit a special message under subsection
(b) on the first calendar day of session following such a
period of adjournment.
``(b) Transmittal of Special Message.--
``(1) Special message.--
``(A) In general.--The President may transmit to the
Congress a special message proposing to cancel any dollar
amounts of discretionary budget authority, items of direct
spending, or targeted tax benefits.
``(B) Contents of special message.--Each special message
shall specify, with respect to the discretionary budget
authority, items of direct spending proposed, or targeted tax
benefits to be canceled--
``(i) the dollar amount of discretionary budget authority,
the specific item of direct spending (that OMB, after
consultation with CBO, estimates to increase budget authority
or outlays as required by section 1017(9)), or the targeted
tax benefit that the President proposes be canceled;
``(ii) any account, department, or establishment of the
Government to which such discretionary budget authority is
available for obligation, and the specific project or
governmental functions involved;
``(iii) the reasons why such discretionary budget
authority, item of direct spending, or targeted tax benefit
should be canceled;
``(iv) to the maximum extent practicable, the estimated
fiscal, economic, and budgetary effect (including the effect
on outlays and receipts in each fiscal year) of the proposed
cancellation;
``(v) to the maximum extent practicable, all facts,
circumstances, and considerations relating to or bearing upon
the proposed cancellation and the decision to effect the
proposed cancellation, and the estimated effect of the
proposed cancellation upon the objects, purposes, or programs
for which the discretionary budget authority, item of direct
spending, or the targeted tax benefit is provided;
``(vi) a numbered list of cancellations to be included in
an approval bill that, if enacted, would cancel discretionary
budget authority, items of direct spending, or targeted tax
benefits proposed in that special message; and
``(vii) if the special message is transmitted subsequent to
or at the same time as another special message, a detailed
explanation why the proposed cancellations are not
substantially similar to any other proposed cancellation in
such other message.
``(C) Duplicative proposals prohibited.--The President may
not propose to cancel the same or substantially similar
discretionary budget authority, item of direct spending, or
targeted tax benefit more than one time under this Act.
``(D) Maximum number of special messages.--The President
may not transmit to the Congress more than 5 special messages
under this subsection related to any bill or joint resolution
described in subsection (a), but may transmit not more than
10 special messages for any omnibus budget reconciliation or
appropriation measure.
``(2) Enactment of approval bill.--
``(A) Deficit reduction.--Amounts of budget authority,
items of direct spending, or targeted tax benefits which are
canceled pursuant to enactment of a bill as provided under
this section shall be dedicated only to reducing the deficit
or increasing the surplus.
``(B) Adjustment of levels in the concurrent resolution on
the budget.--Not later than 5 days after the date of
enactment of an approval bill as provided under this section,
the chairs of the Committees on the Budget of the Senate and
the House of Representatives shall revise allocations and
aggregates and other appropriate levels under the appropriate
concurrent resolution on the budget to reflect the
cancellation, and the applicable committees shall report
revised suballocations pursuant to section 302(b), as
appropriate.
``(C) Adjustments to statutory limits.--After enactment of
an approval bill as provided under this section, the Office
of Management and Budget shall revise applicable limits under
the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of
1985, as appropriate.
``(D) Trust funds and special funds.--Nothwithstanding
subparagraph (A), nothing in this part shall be construed to
require or allow the deposit of amounts derived from a trust
fund or special fund which are canceled pursuant to enactment
of a bill as provided under this section to any other
fund.''.

``procedures for expedited consideration

[[Page H4470]]

``(3) Consideration in the Senate.--
``(A) Motion to proceed to consideration.--A motion to
proceed to the consideration of a bill under this subsection
in the Senate shall not be debatable. It shall not be in
order to move to reconsider the vote by which the motion to
proceed is agreed to or disagreed to.
``(B) Limits on debate.--Debate in the Senate on a bill
under this subsection, and all debatable motions and appeals
in connection therewith (including debate pursuant to
subparagraph (D)), shall not exceed 10 hours, equally divided
and controlled in the usual form.
``(C) Appeals.--Debate in the Senate on any debatable
motion or appeal in connection with a bill under this
subsection shall be limited to not more than 1 hour, to be
equally divided and controlled in the usual form.
``(D) Motion to limit debate.--A motion in the Senate to
further limit debate on a bill under this subsection is not
debatable.
``(E) Motion to recommit.--A motion to recommit a bill
under this subsection is not in order.
``(F) Consideration of the house bill.--
``(i) In general.--If the Senate has received the House
companion bill to the bill introduced in the Senate prior to
the vote required under paragraph (1)(C), then the Senate may
consider, and the vote under paragraph (1)(C) may occur on,
the House companion bill.
``(ii) Procedure after vote on senate bill.--If the Senate
votes, pursuant to paragraph (1)(C), on the bill introduced
in the Senate, then immediately following that vote, or upon
receipt of the House companion bill, the House bill shall be
deemed to be considered, read the third time, and the vote on
passage of the Senate bill shall be considered to be the vote
on the bill received from the House.
``(b) Amendments Prohibited.--No amendment to, or motion to
strike a provision from, a bill considered under this section
shall be in order in either the Senate or the House of
Representatives.

``presidential deferral authority

``Sec. 1013. (a) Temporary Presidential Authority to
Withhold Discretionary Budget Authority.--
``(1) In general.--At the same time as the President
transmits to the Congress a special message pursuant to
section 1011(b), the President may direct that any dollar
amount of discretionary budget authority to be canceled in
that special message shall not be made available for
obligation for a period not to exceed 45 calendar days from
the date the President transmits the special message to the
Congress.
``(2) Early availability.--The President shall make any
dollar amount of discretionary budget authority deferred
pursuant to paragraph (1) available at a time earlier than
the time specified by the President if the President
determines that continuation of the deferral would not
further the purposes of this Act.
``(b) Temporary Presidential Authority To Suspend Direct
Spending.--
``(1) In general.--At the same time as the President
transmits to the Congress a special message pursuant to
section 1011(b), the President may suspend the implementation
of any item of direct spending proposed to be canceled in
that special message for a period not to exceed 45 calendar
days from the date the President transmits the special
message to the Congress.
``(2) Early availability.--The President shall terminate
the suspension of any item of direct spending at a time
earlier than the time specified by the President if the
President determines that continuation of the suspension
would not further the purposes of this Act.
``(c) Temporary Presidential Authority To Suspend a
Targeted Tax Benefit.--
``(1) In general.--At the same time as the President
transmits to the Congress a special message pursuant to
section 1011(b), the President may suspend the implementation
of any targeted tax benefit proposed to be repealed in that
special message for a period not to exceed 45 calendar days
from the date the President transmits the special message to
the Congress.
``(2) Early availability.--The President shall terminate
the suspension of any targeted tax benefit at a time earlier
than the time specified by the President if the President
determines that continuation of the suspension would not
further the purposes of this Act.
``(d) Extension of 45-day Period.--The President may
transmit to the Congress not more than one supplemental
special message to extend the period to suspend the
implementation of any discretionary budget authority, item of
direct spending, or targeted tax benefit, as applicable, by
an additional 45 calendar days. Any such supplemental message
may not be transmitted to the Congress before the 40th day of
the 45-day period set forth in the preceding message or later
than the last day of such period.

``identification of targeted tax benefits

``Sec. 1014. (a) Statement.--The chairman of the Committee
on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives and the
chairman of the Committee on Finance of the Senate acting
jointly (hereafter in this subsection referred to as the
`chairmen') shall review any revenue or reconciliation bill
or joint resolution which includes any amendment to the
Internal Revenue Code of 1986 that is being prepared for
filing by a committee of conference of the two Houses, and
shall identify whether such bill or joint resolution contains
any targeted tax benefits. The chairmen shall provide to the
committee of conference a statement identifying any such
targeted tax benefits or declaring that the bill or joint
resolution does not contain any targeted tax benefits. Any
such statement shall be made available to any Member of
Congress by the chairmen immediately upon request.
``(b) Statement Included in Legislation.--
``(1) In general.--Notwithstanding any other rule of the
House of Representatives or any rule or precedent of the
Senate, any revenue or reconciliation bill or joint
resolution which includes any amendment to the Internal
Revenue Code of 1986 reported by a committee of conference of
the two Houses may include, as a separate section of such
bill or joint resolution, the information contained in the
statement of the chairmen, but only in the manner set forth
in paragraph (2).
``(2) Applicability.--The separate section permitted under
subparagraph (A) shall read as follows: `Section 1021 of the
Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974
shall ________ apply to ____________.', with the blank spaces
being filled in with--
``(A) in any case in which the chairmen identify targeted
tax benefits in the statement required under subsection (a),
the word `only' in the first blank space and a list of all of
the specific provisions of the bill or joint resolution
identified by the chairmen in such statement in the second
blank space; or
``(B) in any case in which the chairmen declare that there
are no targeted tax benefits in the statement required under
subsection (a), the word `not' in the first blank space and
the phrase `any provision of this Act' in the second blank
space.
``(c) Identification in Revenue Estimate.--With respect to
any revenue or reconciliation bill or joint resolution with
respect to which the chairmen provide a staement under
subsection (a), the Joint Committee on Taxation shall--
``(1) in the case of a statement described in subsection
(b)(2)(A), list the targeted tax benefits identified by the
chairmen in such statement in any revenue estimate prepared
by the Joint Committee on Taxation for any conference report
which accompanies such bill or joint resolution, or
``(2) in the case of a statement described in subsection
(b)(2)(B), indicate in such revenue estimate that no
provision in such bill or joint resolution has been
identified as a targeted tax benefit.''.
``(d) President's Authority.--If any revenue or
reconciliation bill or joint resolution is signed into law--
``(1) with a separate section described in subsection
(b)(2), then the President may use the authority granted in
this section only with respect to any targeted tax benefit in
that law, if any, identified in such separate section; or
``(2) without a separate section described in subsection
(b)(2), then the President may use the authority granted in
this section with respect to any targeted tax benefit in that
law.

``treatment of cancellations

``Sec. 1015. The cancellation of any dollar amount of
discretionary budget authority, item of direct spending, or
targeted tax benefit shall take effect only upon enactment of
the applicable approval bill. If an approval bill is not
enacted into law before the end of the applicable period
under section 1013, then all proposed cancellations contained
in that bill shall be null and void and any such dollar
amount of discretionary budget authority, item of direct
spending, or targeted tax benefit shall be effective as of
the original date provided in the law to which the proposed
cancellations applied.

``reports by comptroller general

``Sec. 1016. With respect to each special message under
this part, the Comptroller General shall issue to the
Congress a report determining whether any discretionary
budget authority is not made available for obligation or item
of direct spending or targeted tax benefit continues to be
suspended after the deferral authority set forth in section
1013 of the President has expired.

``definitions

``Sec. 1017. As used in this part:
``(1) Appropriation law.--The term `appropriation law'
means an Act referred to in section 105 of title 1, United
States Code, including any general or special appropriation
Act, or any Act making supplemental, deficiency, or
continuing appropriations, that has been signed into law
pursuant to Article I, section 7, of the Constitution of the
United States.
``(2) Approval bill.--The term `approval bill' means a bill
or joint resolution which only approves proposed
cancellations of dollar amounts of discretionary budget
authority, items of new direct spending, or targeted tax
benefits in a special message transmitted by the President
under this part and--
``(A) the title of which is as follows: `A bill approving
the proposed cancellations transmitted by the President on
____', the blank space being filled in with the date of
transmission of the relevant special message and the public
law number to which the message relates;
``(B) which does not have a preamble; and
``(C) which provides only the following after the enacting
clause: `That the Congress approves of proposed cancellations
____', the blank space being filled in with a list of the
cancellations contained in the President's special message,
`as transmitted by the President in a special message on
____', the blank space being filled in with the appropriate
date, `regarding ____.', the blank space being filled in with
the public law number to which the special message relates;
``(D) which only includes proposed cancellations that are
estimated by CBO to meet the definition of discretionary
budgetary authority or items of direct spending, or that are
identified as targeted tax benefits pursuant to section 1014;
``(E) if any proposed cancellation other than discretionary
budget authority or targeted tax benefits is estimated by CBO
to not meet the definition of item of direct spending, then
the approval bill shall include at the end: `The President
shall cease the suspension of the implementation of the
following under section 1013 of the

[[Page H4471]]

Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006: ____', the blank
space being filled in with the list of such proposed
cancellations; and
``(F) if no CBO estimate is available, then the entire list
of legislative provisions proposed by the President is
inserted in the second blank space in subparagraph (C).
``(3) Calendar day.--The term `calendar day' means a
standard 24-hour period beginning at midnight.
``(4) Cancel or cancellation.--The terms `cancel' or
`cancellation' means to prevent--
``(A) budget authority from having legal force or effect;
``(B) in the case of entitlement authority, to prevent the
specific legal obligation of the United States from having
legal force or effect;
``(C) in the case of the food stamp program, to prevent the
specific provision of law that provides such benefit from
having legal force or effect; or
``(D) a targeted tax benefit from having legal force or
effect; and
to make any necessary, conforming statutory change to ensure
that such targeted tax benefit is not implemented and that
any budgetary resources are appropriately canceled.
``(5) CBO.--The term `CBO' means the Director of the
Congressional Budget Office.
``(6) Direct spending.--The term `direct spending' means--
``(A) budget authority provided by law (other than an
appropriation law);
``(B) entitlement authority; and
``(C) the food stamp program.
``(7) Dollar amount of discretionary budget authority.--(A)
Except as provided in subparagraph (B), the term ``dollar
amount of discretionary budget authority'' means the entire
dollar amount of budget authority--
``(i) specified in an appropriation law, or the entire
dollar amount of budget authority or obligation limitation
required to be allocated by a specific proviso in an
appropriation law for which a specific dollar figure was not
included;
``(ii) represented separately in any table, chart, or
explanatory text included in the statement of managers or the
governing committee report accompanying such law;
``(iii) required to be allocated for a specific program,
project, or activity in a law (other than an appropriation
law) that mandates the expenditure of budget authority from
accounts, programs, projects, or activities for which budget
authority is provided in an appropriation law;
``(iv) represented by the product of the estimated
procurement cost and the total quantity of items specified in
an appropriation law or included in the statement of managers
or the governing committee report accompanying such law; or
``(v) represented by the product of the estimated
procurement cost and the total quantity of items required to
be provided in a law (other than an appropriation law) that
mandates the expenditure of budget authority from accounts,
programs, projects, or activities for which budget authority
is provided in an appropriation law.
``(B) The term `dollar amount of discretionary budget
authority' does not include--
``(i) direct spending;
``(ii) budget authority in an appropriation law which funds
direct spending provided for in other law;
``(iii) any existing budget authority canceled in an
appropriation law; or
``(iv) any restriction, condition, or limitation in an
appropriation law or the accompanying statement of managers
or committee reports on the expenditure of budget authority
for an account, program, project, or activity, or on
activities involving such expenditure.
``(8) Item of direct spending.--The term `item of direct
spending' means any provision of law that results in an
increase in budget authority or outlays for direct spending
relative to the most recent levels calculated consistent with
the methodology used to calculate a baseline under section
257 of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act
of 1985 and included with a budget submission under section
1105(a) of title 31, United States Code, in the first year or
the 5-year period for which the item is effective. However,
such item does not include an extension or reauthorization of
existing direct spending, but instead only refers to
provisions of law that increase such direct spending.
``(9) OMB.--The term `OMB' means the Director of the Office
of Management and Budget.
``(10) Omnibus reconciliation or appropriation measure.--
The term `omnibus reconciliation or appropriation measure'
means--
``(A) in the case of a reconciliation bill, any such bill
that is reported to its House by the Committee on the Budget;
or
``(B) in the case of an appropriation measure, any such
measure that provides appropriations for programs, projects,
or activities falling within 2 or more section 302(b)
suballocations.
``(11) Targeted tax benefit.--(A) The term `targeted tax
benefit' means any revenue-losing provision that provides a
Federal tax deduction, credit, exclusion, or preference to
only one beneficiary (determined with respect to either
present law or any provision of which the provision is a
part) under the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 in any year for
which the provision is in effect;
``(B) for purposes of subparagraph (A)--
``(i) all businesses and associations that are members of
the same controlled group of corporations (as defined in
section 1563(a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986) shall
be treated as a single beneficiary;
``(ii) all shareholders, partners, members, or
beneficiaries of a corporation, partnership, association, or
trust or estate, respectively, shall be treated as a single
beneficiary;
``(iii) all employees of an employer shall be treated as a
single beneficiary;
``(iv) all qualified plans of an employer shall be treated
as a single beneficiary;
``(v) all beneficiaries of a qualified plan shall be
treated as a single beneficiary;
``(vi) all contributors to a charitable organization shall
be treated as a single beneficiary;
``(vii) all holders of the same bond issue shall be treated
as a single beneficiary; and
``(viii) if a corporation, partnership, association, trust
or estate is the beneficiary of a provision, the shareholders
of the corporation, the partners of the partnership, the
members of the association, or the beneficiaries of the trust
or estate shall not also be treated as beneficiaries of such
provision;
``(C) for the purpose of this paragraph, the term `revenue-
losing provision' means any provision that is estimated to
result in a reduction in Federal tax revenues (determined
with respect to either present law or any provision of which
the provision is a part) for any one of the two following
periods--
``(i) the first fiscal year for which the provision is
effective; or
``(ii) the period of the 5 fiscal years beginning with the
first fiscal year for which the provision is effective; and
``(D) the terms used in this paragraph shall have the same
meaning as those terms have generally in the Internal Revenue
Code of 1986, unless otherwise expressly provided.

``expiration

``Sec. 1018. This title shall have no force or effect on or
after October 1, 2012.''.

SEC. 3. TECHNICAL AND CONFORMING AMENDMENTS.

(a) Exercise of Rulemaking Powers.--Section 904 of the
Congressional Budget Act of 1974 (2 U.S.C. 621 note) is
amended--
(1) in subsection (a), by striking ``1017'' and inserting
`1012''; and
(2) in subsection (d), by striking ``section 1017'' and
inserting ``section 1012''.
(b) Analysis by Congressional Budget Office.--Section 402
of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 is amended by
inserting ``(a)'' after ``402.'' and by adding at the end the
following new subsection:
``(b) Upon the receipt of a special message under section
1011 proposing to cancel any item of direct spending, the
Director of the Congressional Budget Office shall prepare an
estimate of the savings in budget authority or outlays
resulting from such proposed cancellation relative to the
most recent levels calculated consistent with the methodology
used to calculate a baseline under section 257 of the
Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 and
included with a budget submission under section 1105(a) of
title 31, United States Code, and transmit such estimate to
the chairmen of the Committees on the Budget of the House of
Representatives and Senate.''.
(c) Clerical Amendments.--(1) Section 1(a) of the
Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 is
amended by striking the last sentence.
(2) Section 1022(c) of such Act (as redesignated) is
amended is amended by striking ``rescinded or that is to be
reserved'' and insert ``canceled'' and by striking ``1012''
and inserting ``1011''.
(3) Table of Contents.--The table of contents set forth in
section 1(b) of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment
Control Act of 1974 is amended by deleting the contents for
parts B and C of title X and inserting the following:

``Part B--Legislative Line Item Veto

``Sec. 1011. Line item veto authority.
``Sec. 1012. Procedures for expedited consideration.
``Sec. 1013. Presidential deferral authority.
``Sec. 1014. Identification of targeted tax benefits.
``Sec. 1015. Treatment of cancellations.
``Sec. 1016. Reports by Comptroller General.
``Sec. 1017. Definitions.
``Sec. 1018. Expiration.
``Sec. 1019. Suits by Comptroller General.
``Sec. 1020. Proposed Deferrals of budget authority.''.
(d) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this Act shall
take effect on the date of its enactment and apply only to
any dollar amount of discretionary budget authority, item of
direct spending, or targeted tax benefit provided in an Act
enacted on or after the date of enactment of this Act.

SEC. 4. SENSE OF CONGRESS ON ABUSE OF PROPOSED CANCELLATIONS.

It is the sense of Congress no President or any executive
branch official should condition the inclusion or exclusion
or threaten to condition the inclusion or exclusion of any
proposed cancellation in any special message under this
section upon any vote cast or to be cast by any Member of
either House of Congress.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) and the
gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) each will control 30
minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Iowa.

General Leave

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and
include extraneous material on the subject of the bill under
consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Iowa?
There was no objection.
Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman

[[Page H4472]]

from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan), the chief sponsor of the bill and a member
of the Budget Committee, be allowed to control the balance of my time
after I speak and also be authorized to yield blocks of time to other
speakers.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Iowa?
There was no objection.
Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
One of the most important obligations Congress has to be good
stewards of the tax dollars is to spend it wisely, to spend it
prudently, and with the Nation's best interests in mind. I think it is
fair to say honoring this obligation is as important today, if not more
so, than probably any time in our history.
We have made progress over the past few years in regaining control of
our nonsecurity and nonemergency spending, both on the appropriations
side of the budget as well as on the enormous entitlement programs. We
are going to continue to build on those efforts.
With economic growth in our country and the economy, with growth of
jobs, now 5 million and counting, the economy is growing. Revenues are
coming into the Treasury. We are holding down spending and reforming
government, and the good news is the deficit is coming down.
Each and every day on the floor we bring appropriations bills from
the great committee under the leadership of Jerry Lewis to continue
that trend that we have started, and that is controlling spending,
rooting out all waste, fraud and abuse. That committee is doing an
excellent job, and I commend them.
But I hear criticism, and I think many Members do, when we go back
home to talk to our constituents, whether it is in Iowa where I live or
across the country, that they really are tired of what they hear about
when it comes to this earmark or special-interest spending that goes on
that sometimes only benefits a very few people.
They also tend to surprise a lot of Members in the final conference
reports that come through on a number of bills, not just the
appropriation bills, but across the gamut of the work Congress does.
We all know the game; and frankly, most of us play the game. Members
take the opportunity to slip in a special-interest goodie for their
district into these enormous spending bills; and rarely, if ever, do we
take the opportunity to look at each one of those projects that affects
other people's districts. As a result, we don't get to look at all of
the so-called pork-barrel spending that oftentimes goes into these
projects. We all know full well that many of these so-called extras or
extra spending would really never survive if it was subjected to all
435 of us providing our scrutiny.
But we also know that no one person can vote against these items
because doing so would mean you would have to vote against the entire
bill, most of which is for legitimate purposes. So we are never going
to completely eliminate the appetite on both sides of the aisle for
tacking onto these large bills these special-interest projects. But
what we can do and what we continue to try and do today is reform the
process and minimize the impact of these wasteful items on the
taxpayer.
That brings us to the bill at hand. The Legislative Line Item Veto
Act of 2006 introduced by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan)
provides an additional effective tool for reducing wasteful spending.
It is endorsed, it is supported, it is cosponsored by a bipartisan
majority of this House, men and women on both sides of the aisle, that
for years on both sides of the aisle in a bipartisan way have been
working not only to reform the budget process, but to figure out ways
to adopt a so-called line item veto.
Presidents, for time immemorial, have chided Congress for not working
on this. Our President today has done the same. We need to get this
done. We need to put it into law. We need to try it with a sunset
attached in order to make sure that we can move this down the field and
reform wasteful spending.
Don't use the excuse that this is not a perfect bill. Don't use the
excuse that this is somehow the wrong time. That's an excuse in an
election year when you don't want to go home and explain to your voters
why every press release you said you were for it, why every time you
cosponsored it, why every time you voted for it, except this time. This
time somehow it is not perfect; this time somehow it is political; this
time the timing just doesn't quite seem right. Those are not excuses
that will hold water with the constituents back home.
We need to take this opportunity to do what is right and move the
Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5\1/2\ minutes.
Mr. Speaker, I can't help but notice the juxtaposition on the estate
tax bill that will decrease revenues by $823 billion over its first 10
years of implementation and this bill which comes to us wearing the
mantle of fiscal responsibility, but will barely dent the addition to
the deficit we just made if that bill becomes law.
Mr. Speaker, I have written and brought to the floor of this House
and seen to passage at least two, maybe three, expedited rescission
bills back in the 1990s. But I can't bring those bills to this floor
today because the Rules Committee won't let me. They shut me out 100
percent. Every amendment I requested was rejected, even though they
were serious and substantive amendments.
So I would say to others who were here on previous occasions: Look at
this bill carefully because it is not the same bill we have voted upon
before.
This bill allows the President a window of 45 days in which to pick
items to be rescinded. It allows the President to send five rescission
bills for every appropriation bill. Five times 11, there are 11
appropriation bills, equals 55. If we have a President who makes full
use of this, we are inviting chaos.
The original bill and the substitute I would have offered provide the
President 10 days, which is enough. Furthermore, the more time you give
the President, the more apt that the cuts he makes will be for
political purposes rather than budgetary purposes. Ten days is enough
for a budgetary review.
Secondly, this bill allows the House, us, Congress, to vote up or
down. That's it, no amendments, no way that we can cull through the
list that the President sends back up here and pick out what is a
worthy project and make the case for them.
The original bill which we voted upon before and my substitute
allowed a Member to go get 99 others and remove a worthy spending item
from the rescission list.
Next, this bill allows the President to strike something called
direct spending items. That's budget talk for Social Security,
Medicare, Medicaid, veterans benefits, agriculture benefits, on and on.
What we have in this bill is a fast track, an expedited track to
passage, summary treatment of things that the President sends up here
that are supposed to be turned around in less than 30 days, and that is
no way to decide substantive changes in Medicare and Social Security,
but that is what this bill provides.
The original bill and my substitute have no mention of Medicare or
Social Security direct spending in it. It applied to discretionary
spending, as it should.
This bill allows the President to strike targeted tax benefits. So
did the original bill. I offered that amendment. But this bill defines
targeted tax benefits to mean those with fewer than 100 beneficiaries.
That was a targeted tax benefit.
This bill defines the number down to one beneficiary and lets the
Ways and Means Committee chairman be the arbiter of that. This is a
sham. It is a serious deficiency in this bill, and it distinguishes
this bill from the others that have come before it.
This bill allows the President to impose a 90-day impoundment on
spending items for which he seeks rescission, but by the track set up
in this bill, it will only take 30 days for a rescission to run its
course. Why not simply confine the amount of impoundment time to
something close to the amount of time it will take to consider a
rescission request?
This may seem like a small point, but we are giving a substantial
grant of authority to the President. If it is abused or not used in a
way that we approve, then we better keep it on tight rein. This bill
sunsets in 6 years. We would sunset it in 2 years. Keep it on a

[[Page H4473]]

tight rein in case it is abused. It may be a small point, but it could
be a major point as well.
There are other things that we would have proposed in amendments that
we would offer that would make this bill better. The gentleman just
talked about earmarks. We put earmark reforms in our substitute. You
will not find the word ``earmark'' anywhere in this bill.
If you are going to do this, and your objective is to take down the
deficit, then let's put something in here known to work toward that
end, and that is the PAYGO rule. It worked so well for us in the 1990s
and can work again for us. Why not use this moving vehicle in the name
of fiscal responsibility to pass PAYGO as well as rescission? If we did
something like that, you truly would have a bipartisan bill.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield 10 seconds to the
chairman of the Appropriations Committee, the gentleman from California
(Mr. Lewis).
(Mr. LEWIS of California asked and was given permission to revise and
extend his remarks.)
Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the gentleman
from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan) for the work he has done on this very
important bill. We have had our differences, but in the meantime he has
been more than cooperative.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the Legislative Line Item Veto
Act. My opposition is based on Congress's experience with previous
efforts to give the President line item veto authority, as well as my
serious concerns over what this bill would do to the balance of
budgetary power between the Legislative and Executive Branches.
During 1997, President Clinton exercised his authority under the Line
Item Veto Act of 1996 to cancel spending authority or tax benefits 82
times. Total cancellations of discretionary budget authority amounted
to $479 million, or less than three one-hundredths of one percent of
the total fiscal year 1998 Federal budget.
The cancellations made during this period were mired in controversy.
On October 6, 1997, President Clinton cancelled $287 million for 38
military construction projects in 24 States. Soon after the
cancellations were announced, the administration admitted, in response
to bipartisan criticism, that they had used flawed information in
deciding to cancel nearly half of the projects.
The administration used three criteria in making these decisions. The
cancelled projects: (1) were not requested by the military; (2) could
not make contributions to the national defense in fiscal year 1998; and
(3) would not benefit the quality of life and well-being of military
personnel. These criteria were applied by the bureaucrats within the
White House and OMB without consulting either the Department of Defense
or the Members of Congress who sponsored the projects.
Congress's motivation for funding many of these projects was safety.
A Live Fire Command and Control Facility at Fort Irwin, CA, would
enable the Army to safely train personnel in the live firing of
ordnance. Renovations at White Sands Missile Range, NM, would address
the absence of fire suppression systems.
Other projects provided much-needed housing. One would provide
housing at Dyess Air Force Base in Texas, where there were no existing
facilities to house the 13th Bomb Squadron.
Appropriations Chairman Bob Livingston singled out a particularly
egregious cancellation relating to the money for Army reserve units in
Utah. He said, in a letter to President Clinton, ``I can only conclude
that your decision was based on something other than an altruistic
yearning to cut spending. Mr. President, this was an embarrassing
mistake . . .''

The Clinton Administration responded to some of the criticism by
stating that many of the cancelled projects would be requested in
future budgets anyway. This only fueled congressional objections,
however, as Members could not understand why the projects were not
necessary now when they could be considered necessary in the next
budget cycle.
Congress responded by passing a bill to disapprove the President's
military construction cancellations. The bill was vetoed by the
President. The House voted 347-69 and the Senate voted 78-20 to
override the veto, enacting the bill and nullifying the cancellations.
On June 25, 1998, the Supreme Court ruled that the Line Item Veto Act
violated the presentment clause of the Constitution, thus ending a
divisive and contentious fight between the Executive and Legislative
branches.
The experience of the original Line Item Veto Act should cause
Congress to be extremely cautious about giving the President new line
item veto authority. Even though implementation under H.R. 4890 differs
from the 1996 Act, the proposed bill would transfer a great deal of
budgetary power to the Executive Branch.
The expedited rescission authority mandated by H.R. 4890 would give
new weight to the President's rescission proposals. While under current
law any rescission proposal can be disregarded by Congress if it has no
merit, H.R. 4890 requires votes in the House and Senate. The President,
or even bureaucrats within the agencies or the Office of Management and
Budget, would set the legislative agenda by deciding what rescissions
to include in a bill.
A President could also structure his rescission messages with more of
an eye toward politics instead of good policy. For example, a
President, encouraged by his political advisors, could propose
rescissions that target the projects of one political party. In this
event, the debate over the bill would be blatantly political and would
certainly lead to legislative stonewalling by the offended party. A
President could also make deals with specific Members of Congress to
further his legislative agenda. He could easily threaten to cancel an
item directly benefiting a particular Member's district, and then back
off his threat if that Member votes in favor of the President's
program. If a President is interested in trading Members' projects for
their support for expanded entitlement spending, for example, overall
spending would actually increase.

H.R. 4890 could also present Congress with a procedural nightmare.
Each rescission bill would use up to five hours of debate time in the
House and ten hours in the Senate. The President could submit up to
five rescission messages for each enacted spending or tax bill, or up
to ten messages for an omnibus bill. A multiple-rescission-bill
scenario could easily eat up precious legislative time when the
legislative calendar is already severely limited.
A Republican Congress might tend to support a Republican President's
rescission proposals. However, there may not always be a Republican
President in the White House. Expedited rescission authority would
provide new opportunities for conflict between a White House and
Congress of differing parties. The result could be a legislative
deadlock manufactured by the Executive Branch.
The experience of the Line Item Veto Act under President Clinton
showed how contentious the debate could become over saving a relatively
small amount of money. Congress should have serious reservations over
giving the Executive Branch so much sway over the funding of
congressional priorities and the framework of the legislative agenda.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5\1/2\ minutes.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be bringing this bill to the floor
today, and I would like to explain why we are doing this, why this is
needed.
Just last year, according to the CRS or Citizens Against Government
Waste, whichever group you want to talk about, we had over 10,000
earmarks here, totaling almost $28 billion.
Mr. Speaker, not every one of those earmarks came in just conference
reports, but many of them did.

{time} 1615

Mr. Speaker, we need more transparency and more accountability in how
we spend the taxpayer dollars. In particular, Mr. Speaker, we ought to
have the ability to be able to have votes on the individual merits of
spending items, particularly those that we never have a chance to vote
on, things that go into conference reports.
The earmark reform legislation that was passed earlier by this body
did a lot to address bringing more transparency and accountability to
the spending system as bills come to the floor. This is a perfect
complement to that, the legislative line item veto, because after bills
are considered, after conference reports are dealt with, we often find
out that in conference a lot of things get put into those bills that we
didn't get a chance to scrutinize. We ought to be able to vote on those
things.
Now, how does this work?
And I want to get to the constitutional point in just a moment. Here
is exactly how the process is laid out under this constitutional
legislative line item veto: number one, after a bill becomes law, the
President identifies an item of discretionary spending, direct spending
or special interest tax break in legislation that is being signed into
law. The President then submits a special message to Congress, no more
than five, asking for the rescission of a spending item or items. After
receiving this bill or messages, the House and the Senate have a total
of 14 legislative days to bring it to the

[[Page H4474]]

floor for an up-or-down vote. If the House and Senate pass the
President's rescission request, it is sent to the President and becomes
law. If either House votes against it, the rescission is not enacted.
This is far different than the earlier legislative line item veto.
This is not your father's line item veto. In fact, I agree with the
Supreme Court ruling that said that the earlier line item veto was
unconstitutional, because that line item veto, among other things,
violated the separation of powers. This protects the prerogatives of
the legislative branch, specifically, because this: the action is
executed by Congress, not the administration. Under the old version the
administration made the decision. Line item veto. That is the end of
it. If Congress didn't like it, they would have to come up with a two-
thirds vote to override that. That is not how this situation works.
Under this system, the President, who already has similar existing
rescission authority, sends a rescission request to the Congress, just
like he can do today. Only under this situation, we simply add a fast
track authority, like we do with a lot of other legislation, like trade
legislation, whereby we can't duck the vote by within 14 legislative
days the House and the Senate vote on this, up or down. We decide in
Congress. We vote to affirm the rescission. If we choose not to pass
the rescission, the rescission does not take place. The money is spent.
This is constitutional to the point where the gentleman who argued
against the line item veto successfully in the Supreme Court in 1998
came to testify in three different committee hearings, Charles Cooper,
as to the constitutionality of this, that this does, in fact, protect
the prerogatives of the legislative branch; that this is consistent
with the bicameralism and presentment clause in the Constitution, and
maintains the separation of powers.
Now, we have worked with a lot of parties. We have worked with
Democrats, constitutional experts, Republicans, OMB. In fact, this bill
has been so bipartisan in the past, similar legislation has been
proposed. In 1993, H.R. 1578 received 250 votes, including 174
Democrats. In 1994, H.R. 4600 received 342 votes, an expedited
rescission bill, 173 Democrats. Two years ago, Congressman Charles
Stenholm and I, a Blue Dog Democrat, brought it to the floor. We got
174 votes for virtually the same legislation, where we got 45
Democrats.
Now, the gentleman from South Carolina, the ranking member, has
brought a lot of good points to the table. He is a gentleman who has
watched this process for many years and understands this process very,
very well. In particular, he brought six items of concern to the
committee 3 weeks ago, which I took very, very copious notes of, which
I took to heart. And because of that, we have made six big changes to
this bill to try and improve this legislation, because I think the
gentleman from South Carolina made excellent suggestions.
We limited time on the President's submission of a rescission
request. We limited the number of requests. We wrote a ban on
duplicative requests so the President couldn't send a request over and
over and over and tie us into knots. We shortened the deferral period
to the minimum amount necessary. We clarified that existing
entitlements are exempt. Not Medicare, not Social Security, not other
entitlements. We put a sunset in here so that we can revisit this law
in 6 years to make sure that the balance of power is maintained.
Why is this needed, Mr. Speaker?
I think the success of this tool will be judged more in how much
wasteful spending doesn't get put into bills and less on how much
wasteful spending we take out of bills. Having this deterrence, having
this extra layer of accountability will bring the level of sunshine,
transparency and accountability to the spending and taxing process in
Congress exactly where it is needed the most.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
North Carolina (Mr. Price).
(Mr. PRICE of North Carolina asked and was given permission to revise
and extend his remarks.)
Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, all this posturing about
fiscal responsibility is nothing more than a side show. This
legislation is not about fiscal responsibility. Look no further than
the Republican estate tax bill this House just passed. Putting us
nearly $1 trillion further in debt over the next 15 years for the sake
of a few of our country's wealthiest families is evidence enough of
where the priorities of the Bush administration and the Republican
congressional leadership lie.
In fact, the line item veto has very little to do with budgeting at
all. It has everything to do with power, Presidential power. The shift
of constitutional power from Congress to the executive branch has
greatly accelerated since the 1990s. As congressional scholars Tom Mann
and Norm Ornstein observe, the Republican Congress, under the
administration of George W. Bush, has featured ``a general obeisance to
Presidential initiative, and passivity in the face of Presidential
power.''
This bill would tilt the balance of power even further in the
direction of the White House. Specific provisions of the bill would
give the President inordinate control over the appropriations process.
For example, the President could cherry-pick from among a wide range of
provisions, authorizations or appropriations, discretionary or
mandatory, and package them together in whatever way he saw fit,
requiring Congress to vote up or down on the entire package.
This bill would give the White House unprecedented leverage over
Congress by allowing the President to condition his support for our
priorities on our acquiescence in his priorities. It is for this exact
reason that many experts believe this bill would actually increase
government spending, not reduce it.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I will take a back seat to no one in targeting
bridges to nowhere and other examples of congressional waste. But I
also know this: Presidents almost invariably ask for more money than
Congress is willing to appropriate. And the profligacy of our current
President is well documented.
The line item veto is not about spending versus saving. It is about
letting the President, not Congress, decide what we are spending money
on.
Mr. Speaker, if the leadership of this House were serious about
getting our finances in order, it would never have abandoned the pay-
as-you-go rules, which helped produce balanced budgets and even
surpluses in the 1990s. And it would reinstate those rules today, as
proposed by Mr. Spratt's substitute.
The Spratt substitute would also have addressed several other key
weaknesses of H.R. 4890. But once again, the House leadership has
rigged the rules to deny us a vote on it. Instead, we get this fig-leaf
bill designed to hide the fiscal sins of this Republican Congress from
the American public.
Mr. Speaker, the House of Representatives has three fundamental
powers: declaring war, conducting oversight, and the power of the
purse. We have already gone a long way to sacrifice the first two to
the executive branch. Do we really want to give away the only one we
have got left?
I urge my colleagues to oppose this misguided legislation.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the
distinguished majority whip, Mr. Blunt.
Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, today I come to the floor in support of this
bill, the Line Item Veto Act, and I applaud Congressman Paul Ryan for
his hard work on this legislation.
The Line Item Veto Act will work to eliminate wasteful spending,
safeguard against questionable appropriation decisions, and further
protect taxpayers' dollars from waste, fraud and abuse. It becomes
another important tool that helps us restrain spending and meets the
constitutional test that the line item veto given to the President
during the Clinton administration but reversed by the Supreme Court
could not meet. It may not be everything that line item veto was, but I
think Mr. Ryan has worked hard to make it everything it could be and
meet that constitutional standard.
At the same time, it increases transparency in the process, it
protects legitimate spending requests that direct funds to carry out
important projects that benefit Americans, and it also gives Congress
the final word in that important constitutional responsibility that the
previous speaker mentioned

[[Page H4475]]

was uniquely given to us. We bring someone else into this process in a
way that helps. It will make a difference. I think it is more than
barely a dent, but even a dent becomes another tool, makes a
difference. I think it makes a significant difference.
Mr. Ryan has worked hard. He was given six challenges to the original
proposal that he brought to this Congress. He made six significant
changes.
I urge my colleagues to join him in passing this bill and giving the
President and this Congress the assistance that this and future
Congresses need to help us restrain spending in Washington.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Kansas (Mr. Moore).
Mr. MOORE of Kansas. Mr. Speaker, I would support the proposal before
this House today if there were just one additional provision, and that
is something I moved during the Budget Committee last week, to
reinstate and add as an amendment to this PAYGO provisions that Mr.
Spratt mentioned early.
PAYGO sounds complex. All it really is if you have a new spending
proposal or a new tax cut proposal, the first section is, here is my
proposal. The second provision is, here is how it will be paid for.
If we want to truly restore fiscal responsibility to this body, and
to our Nation, we need to reinstate PAYGO that expired in 2002.
Over the last 5 years Congress has raised the debt limit four times
by $3 trillion; raised the debt limit by $3 trillion in the last 5
years. The most recent was almost $800 billion in March of this year.
Unfortunately, our current fiscal carelessness is going to land
squarely on the shoulders of our kids and grandkids. We are putting our
children and grandchildren in a hole so deep they may never be able to
climb out. Each person in this country now has their share of the
national debt at $28,000.
This debt tax, Mr. Speaker, that we are imposing on our children and
grandchildren cannot be repealed and can only be reduced if we take
responsible steps now. We should and must reinstate PAYGO rules. In
fact, former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board Greenspan testified
in front of our Budget Committee, as did David Walker, the Comptroller
General of our country, in favor of reinstating this rule.
Again, I would support line item veto if we had the addition of PAYGO
rules. I think we need to take this measure now, and I urge people to
look at this seriously and to reinstate PAYGO.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the
distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).
Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I want to say this: as a member of the
Appropriations Committee, I am proud that this year the House
Appropriations Committee has eliminated 95 different programs and
greatly reduced the number of Member projects and earmarks. In each
year we receive about 25,000 requests for earmarks. And yet, if there
is another tool out there that we can use to scrutinize spending, I
don't think any of us should be afraid to do it.
I support the line item veto. I think that the compromise that Mr.
Ryan has crafted to get around the questions that we, as a Republican
Congress, gave to the Democrat President Clinton administration, I
think we should support this for any administration and leave party out
of it.
It would give the President of the United States a tool, and it would
give a self-imposed threat to this Chamber to make sure that anything
that we put in the bill would stand the test of public scrutiny and
transparency. If I have put an earmark in the appropriations bill, I
ought to be able to defend it, and I ought to be able to defend it not
to just any Democrat or Republican on the floor of the House, but to
the President of the United States and to the folks back home.
I am not afraid of this. I think this is good fiscal policy. It
builds on what the Appropriations Committee has already been doing in
terms of eliminating 95 existing programs and bringing down Member
earmarks tremendously. So I support this bill, and I hope that
everybody else will.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Washington (Mr. Baird).
Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Speaker, I share my good friend from Wisconsin's
commitment to trying to lower the budget deficit.
Mr. SPRATT. Will the gentleman suspend?
I will yield you more time.
I simply want to say to my friend from Georgia, if you want
transparency as to earmarks, we offered an amendment. The Rules
Committee would not make it in order. Our substitute addresses the
issue of earmarks. It reinstates the earmark reforms in the Obey bill
which is now languishing in conference.
I yield the gentleman 2 minutes.
Mr. BAIRD. I thank my ranking member.
The gentleman from Wisconsin is well intentioned. We all, I think,
recognize the need to reduce the size of this deficit.

{time} 1630

But there is an irony here, and the irony is this: The gentleman
spoke about the need for transparency and accountability. I absolutely
agree. But I would ask my friends on the majority side, if we are
talking about transparency, why is it that time after time after time
you bring bills before this body, giving us less than 24 hours to read
them? Ironically, this bill gives the President 45 days to look at
legislation before filing a rescission, and then we have 14 legislative
days to act on that. You do not give us 14 hours to read the original
bills.
We offered in the Budget Committee a proposal that would give us 72
hours, a mere 3 days, to read thousands of pages, spending hundreds of
billions of dollars. It is was ruled out of order. Why is it that in
our effort to establish fiscal responsibility we do not take
responsibility ourselves, we hand it to the President and say keep us
from sinning once again?
We have the authority within this body to review legislation if we
would just insist that the Rules Committee pass a 72-hour rule and
enforce it, not override it with the appropriately named ``martial
law'' rules that they do. Let us require a full two-thirds vote of this
institution before any bill is brought to this floor with less than 72
hours to read.
There is a Web site people can refer to, readthebill.org, and you can
check this out. It is common sense. The public supports it. If we want
to start bringing this House in order, let us bring our House in order,
not give the keys to the executive branch, because I fear that the
Framers would not have approved that.
I thank the ranking member for his leadership.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 1\1/2\
minutes to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Matheson).
Mr. MATHESON. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Ryan for his leadership on
this issue.
What we are dealing with today is a significant piece to a puzzle.
Because it is a puzzle. There is no question that in terms of having
greater accountability and having fiscal responsibility, there are a
number of steps we need to take as a Congress. And the piece today is
talking about opening to the light of day certain earmarks that ought
to be open to the light of day. And I would echo the comments of Mr.
Kingston. If I have an earmark, I ought to be willing to put it up for
an up-or-down vote. Everybody in this Congress has requested earmarks,
and everyone should be comfortable defending those earmarks. And this
is all about shedding the light of day on that process. And it will
result, even without having a rescission, it is going to result in
Members of Congress being a little more careful and being a little more
substantive in the proposals they make, and it is going to make this
body more accountable.
So with that in mind, I encourage my colleagues in a bipartisan way
to embrace this work and to continue the work after this bill because,
as I said, there are a number of steps we can take to encourage
accountability and encourage greater fiscal responsibility. But this is
an important piece and important step in pursuing that goal.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Minnesota (Mr. Peterson).

[[Page H4476]]

Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for
yielding.
I rise today in opposition to this bill, which threatens the ability
of the Agriculture Committee to develop farm policy that addresses the
new challenges that face American agriculture.
For 16 years I have represented a rural district in Congress, and
during that time I have served on the Agriculture Committee, helping to
write the last three farm bills. Those of us who serve on the
Agriculture Committee have spent a lot of time learning about and
talking to those involved in American agriculture. We have a
responsibility to develop farm policy that is fiscally responsible and
that keeps our farmers competitive and strong.
As the Agriculture Committee begins the process of writing the next
farm bill, we will try to address the many emerging challenges that
face American producers. As we consider priorities for agriculture, any
new investments in bioenergy, conservation, specialty crops, and other
programs, the farm bill will face yet a new hurdle. The farm bill has
always had an uphill battle. As our country moves away from its
agriculture roots, we must constantly reach out to our urban and
suburban colleagues. Now we would face the real possibility that the
President would veto the spending priorities that we set with input
from all of agriculture, and, in my opinion, this could threaten the
very delicate balance that we must maintain in the committee.
If we pass this bill and allow the President to cancel any new direct
spending item, we will gut the Agriculture Committee's ability to
create farm policy that addresses the new and changing world that our
producers face.
In closing, I want to remind my colleagues that in 1993, when
Democrats controlled the Congress and the Presidency, we reduced
spending $192 billion over 5 years. Why is it that the Republicans can
only hand us more deficit spending and a spiraling debt? This Line Item
Veto Act is an admission, in my opinion, of the inability on the other
side to control spending.
This bill fails to recognize what we should be doing: working
together in Congress and with the White House to set priorities and to
spend the taxpayers' money responsibly.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I think the gentleman from
Minnesota will be happy to know that under the way this bill works, you
cannot go after mandatory programs in the farm bill that already exist.
So you cannot go back and take a commodity program out.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished Member from
Florida (Mr. Crenshaw), a member of the Budget Committee.
Mr. CRENSHAW. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I
thank him for his hard work, working on this legislation.
I am proud to be a cosponsor of this and rise to ask my colleagues to
vote in favor of this.
I cannot help but be a little bit amused when I hear some of the
opponents stand up and say that they kind of think this gives too much
power to the President. It is like some brand new secret idea that the
Republicans dreamed up to give a Republican President more power than
he ought to have.
I just want to remind everyone this is not a brand new idea. It has
been around a good while. People have pointed out that 43 governors in
the States around the country have the same or similar kind of power,
that we passed legislation like this through the Congress before. In
fact, people have said they like it, both Democrats and Republicans.
Let me read you what one of the strongest supporters of this
legislation, this line item veto, said. He said: ``The fresh air of
public accountability will glow through the Federal budget. This law
gives the President tools to cut wasteful spending, and even more
important, it empowers our citizens, for the exercise of this veto or
even the possibility of its exercise will throw a spotlight of public
scrutiny onto the darkest corners of the Federal budget.''
Do you know who said that? President Clinton said that when he signed
similar legislation in 1996.
I could not say it any better. I just urge my colleagues to add this
tool to our arsenal. If you are serious about getting a handle on
controlling spending, you will vote in favor of this.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Wisconsin (Mr. Kind).
Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend for yielding me this
time, but also for the substitute that he was hoping to offer here
today so we could have a legitimate and honest debate about the
direction we need to go for fiscal responsibility in the House.
Unfortunately, because of the way the rules are structured, we are
prohibited from offering any amendments or this gentleman's substitute,
which I think has a lot of merit.
I can understand that people with good intent, and there are many in
this Chamber, can support a piece of legislation. Philosophically I
agree that we need to get at the heart of earmark reform. We need to
move forward on earmark reform as this session progresses because this
legislation alone will not deal with the issue. And I could support a
piece of legislation like that if I thought there was the institutional
will here in Congress and also down on Pennsylvania Avenue to finally
get serious about fiscal responsibility.
But the facts are what they are, that under the Republican leadership
over the last 6 years, we have had the largest and quickest increase in
national debt in our Nation's history, that this President is the first
President since Thomas Jefferson who has refused to veto one spending
bill during his entire administration. He is not even using the
rescission powers that are already granted to him that this legislation
now is meant to expedite, and that is unfortunate.
But the real issue, if we are going to get serious about getting back
on fiscal track as a Nation, is we have got to go to what has proven to
work. And what worked in the 1990s was something very simple called
pay-as-you-go. It required tough budgeting decisions on both the
spending and the revenue sides that led to 4 years of budget surpluses
where we were paying down the national debt rather than increasing the
debt burden for our children and grandchildren and, even more
importantly, becoming more dependent on foreign countries such as China
to be financing our deficits today.
I am one of the institutionalists around here who feel that we have
ceded too much power, too much control, too much authority to this
administration or future administrations. And if anyone in this Chamber
wants to stand up and claim that we are a coequal branch of government
today, they are fooling themselves. This legislation will make it even
worse.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, given that my friend from
Wisconsin voted for virtually the same bill 2 years ago when Charlie
Stenholm and I had it on the floor, I hope we can count on his support
again.
Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman
from Texas (Mr. Cuellar).
Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Ryan and Ranking Member
Spratt.
I am a cosponsor of this legislation because my belief and my
experience show me that this is an effective tool to restoring
accountability in our government. Mr. Speaker, this legislation is a
good starting point to begin the process of eliminating wasteful
spending in government.
This bill gives the President the latitude to recommend that
appropriations, direct spending, or tax breaks be cut. These items are
commonsense in nature and cross party lines. A spending item is as
eligible for cancellation as a tax break. The items that are eligible
for cancellation or rescission send a clear message to our constituents
that we are serious about government accountability.
Common misperception holds that the President has the final say on
items that he wishes to eliminate, but this is not correct. Under this
legislation Congress has the final say. The President can recommend,
but it is up to Congress to vote up or down on his particular cuts.
Congress retains the power to say ``no.'' There is no threat to our
constitutional powers of the purse.
To address the concerns that the line item veto is a political tool,
I urge my colleagues to keep in mind that neither party has a monopoly
on the executive

[[Page H4477]]

branch. While the President is of one party today, this can certainly
change tomorrow.
I urge my colleagues to vote for this bill that helps restore
accountability in Washington and restores the faith of our
constituents.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Virginia (Mr. Scott).
Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for
yielding.
Mr. Speaker, this bill has nothing to do with fiscal responsibility.
If we were interested in fiscal responsibility, we would not have
passed the tax bill just a few minutes ago that adds, over the course
of just a few years, trillions of dollars in new deficits without any
way to pay for it.
Mr. Speaker, 5 years ago we had a $5.5 trillion 10-year surplus. Now
those 10 years look like they are going to come in at about a $3.5
trillion deficit, a $9 trillion reversal. If this bill had been in
effect during those years and the President had used his new powers the
way we might hope, we might have saved a few hundred thousand dollars,
a few million, maybe even a few billion, but that is negligible
compared to the $9 trillion reversal. And that is if the President used
the new power in a fiscally responsible manner. Nothing in the bill
prevents the President from using his new powers to coerce even more
irresponsibility, such as using it as a hammer to coerce Members to
support new tax cuts without paying for them.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, on the tax provisions, the bill only allows the
President to veto teeny weeny, little targeted tax cuts, but does not
allow him to veto huge, gargantuan, irresponsible, unpaid-for tax cuts.
Mr. Speaker, this path to fiscal responsibility is paved with hard
choices. This ineffective gimmick is not one of them. We should reject
the bill.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 20 seconds to
answer what the gentleman mentioned on tax cuts.
The reason we go after tax rifle shots is we do not want to give the
President the power of setting policy that Congress has. We are going
after pork, tax pork, spending pork, not tax policy. That would be to
abrogate our responsibility of setting policy to the executive branch,
and we do not want to do that. That is why the bill was written as it
is today.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman
from Delaware (Mr. Castle).
Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for
what he has done and for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I would just like to add this as my own personal
perspective. I was a State legislator and lieutenant governor and I was
a governor. So I had this both used in a situation in which I was
worried about it, in a situation in which I used it, and then I came to
Congress and I actually introduced legislation on this early on and
later was a cosponsor of that legislation which became law and was
later overruled by the Supreme Court.
I have heard a lot of arguments today, and I have listened to this
both in the rule debate and here pretty intently. And there were
discussions like, oh, we are taking away revenue at the same time we
are trying to do this, how can this be fiscally responsible?
This is not all that big a deal. The bottom line is it is another
measure which will help us move in the direction of transparency, which
will help us move in the direction of perhaps balancing the budget.
This itself will never balance the budget. It is too small an item as
far as that is concerned. It is similar to a rainy day fund. It is
similar to earmark reform or a sunset provision or a variety of other
budgetary process matters that I think that we should take up in an
effort as Republicans and Democrats to do this.

{time} 1645

This particular President, if people are concerned about that, will
only be President 2\1/2\ more years. At some point we will have a
different makeup of the Congress, a different makeup of the Presidency,
and hopefully this will be around for 100 years.
But it is a very significant budgetary tool. The reason it is
significant, Mr. Speaker, is because it makes people get together and
talk about this, and people are very reluctant to proceed with
something that may put in the light of day that which they may not want
to see in the light of day. So you see a lot of restrictions.
It brings the executive branch and the legislative branch together in
terms of planning where we are going to go as far as budgets are
concerned. Unfortunately, that is not happening enough today. I think
we are all concerned about budget deficits, we are all concerned about
a lot of the problems which exist out there, and I think we need to
work together to get this done.
So in my mind, adopting this is relatively simple. It is something we
should be doing; it is something I would hope 100 percent of this
Congress would support. I urge everyone to support it.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to
address an issue that Mr. Ryan spoke to just a moment ago.
This bill does apply to new direct spending items. Now, there could
be some disagreement over what that means, but direct spending is
mandatory spending, it is entitlement spending, and under that broad
rubric falls Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and veterans benefits.
The reason we are very concerned about broadening the reach to
include mandatory programs like that is that these are programs people
depend upon; and what this bill essentially does is create a fast
track, a 30-day turnaround. The President sends a bill here, we can't
amend it in committee, we can't amend it on the floor, we only have an
up-or-down vote, we have a limited amount of time for debate. It is a
fast track with no substantive input from Congress, and I would hate to
see us make an ill-advised change in Social Security or Medicare simply
because it got wrapped up with other spending issues and was pushed
through here on such a small fast track that we didn't realize the
consequences until we woke up a month or two later.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr.
Obey).
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, in the end, there are only three essential
powers that make the Congress the greatest legislative body in the
history of the world. The first is the power to investigate; the second
is the power to declare war; and the third is the power of the purse.
This Congress has already supinely given away most of its ability to
declare war. It ceded that largely to the President.
This Congress has also engaged in a pitiful amount of oversight and
investigation over the past 5 years.
The only remaining power that Congress has is the power of the purse.
If Members of this body want to diminish that power and further weaken
the ability of the legislative body to do its job, then, by all means,
vote for this underlying bill. If you think it wouldn't be a good idea
to do that, then you ought to vote against it.
Can you imagine what a President like LBJ would have done with these
powers to someone like Gaylord Nelson, from my own State, one of the
three people who cast a vote against the original appropriation for
Vietnam? LBJ would have put his arm around Gaylord's shoulder and he
would have said, Gaylord, if you can't see your way through to be with
me on the war, you are going to lose an awful lot of things you care
about in that budget. I will make your life miserable. I will send down
rescissions again and again and again, on the wilderness, on you name
it.
I believe that the most pernicious aspect of this proposal is that it
will further gut the ability of Congress to review a President's
foreign policy initiatives in an independent fashion. God knows we have
already failed in our responsibilities with respect to keeping us out
of the dumbest war since the War of 1812, in Iraq, and this ill-advised
proposition will simply make those matters worse.
I would urge an ``aye'' vote for the Spratt substitute and a ``no''
vote on the underlying bill.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to respond to something that
the gentleman from South Carolina said. He said under this bill we
could go after mandatory programs like Social Security, Medicare,
veterans benefits.

[[Page H4478]]

Let me be very clear: you cannot with this program go after Social
Security, Medicare and veterans benefits as we know it today. We are
saying new programs. Why do we say it that way? Why new direct spending
programs?
There are 5,000-plus earmarks in the transportation bill just this
last year. Why should that be taken off the table? If you did that,
then the Bridge to Nowhere would be exempt from the line item veto. I
think most people who know this stuff think the Bridge to Nowhere ought
to be one of the things that the President would want to go after under
the line item veto.
We are talking about new programs, not the existing entitlement
programs that we have come to know and enjoy for many of our
constituents.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman
from Colorado (Mr. Udall).
(Mr. UDALL of Colorado asked and was given permission to revise and
extend his remarks.)
Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for
yielding, and I rise with great respect for my friends on my side of
the aisle when it comes to this proposal today.
I took an interest in this starting 2 years ago when it seemed to me
we needed some additional tools to bring these budget deficits under
control. We have gone from surpluses to enormous deficits, and from
reducing our national debt to increasing the debt tax on our children;
and it is my opinion that this bill will help us begin to bring our
budget back into balance.
As has been mentioned here, it follows the approach of our former
colleague Charlie Stenholm, and it also mirrors what 43 Governors have,
as our friend Congressman Castle mentioned earlier today. It also
mirrors a bill that I introduced in the last Congress as well.
So, in sum, this will promote accountability. It will promote
transparency. It is a small start. I believe that it balances the
constitutional responsibilities between the President and the Congress;
and perhaps if we pass this today, then we create some momentum so that
we move toward putting PAYGO back in place and reining in the earmark
situation that we now face in this Congress that in part has led us to
these enormous deficits.
So let's pass this. Let's work together. Let's find a way to balance
the budget and not pass on the debt tax to our children.
I thank the gentleman for yielding, and, again, I rise in support of
this important piece of legislation.
Mr. Speaker, over the last 5 years we've seen a dramatic change in
the Federal budget--a change for the worse.
We've gone from budget surpluses to big deficits, and from reducing
the national debt to increasing the ``debt tax'' on our children.
There's no mystery about how this happened.
Partly, it was caused by a recession.
Partly, it was caused by the increased spending needed for national
defense, homeland security, and fighting terrorism.
And in part it was caused by excessive and unbalanced tax cuts the
president pushed for and Congress passed.
This bill does not directly address those major causes of our
budgetary problems.
Fixing them will take long-term work on several fronts, including
taxes.
And it will take stronger medicine than this--such as restoring the
``PAYGO'' rules that helped bring the budget into balance in the past.
That's why I thought the House should have been able to at least
debate a stronger version of this bill, in the form of the substitute
proposed by the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Spratt.
And that's why I voted against the Republican leadership's
restrictive rule that prevents even debating that substitute.
But, even so, I support this bill because it can help, at least a
little, to promote transparency and accountability about spending items
and tax breaks.
We have heard a lot of talk about spending ``earmarks''--meaning
spending based on proposals by Members of Congress instead of the
Administration.
Some people are opposed to all earmarks--but I am not one of them.
I think Members of Congress know the needs of their communities, and
I think Congress as a whole has the responsibility to decide how tax
dollars are spent.
And earmarks can help fund nonprofits and other private-sector groups
to do jobs that Federal agencies are not able to do as well.
In short, not all earmarks are bad.
In fact, I have sought earmarks for various items that have benefited
Coloradans--and I intend to keep on doing that.
And a similar case can be made for targeted tax breaks, as well.
Still, we all know some bills have included spending earmarks or
special tax breaks that might not have been approved if they were
considered separately.
That's why the President--like his predecessors--has asked for the
kind of ``line-item veto'' that can be used by Governors in Colorado
and several other States.
And that's why about 10 years ago Congress actually passed a law
intended to give President Clinton that kind of authority.
But the Supreme Court ruled in 1998 that the legislation was
unconstitutional.
And I think the Court got it right.
I think trying to allow the President to in effect repeal a part of a
law he has already signed--and saying it takes a two-thirds vote in
both Houses of Congress to restore that part--went too far.
I think that kind of line-item veto would undermine the checks and
balances between the Executive and Legislative branches of the
government.
So, I could not support that kind of line-item veto.
But this bill is different.
It is a practical, effective--and, best of all, Constitutional--
version of a line-item veto.
It is not unprecedented. It follows the approach of legislation
passed by the House of Representatives several times during the Clinton
administration under the leadership of our former colleague Charlie
Stenholm and others, including Tom Carper, Tim Penny and John Kasich.
It also is similar to bills I introduced under the heading of
measures to ``Stimulate Leadership in Cutting Expenditures,'' or
``SLICE.''
Under this bill--as under SLICE--the President could identify
specific spending items he thinks should be cut--and Congress would
have to vote, up or down, on whether to cut each of them.
Current law says the President can ask Congress to rescind--that is,
cancel--spending items. But Congress can ignore those requests, and
often has done so.
This bill would change that.
It says if the President proposes a specific cut, Congress can't
duck--it would have to vote on it, and if a majority approved the cut,
that would be that.
So, it would give the President a bright spotlight of publicity he
could focus on earmarks or special tax breaks, and it would force
Congress to debate those items on their merits.
That would give the President a powerful tool--but it also would
retain the balance between the Executive and Legislative branches.
I think that is very important, and I appreciate having had the
opportunity to work with Mr. Ryan and others to fine-tune the bill
while it was being considered in committee. I think the result has been
to improve the bill considerably.
Mr. Speaker, under the Constitution Congress is primarily accountable
to the American people for how their tax dollars are spent.
By making the taxing and spending processes more transparent and
specific, this bill can promote that accountability.
Of course, without knowing what the President might propose to
rescind, I don't know if I would support some, all, or any of his
proposals.
But I do know that people in Colorado and across the country think
there should be greater transparency about our decisions on taxing and
spending.
And I know that they are also demanding that we be ready to take
responsibility for those decisions.
This bill will promote both transparency and accountability, and so I
urge its approval.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from
Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the distinguished Democratic whip.
Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, for 5\1/2\ years now the Republican Congress and the
administration have pursued what I have said repeatedly is the most
reckless fiscal policy in the history of our Nation. I believe that.
When George Bush took office, he inherited a projected 10-year budget
surplus of $5.6 trillion. There is no dispute on that. George Bush said
that on the floor of this House. In March of 2001, he promised the
American people, ``We can proceed with tax relief without fear of
budget deficits, even if the economy softens.''
Let's compare Republican rhetoric with reality. That projected
deficit surplus has been turned into a projected budget deficit of some
$4 trillion, a historical fiscal turnaround of more than $9 trillion.
Republicans have created the four largest budget deficits in American
history. We Democrats have no power in this House or in the Senate or
in the Presidency. It has been Republicans alone that have created
these deficits.

[[Page H4479]]

They have raised the debt limit four times, and House Republicans
have voted to increase it by an additional $653 billion, to a total of
$9.6 trillion. Let me repeat: we had a $5.6 trillion surplus in January
of 2001, according to President Bush; we now have an authorized debt of
$9.6 trillion.
They have spent every single nickel of Social Security money. It is
no wonder that former Republican House majority leader Dick Armey of
Texas told the Wall Street Journal in 2004, ``I'm sitting here, and I'm
upset about the deficit, and I'm upset about spending. There's no way I
can pin that on the Democrats. Republicans own the town now.''
Given their record, I think it takes some audacity, chutzpah perhaps
would be a better word, for our Republican friends to come to this
floor today with this so-called Legislative Line Item Veto Act and
bemoan the growth in Federal spending and the dire fiscal condition,
created by whom? Created by them. Republicans, after all, own the town,
as I said Dick Armey noted.
Yet the President has failed to veto one bill. We are talking about a
line item veto? This President has not vetoed a bill. This President
has gone a longer period of time than any President in over 195 years
in this Nation and he hasn't vetoed anything. All of the spending has
been marked ``approved'' by George W. Bush, the President of the United
States. He doesn't exercise vetoes.
This Republican majority refuses to embrace the one real method of
restraining spending and restoring fiscal discipline, the pay-as-you-go
budget rules that applied to both spending and taxes and were adopted,
I tell my Republican friends, in bipartisan votes in 1990 and again in
1997.
But you jettisoned them. Why did you jettison them? You jettisoned
those rules because you knew you couldn't fit your tax cuts into them.
You didn't have the courage to cut spending to meet your tax cuts. That
is a fair policy. If you don't want to spend, fine. If you want to cut
taxes, fine. Cut spending. That is a fair policy. You haven't done
that.
You cut revenues, and you increased very substantially revenues,
period. And don't talk to me about the war. You included spending very
radically on entitlement programs, the biggest increase in entitlement
spending since 1965 on your watch, with very little help from
Democrats, who overwhelmingly voted against those increases.
As the New York Times stated on Monday: ``The line item veto bill is
an attempt to look tough while avoiding the tried-and-true, and truly
tough, deficit fix: reinstating the original pay-as-you-go rules.''
Mr. Speaker, this bill is very different from versions introduced in
the 1990s. It not only fails to include PAYGO rules, but also applies
to mandatory programs, including Medicare and Social Security. It gives
the President 45 days to send a rescission message and fails to give
Congress the power to amend the rescission package.
We are the policymakers. Article I. This Congress is the most
complacent, complicit Congress perhaps in history in terms of being a
lap dog for the President of the United States. We are a coequal
branch. We are not a branch to ask leave of the President to take
action.
The majority, unfortunately, refused to allow us to consider the
substitute John Spratt wanted to offer. Don't you have the courage to
argue the merits of your case and let us argue the merits of our case
and have a vote? Are you so afraid of the alternatives that you won't
even allow the vote?
We ought to vote this down. It is a ruse, it is a fraud, it is a
sham.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, before I yield to the gentleman from Texas, I would
simply like to point out I think the gentleman from Maryland said we
need to cut more spending. I agree. That is why we should pass this. In
fact, the gentleman from Maryland voted for similar legislation that I
offered with Charlie Stenholm 2 years ago and two expedited rescission
bills that the gentleman from South Carolina authored in the past. So I
hope we can enjoy your support this time around.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from
Texas (Mr. Hensarling).
Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, first I want to congratulate the
gentleman from Wisconsin for his principled leadership in the area of
the budget and to bring the line item veto back to the House. But
watching this debate, Mr. Speaker, I find it both sad and amusing to
see how many Democrats who have supported line item veto in the past
now oppose it. In trying to justify their new-found opposition, we are
now witnessing acrobatics and contortions that we haven't seen since
the circus came to town.

{time} 1700

The line item veto has been supported by such Democrats as President
Bill Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, Senator John Kerry. The last time
it was enacted in this body and became law over two-thirds of the
Democrats voted for it.
But, Mr. Speaker, it is now an election year. The Democrat leadership
again says no. But no is not an agenda; no is not a vision. And by
saying no to the legislative line item veto, Democrats are saying yes
to more wasteful spending.
Mr. Speaker, we know that almost every Governor in America already
has some form of the line item veto to help combat wasteful spending.
It brings transparency and accountability into a process that sorely
needs it.
Now, this bill before us is frankly a very simple one. It allows the
President to highlight examples of wasteful spending, submit them to
Congress on an expedited basis, and have Congress vote on it. That is
all it does. Nothing more, nothing less. But what is really important,
Mr. Speaker, is that the savings, the resulting savings can only go for
deficit reduction. Mr. Speaker, Democrats can't have it both ways. They
can't oppose the legislative line item veto and then claim to be for
deficit reduction. It cannot be done.
Now, we have just been lectured about the issue of fiscal
responsibility from the gentleman from Maryland, but let us examine the
record of the Democrats. For the last 10 years, every time the
Republicans offer a budget, our friends from the other side of the
aisle offer a budget that spends even more money. They criticize our
prescription drug program, yet theirs cost even more. And thanks to
their stonewalling, we were not able to reform and save Social Security
for future generations. Instead, there is an extra $2.5 trillion of
unfunded obligations thanks to their stonewalling. That is what their
record is.
Mr. Speaker, if you want to help end the railroads to nowhere, the
hydroponic tomatoes, the indoor rainforest, say ``yes'' to the line
item veto, say ``yes'' to our children's fiscal future, and let us vote
for this legislation.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from
Florida (Ms. Corrine Brown).
(Ms. CORRINE BROWN of Florida asked and was given permission to
revise and extend her remarks.)
Ms. CORRINE BROWN of Florida. This Republican Congress has now gone
beyond being a rubber stamp for President Bush and is now handing him
the responsibilities of Congress itself. They are putty, look at this
putty in my hand, and the President squeezed them into doing anything
that he wants even if their constituents don't agree. That is why 77
percent of the public thinks this Congress is out of touch with their
priorities and why 70 percent of the American public thinks President
Bush is doing a terrible job.
Let me be clear. I did not vote to give President Clinton a line item
veto. I certainly would not vote to give it to this President who, like
no other President in the history of this country, tramples over the
rights of Congress and the rights of American people, and still to this
day shows nothing but contempt for the House of Representatives.
This President has spent over $450 billion on a war of choice that
was based on lies.
The President turned a $5.6 trillion dollar surplus into a $3.2
trillion dollar deficit. And this is who is supposed to stop the
rampant spending of this Republican-led Congress. This is a joke, and
everyone here knows it.
Vote no on this bill, and let the people's House get back to doing
the work that the people actually want us to do.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. At this time, Mr. Speaker, I would like to

[[Page H4480]]

yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from the Appropriations Committee from
Illinois (Mr. Kirk).
Mr. KIRK. I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin, my next-door neighbor
to the north, for this important legislation. It is a commonsense way
that budget-conscious Republicans and Democrats can come together to
cut spending.
Now, this legislation is needed, because the line item veto has been
used by American States since 1861 to balance their budgets, and over
40 Governors, Republicans and Democrats, have this spending control.
Now, we in Congress joined with President Clinton to enact a line
item veto in the 1990s, and he used that veto 82 times to defend the
taxpayer. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court struck that needed reform
down. And when they did, President Clinton called that a defeat for
America.
The bill before the House now is modeled after the bipartisan base
closings legislation that has been used to cut hundreds of millions of
wasteful spending in the military by closing down bases that the
Secretary of Defense and our commanders say that they do not need.
For us at this time, I think the government spends too much, that
this is a needed reform tried and true for over 120 years by our
Governors to keep balanced budgets and one that we need in this
Congress.
We should all be worried, in the history of democracies, that while
it is the best form of government on the planet, there is a troubled
record of democracies spending their way into dictatorship. This needed
reform helps us control spending to make sure that the American people
keep their freedom, that the democracy that they live under is
responsible with the taxpayer dollars, and that we do not waste those
precious resources on unneeded projects. That is why we should support
this. That is why this should be bipartisan. President Clinton was
right to have this power. Forty Governors are right, and it should be
adopted by this House.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to
yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Conaway).
Mr. CONAWAY. I thank the gentleman for the recognition. I appreciate
the opportunity to speak on behalf of this legislation. I also
appreciate his hard work in bringing this to the floor.
I would like to make a couple of points. One, it seems the bit
twisted logic for the folks on the other side to argue that the
President shouldn't have these authorities that are presented in this
bill, but yet at the same time gripe that he hasn't used the veto it
already has, it doesn't seem to me you can have it both ways.
I am in favor of this legislation because it does apply to all
spending, both discretionary and direct, and it gives the President an
opportunity to help us help ourselves in this regard.
A third point is that these savings actually will reduce the deficit.
Unlike many of the opportunities that we take to try to reduce
appropriations bills where that money simply stays within that pot of
money and ultimately gets spent, this money would actually not get
spent and therefore have a direct impact on the deficit.
The last point is that, with these powers, I can assure you that
would act as a self-limiting deterrent to frivolous earmarks that might
be proposed. None of us are going to want to be on the President's top
10 list when with this power he lists out the five projects in a single
bill or the 10 projects in an omnibus bill. That is a distinction and a
recognition that no one is going to want to have. So I think my
colleagues would be much more diligent in their requests for special
spending that this would address. So I rise today in favor of H.R. 4890
and urge my colleagues to vote for it.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman is recognized for 3 minutes.
(Mr. SPRATT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, this could be a bipartisan bill. The
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan) has taken the bill that the
President sent us, which is a classic case of overreaching, and
improved it very much and I commend him for that. But it is not good
enough; it is not worthy of passage, in my opinion. If it really was to
be a bipartisan bill, if that is what you wanted, why did I get shut
out in the Rules Committee?
I came forward with two substitutes, one germane, one nongermane,
with various individual amendments, all of them serious substantive
things. Sure, we could disagree about them, but I didn't get to the
opportunity under the Rules Committee's provision to come here and
offer those on the floor of the House.
I think in wrapping up, it is worth showing these charts to everybody
again to show the path we are on, which is this path right here: a
deficit this year of $300 billion to $350 billion, more than $400
billion last year; intractable, structural deficits. And, as you will
see from the costs plotted by CBO, the numbers only get worse here that
show the deficit sinking to almost $500 billion in 10 years.
The consequence of that? First of all, the debt ceiling, the legal
limit to which we can borrow, we have seen an increase in the debt
ceiling in the United States since President Bush came to office under
your watch of $3.668 trillion. That is the increase in 5 fiscal years
of the debt ceiling of the United States. And the total indebtedness of
the United States is shown right here. The statutory debt was $5.9
trillion when President Bush took office. If we continue on the track
that we are on now with his budgets, we can expect to have a debt of
nearly $11.3 trillion by the year 2011. That is where we are going.
It is hard to avoid the suspicion that this bill today is sort of a
diversionary tactic because, by everybody's admission, even its more
ardent proponents, this won't even put a dent in the deficit. As I
said, we just adopted a bill which could have an impact on revenues
over 10 years, when fully implemented, of $823 billion. This will
barely, barely amount to a dent in the budget, a deficit addition of
that kind.
Now, the gentleman said that I have engaged in acrobatics, as if I
weren't serious and sincere about the amendments I am proposing. But I
have a problem with giving the President 45 days to pick through
appropriation bills, because the wider the window, the more apt he will
be to use it for political purposes. I have a problem with having the
President send up five bills for every appropriation bill. There are 11
appropriation bills. We could have as many as 55 rescission bills here
on the House floor, and then I am sure, as we take up these bills on
Christmas Eve, you will be having Members ask: Who came up with these
ideas?
I have a problem with direct spending that is reaching too far. If
this is an experiment to start with, why not stick to discretionary
spending? None of the previous bills have included that.
So for all of these reasons, this could be a much better bill. And I
would offer on a motion to recommit my only opportunity a substantial
improvement to the bill, and I hope every Member will seriously
consider it and will also vote for it.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time
I have remaining?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman has 4\1/2\ minutes.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I want to address a few of the
concerns that have been mentioned by the other side of the aisle.
First of all, this is a bipartisan bill. If you paid attention, a
number of the speakers came to the floor from the other side of the
well to speak in favor of this. Actually, three Democrats came to the
floor in favor of this bill that we are considering right now, three
Democrats I am proud to call friends and supporters and coauthors of
this proposal. In fact, we took an amendment of Mr. Cuellar of Texas to
improve this bill.
Other speakers have said this gives too much power to the President.
Well, let us just remember one thing: the President already has
rescission authority today. Today, the President can rescind something,
defer spending, and send it to Congress. Here is the problem: Congress
just ignores these things. In fact, President Reagan sent $25 billion
of rescissions to Congress, and they ignored every one of them.

[[Page H4481]]

So we want to make that process work. We are taking the existing
authority he has, making it actually shorter in time frame, and we are
simply guaranteeing that we are going to vote on it.
I think, if somebody sticks a wasteful pork barrel project like a $50
million rainforest museum from Iowa, a bridge to nowhere, or something
like that in a bill in a conference report where we as Members of
Congress have one choice, vote ``yes'' or ``no'' on the entire bill,
then the President has a similar choice: sign or veto the entire bill.
That is wrong. We ought to be able to vote on that $50 million
rainforest museum. This gives us the chance to do that, and this means
that we can't duck those votes.
This is a bipartisan bill. It has been so bipartisan in the past that
Mr. Spratt has offered very similar legislation. We got 173 Democrats
on one of them, 174 on another. Mr. Stenholm and I offered a bill very
similar to this 2 years ago; we got 45 Democrats on it. I hope that we
will continue to get this bipartisan support that we had been getting.
But more importantly, Mr. Speaker, the American people know we need
every tool we can get our hands on to go after wasteful spending. That
is why taxpayer watchdog groups are key on voting this bill. The
American Conservative Union, the Americans for Prosperity, Americans
for Tax Reform, Citizens Against Government Waste, the Club For Growth,
Freedom Works, National Federation of Independent Businesses, National
Taxpayer Union, Taxpayers for Common Sense, the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce all are key voting this vote as a key vote for the taxpayer.
Other groups supporting this: ALEC, the American Taxpayer Alliance,
Bond Market Association, Business Roundtable, Center for Individual
Freedom, Concord Coalition, Association of Wholesale Distributors,
National Restaurant Association, 60 Plus, Traditional Values. The list
goes on and on.
Mr. Speaker, the American people know we need this tool to go after
wasteful spending, taxpayers need this tool so we can do this, and,
more importantly, we need more transparency in our process here in
Congress.
We passed earmark reform so that Members of Congress have to defend
their earmarks when they come to the floor of the House when we write
these bills in the beginning. But a lot of this stuff gets inserted at
the end of the process in the conference reports; that is why we need
to have this deterrent.
I think the success of this bill will be less in how much pork we get
out of legislation that we line item veto out, and more in how much
pork never gets put into legislation in the first place, because there
will be an extra deterrent. A Member of Congress who wants to slip in
some big piece of pork barrel spending that he probably couldn't
otherwise justify will think twice, because he or she may have to come
to the well of the House and the well of the other body to defend that
pork barrel spending.

{time} 1715

This is good government. This is transparency. This is an added layer
of accountability that is right for the taxpayer, and it is
constitutional. It protects the prerogatives of the legislative branch.
That is why I think this is a good bill. That is why I am pleased to
call this a bipartisan bill. That is why I think we should strike this
vote for the taxpayer.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``aye'' vote for this.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I oppose this bill because the
legislative line-item veto it seeks to create is merely a gimmick to
divert attention from the majority's pitiful record when it comes to
fiscal management. In addition, and even more important, this so-called
line item veto represents a dangerous, and in my view unconstitutional,
transfer of power from the legislative branch to the Chief Executive.
Mr. Speaker, while H.R. 4890 seeks to address an important problem--
the massive deficits run up by the majority and the majority's
squandering of the $5 trillion projected surplus bequeathed it and the
administration by the Clinton administration--their ``solution'' to the
problem resorts to legislative gimmicks instead of tackling the problem
directly.
Since one-party control of the government began in 2001, Federal
spending has ballooned 42 percent; an increase of over $830 billion a
year, reflecting the budgets that President Bush has submitted to
Congress. During that time, the President has not vetoed a single piece
of legislation. In fact, President Bush has used the veto less than any
President in the past 175 years.
Yet while the proposed line-item authority would give a big new stick
to the executive branch, it would do little to bring fiscal sanity back
to the appropriations process. Indeed, it might actually have the
opposite effect of encouraging these special-interest handouts.
Conservative columnist George Will observes that the President may
simply use the authority as a form of legislative horse-trading,
suggesting that the administration could ``buy legislators'' support on
other large matters in exchange for not vetoing the legislators'
favorite small items.''
Both the Congressional Budget Office and the Congressional Research
Service have reached similar conclusions. Indeed, it seems the
President's version of the line-item veto is more about transferring
power to the executive branch than actually reigning in Federal
spending.
That power transfer has already once been found unconstitutional by
the Supreme Court. The majority decided that ``the President's role in
the legislative process can be altered only through the cumbersome
process of amending the Constitution,'' and there is no reason to
believe that this attempt will be met any more favorably. In fact, the
House bill actually gives the executive branch more power than the
previous act, allowing the President up to 45 days to exercise the
authority (instead of the previous act's five) and 90 days to withhold
funds even after Congress has overridden his veto.
If Congress really wants to get a handle on spending, it should
reform the earmarking process, instead of resorting to legislative
gimmicks. The President could also do the unthinkable--bring out the
old-fashioned veto stamp for the first time in 5 years.
Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the
H.R. 4890 legislation giving the President Line Item Veto authority.
As a cosponsor of H.R. 4890, the Legislative Line Item Veto Act of
2006, I believe it will provide more transparency and scrutiny in the
funding process while reining in Federal spending. Currently, when
Congress considers appropriations legislation we have the authority to
closely scrutinize funding earmarks recommended by the President before
deciding whether or not to fund them. The Line Item Veto legislation
gives the President an opportunity to closely examine Congressional
spending priorities and submit a proposal to Congress that would defund
those items the President finds objectionable. The proposals by the
President would be unamendable and would be subject to a simple up or
down vote in the House and Senate.
While we have been working to restrain Federal spending, including
voting to terminate over 95 Federal programs this year alone, this will
be one more tool in the arsenal of fiscal discipline. It has the added
benefit of keeping objectionable spending out of these bills in the
first place as all Members of Congress would know that last minute
items added to these bills will be subject to individual scrutiny
through the Line Item Veto.
In 1996, Congress passed the Line Item Veto Act of 1996. This law
allowed the President to veto specific spending provisions. However, on
April 10, 1997, a Federal court ruled that this legislation was
unconstitutional, arguing that the power of the purse must be under the
control of Congress, not the President. I voted for this law because it
granted the President the authority to strike funding while ensuring
that Congress could override the President's line item veto with a \2/
3\ vote. The Supreme Court, however, ruled that this did not leave
spending decisions ultimately in the hands of Congress and struck down
the law. Today's bill addresses this concern while ensuring Congress
has the final say on the President's line item veto recommendations by
means of a simple majority vote in the House and Senate.
It is my understanding that many Democrats are going to play politics
this year, and not vote for passage of the Line Item Veto. What is
particularly noteworthy is that in the 103rd Congress over 170 House
Democrats voted for the line item veto.
I urge a ``yes'' vote on this legislation.
Ms. CORRINE BROWN of Florida. Mr. Speaker, this Republican Congress
has now gone beyond being a rubber stamp for President Bush and is now
handing him the responsibilities of Congress itself.
They are putty in the President's hands, and he squeezes them into
doing anything he wants, even if their constituents don't agree.
This is why 77 percent of the American Public thinks this Congress is
out of touch with their priorities, and why 70 percent of the American
public thinks President Bush is doing a terrible job.
Now I didn't vote to give President Clinton a line-item veto, so I'm
certainly not going to give it to the President who, more than any

[[Page H4482]]

other president in history, has trampled over the rights of Congress
and the rights of the American people, and still today shows nothing
but contempt for the will of the House and Senate.
This President has spent $450 Billion dollars on a war in Iraq based
on lies, and turned a $5.6 Trillion dollar surplus into a $3.2 Trillion
dollar deficit, and this is who is supposed to stop the rampant
spending of this Republican led Congress. This is a joke, and everyone
here knows it.
Vote ``no'' on this bill, and let the people's House get back to
doing the work that the people actually want us to do.
Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Legislative Line
Item Veto Act. This bill will give Congress and the President a
powerful tool to restore fiscal sanity to Washington. This bill is an
important step toward reforming the Budget Act of 1974, which stripped
the President of impoundment authority--effectively hobbling a vital
check on the system to limit wasteful spending. Presidents Jefferson
through Nixon used impoundment authority to withhold funding for
wasteful spending.
In 1821 Thomas Jefferson said: ``The multiplication of public
offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a
public debt, are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning
knife.'' The legislative line item veto is the pruning knife that
Jefferson envisioned.
The legislative Line Item Veto will further hold Congress accountable
to the taxpayers and ensures that we continue to be good stewards of
taxpayer dollars.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I voted against the Line-Item Veto Act
of 1996 even though it was sought by a Democratic administration
because I felt that it was unconstitutional and that no president
either Republican or Democrat should have the unilateral power to
change the law by themself. My reservations were justified when in 1998
the Supreme Court ruled this provision unconstitutional. It would be
the height of irony for a Congress that already failed in its
constitutional responsibility to check the inappropriate use of Federal
power by this administration with a record of the largest deficits in
American history to surrender even more authority.
The proposal that is being offered although called a ``line item
veto'' is nothing of the sort. While it attempts procedurally to make
it easier for the President to eliminate spending, it still may be
found unconstitutional. What is especially troubling is the provision
that would permit the President to withhold funding for an item in an
enacted appropriation bill for up to 90 days regardless of
Congressional action. This could have a devastating impact on
transportation programs such as Amtrak which the administration has led
a crusade to shut it down. Given the precarious financial situation
that Amtrak faces, the ability to delay funding for 90 days could have
the effect of pushing Amtrak over the edge in leading to its collapse.
Personally, I have been happy to vote against programs I thought were
unaffordable as well as go after them on the House floor. During the
109th I have already led efforts with some of my conservative
colleagues against wasteful non-priority programs such as the upper
Mississippi lock and dam project and costly sugar subsidies. If
Congress wants to get serious about fiscal discipline, then a few
simple but important steps taken would make a significant difference.
For example, it is long past time to restore the pay-as-you-go budget
procedures. This pay-as-you-go concept required Congress and the
administration to adopt a sustainable budget policy where money to pay
for either new spending programs or costly tax cuts would have to be
provided without increasing the deficit. In addition, just letting
Congress know what it's voting on would be helpful. The Republican
leadership routinely overrides the requirements in our rule that
provides for three days to review conference committee reports.
One of the greatest failures of Congress for the 10 years that I have
been in office has been its inability to exercise fiscal discipline.
During the Bush administration we have seen year after year of record-
breaking deficits with the highest increases in over 50 years. If we
simply commit to follow our already established rules, we would do more
good and pose less harm than the budget fig leaf that is being
considered today. This bill is an attempt to disguise the fact that we
have a budget problem because of the administration and Republican
leadership refusal to do their job and to provide the tools to help the
rest of us do ours.
Mr. GARY G. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in
support of fiscal responsibility.
As stewards of the taxpayers' hard-earned money, we have the
obligation to ensure it is spent wisely, sensibly, and where it is
needed the most.
I want to commend Speaker Hastert and Leader Boehner for working hard
to improve the fiscal responsibility of Congress.

True Spending Reform

However, if we are to truly rein in spending and restore fiscal
sanity, we must do more than address the aftermath of a flawed process.
Rather than waiting to restore fiscal responsibility after we pass
legislation, we must work to ensure we remain committed to it as we
draft legislation.
Instead of cutting spending at the end of the budgetary process, we
must start the process with an eye on fiscal discipline.
True reform means leaving future generations a Federal budget that
makes sense--a budget that expends only as much as it takes in.
We must make a commitment to our children and grandchildren by
improving the complete budgetary process.

We Must Pass a Balanced Budget Amendment

To reform this flawed process, we must consider and pass the Balanced
Budget Amendment.
H.J. Res. 58, which I cosponsored, is the most important tool in
bringing fiscal responsibility back to America.
This amendment would force Congress to spend only as much as it
receives.
It would also require the President to join us in this commitment by
making him submit a balanced budget to Congress.
As we work today to cut wasteful spending at the end of the process,
I believe we must also commit ourselves to complete fiscal
responsibility in the entire budgetary process.
As we vote today on the Legislative Line Item Veto Act, I ask my
colleagues to remember that true fiscal responsibility requires a
commitment to discipline the whole way through the process--it requires
the Balanced Budget Amendment.
Mr. MARIO DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong
support of the bipartisan Legislative Line-Item Veto Act of 2006. The
line-item veto is a commonsense approach to restraining the growth in
Federal spending.
The Legislative Line-Item Veto establishes an additional check
against excessive, redundant, and narrowly focused spending provisions
and special-interest tax breaks. This legislation would simply allow
the President to identify questionable and unnecessary spending items
in bills passed by Congress. It preserves Congress' power of the purse
by requiring a simple up or down vote on the President's proposed
rescissions. The final decision on spending or tax items remains in the
hands of Congress.
With the passage of this important legislation, this Republican-led
Congress continues to highlight its commitment to fiscal discipline and
supporting policies that reform and reduce the growth of mandatory
government programs. Necessary reform, such as a line-item veto, can
help rein in unnecessary and wasteful government spending while
protecting the hard-earned money of American taxpayers.
Congress must act to bring greater transparency and accountability to
the budget process. A constitutionally sound line-item veto is a useful
tool to eliminate government spending that contributes to the waste,
fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars.
Many governors currently have this ability, including in my own State
of Florida. This important tool serves the people well and will help
save their hard-earned money.
The line-item veto legislation gives Congress and the President yet
another opportunity to bring spending under control. I urge my
colleagues on both sides of the aisle to match their rhetoric with
action and support meaningful budget reform.
Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the line-item
veto measure before the House today.
I know the authors of this measure are sincere in their efforts and
believe this measure will lead to a better Federal Government.
But being sincere doesn't make their efforts right, nor does it make
them wise. Rather, they are fundamentally wrong.
For 200 years, the unfortunate truth is that power, slowly but
surely, has been shifting from the legislative branch of Government to
the executive branch. We all know this to be true.
It should come as no surprise that this President, or the prior one,
want this expanded power. The real surprise would be if this Congress
finally stood up and said no.
We all know that the President today has the ability to veto any bill
Congress passes. And we all know he has not done so.
Some of my colleagues will argue that we make it too hard for him to
veto a bill. That is nonsense.
Every day we have to vote on bills with many imperfections. They
contain provisions we might support and others we strongly oppose. But
we have to balance the good and the bad in each bill and then cast our
vote and defend it to our constituents.
Why should the President be any different? Why should he get to undo
a hard-earned compromise? I need not remind any Member

[[Page H4483]]

of this body that many times the President has a role in that
compromise--yet this measure would allow him to selectively undo that
deal after the fact.
Let's talk for a minute about spending.
Even the sponsors of this measure don't really believe it will save
any taxpayer money.
They talk about earmarks and equate them with wasteful spending.
In reality, there are only two types of spending--that which is
congressionally directed and that which is recommended by the
President. This measure places the recommendations of the President
higher in importance than spending directed by the U.S. Congress.
If the authors of this measure have such faith in the administrative
branch of Government, why do we have 11,000 unused FEMA trailers
sitting in a field in Hope, AR?
Why were millions and millions of dollars wasted on $2,000 credit
cards that didn't go to victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, but
were instead spent on things I ought not mention on this floor?
I could go on and on about $600 toilet seats and $400 hammers, but
everyone here gets the point.
Let's be clear Mr. Speaker, the taxpayers aren't going to save a dime
with the passage of this measure. Instead, we are going to weaken the
Constitutional role of Congress, further strengthen the power of the
executive branch, and provide a few Members of this body with the
ability to go home and say they did something--however harmful it might
be to the future of our Nation or inconsistent it might be with the
intentions of our Nation's founders.
My mother used to tell me, ``Be careful what you wish for, you just
might get it.'' My mother's advice would be well heeded by those who
believe this measure is in the best interests of our Nation.
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 4890, the Legislative Line Item Veto Act,
is not an effective means of reining in excessive government spending.
In fact, H.R. 4890 would most likely increase the size of government
because future presidents will use their line item veto powers to
pressure members of Congress to vote for presidential priorities in
order to avoid having their spending projects ``line item'' vetoed. In
my years in Congress, I cannot recall a single instance where a
president lobbied Congress to reduce spending. In fact, in 1996 Vice
President Al Gore suggested that President Clinton could use his new
line item veto power to force Congress to restore federal spending and
programs eliminated in the 1996 welfare reform bill. Giving the
president authority to pressure members of Congress to vote for new
government programs in exchange for protecting members' pet spending
projects is hardly a victory for fiscal responsibility or limited
government.
H.R. 4890 supporters claim that this bill does not violate the
Constitution. I am skeptical of this claim since giving the president
the power to pick and choose which parts of legislation to sign into
law transforms the president into a legislator, thus upending the
Constitution's careful balance of powers between the Congress and the
president. I doubt the drafters of the Constitution, who rightly saw
that giving legislative power to the executive branch would undermine
republican government and threaten individual liberty, would support
H.R. 4890.
Mr. Speaker, it is simply not true that Congress needs to give the
president the line item veto power to end excessive spending. Congress
can end excessive spending simply by returning to the limitations on
government power contained in the United States Constitution. The
problem is a lack of will among members of Congress to rein in
spending, not a lack of presidential power. Congress's failure to do
its duty and cut spending is no excuse for granting new authority to
the executive branch.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, the Legislative Line Item Veto Act upsets
the constitutional balance of powers between the executive and
legislative branches of government. Increasing the power of the
executive branch will likely increase the size and power of the federal
government. Therefore, I urge my colleagues to reject this bill and
instead simply vote against all unconstitutional spending.
Ms. HARMAN. Mr. Speaker, over my years in the House, I have supported
budget reforms to make the process more transparent and to eliminate
excessive congressional spending. I joined many of my colleagues--on
both sides of the aisle--in making the hard-fought and difficult
deficit-cutting votes of the 1990s.
Now, sadly, in this new decade and century, Congress must again take
steps to impose fiscal discipline and balance the federal budget. In
theory, the line-item veto seems to be a sensible idea, although
fraught with constitutional questions, and I have voted in favor of
similar legislation in the past.
At times, I have also voted in favor of cutting or eliminating the
Estate Tax. In eras of government surpluses, we could afford such tax
cuts.
However, times have changed.
The Line-Item Veto bill is little more than a hand-over of
Congressional authority to a White House that has already elevated
overreaching to an art form.
At the same time, this new decade has seen a distinct lack of
congressional oversight. In the current climate, a line-item veto is a
step in the wrong direction, and cedes even more Legislative Branch
power to a President accustomed to invoking extraordinary
constitutional authority as needed.
To be truly effective, a line-item veto should be considered along
with other measures to help restore some fiscal sanity, such as ``pay-
go'' budget rules and earmark reform. But this transparent transfer of
power to the Executive Branch is no the answer.
Ironically, on the same day that the House is considering a Line-Item
Veto--purportedly in the name of budget-balancing--we are also
considering a massive cut in the estate tax.
Although my family would personally benefit from a cut in the estate
tax, this is the wrong tax cut, for the wrong people, at the wrong
time.
We face the looming retirement of the baby boomers, a war in Iraq,
and increasing obligations to our Nation's veterans. We are still
inadequately prepared to respond to a terrorist attack, natural
disaster or flu pandemic. Our budget deficit is spiraling out of
control. And middle class Americans are being squeezed by the rising
costs of healthcare, energy and education.
We cannot be so reckless with our fiscal policy.
I will oppose both initiatives.
Mr. BUYER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in opposition to H.R. 4890,
the Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006.
I will readily admit that the underlying goal of this bill is
commendable. Reducing government waste and unnecessary spending is an
admirable goal, one that this Congress should pursue diligently. In
fact, I voted in favor of the Line Item Veto Act of 1996.
I have seen the line item veto in action . . . by President Clinton
on a military construction appropriations law. Experience is a cruel,
but effective teacher. That experience has shown me that the line item
veto in its practical application would abrogate Congressional
authority and give the executive additional power over the legislative
branch, threatening the fine balance of power that our Founding Fathers
wisely ensured.
Since 1996, the Supreme Court has ruled the Line Item Veto Act of
1996 unconstitutional for its violation of Article 1, Section 7, known
as the Presentation Clause of the United States Constitution. Justice
Kennedy stated in his opinion in Clinton v. New York, ``Failure of
political will does not justify unconstitutional remedies''. I stand by
the decision of the Court and believe that its judgment is applicable
to the bill before us.
In the Supreme Court ruling on Clinton v. New York the opinion of the
Court stated that the ``cancellations'' of the 1996 Act were not merely
exercises of the President's discretionary budget authority but a
violation of Article I, Sec. 7, giving the President ``unilateral''
power to change the language of a duly enacted statute. In plain
English, the bill did not allow Congress to exercise its
constitutionally invested powers.
The bill before us today, H.R. 4890, attempts to avoid this hazard by
requiring an up or down vote on each rescission. While these
rescissions come to Congress for forced consideration, it does not get
around the objections of the Court that the President, in his
rescissions, is unilaterally changing a duly enacted statute. By
forcing Congress to take up rescissions I fear this measure would tip
the scales of power in favor of the executive. The Clinton ruling
states that ``Statutory repeals must conform with Article I, (INS v.
Chadha, 462 U.S. 919, 954,) but there is no constitutional
authorization for the President to amend or repeal. The constitutional
return is of the entire bill and takes place before it becomes law,
whereas the statutory cancellations occurs after the bill becomes law
and affects it only in part'' (Clinton v. New York pp. 17-24).
This gets to the heart of my argument that Congress has still not
addressed the objections of the Court. The ideals of the 1996 Act for
fiscal restraint did not match the practical application leading me to
question the ability of the executive to faithfully carry out this
legislation, no matter how well intentioned. I cannot in good faith and
a clear conscience hand over legislative authority to the executive
branch and vote for legislation that seeks to dilute this process.
With regard to the practical aspects of the line item veto, when I
voted in favor of the 1996 Act, it was my hope and likely the hope of
everyone who supported the measure that the power would be used
responsibly, wisely, and prudently. I saw this power abused and
misused.
After signing the Military Construction Appropriations measure for
Fiscal Year 1998, President Clinton used the line item veto authority
for 38 construction projects. The Clinton administration cited three
criteria for canceling

[[Page H4484]]

the projects. The projects (1) were not requested by the military; (2)
could not make contributions to the national defense in FY 1998; and
(3) would not benefit the quality of life and well-being of military
personnel. The Clinton administration did not even follow its own
criteria! The Clinton administration even acknowledged that it had used
erroneous data as the basis for striking 18 of the 38 projects. The
overwhelming majority of the projects were on the administration's own
5-year construction plan. It cut critical funding for our Nation's
Guard and Reserves.
This was a blatant use of raw executive arrogance and power. It was
simply an exercise of the White House wanting its way and ignoring the
spending priorities set by Congress. Furthermore, the Clinton White
House made very clear that it would use the line-item veto as a matter
of politics, rather than objective fiscal policy. The line item veto
was being used as leverage against Congress to obtain consent to the
White House's demand for both more spending and for policy positions.
The Clinton administration made illegitimate the fundamental
rationale for the line-item veto . . . to reduce spending. They used
the power to threaten the cutting of Members' projects to extract more
spending for the administration's priorities; thereby, the line item
veto was used to increase spending, not decrease spending.
Despite the need to trim federal spending, I am convinced that this
legislation, if enacted, could again be misused by the executive
branch, as has already been proven by the example of the Clinton
administration. As Justice Kennedy wrote, ``That a congressional
cession of power is voluntary does not make it innocuous'' (Clinton v.
New York p. 4).
I am a voice for the Fourth District of Indiana. My constituents want
controls on the budget and restraint in federal spending. But, neither
will I have their voices muffled by an executive power grab. I took an
oath to ``defend the Constitution.'' I must protect the voice of my
constituents and the power the Constitution invests in me as their
representative.
Mr. MACK. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the
Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006, offered by my friend, Mr. Ryan
of Wisconsin.
I have said time and again that America's long-term freedom, security
and prosperity goes hand-in-hand with restoring fiscal discipline in
Washington. The people of Southwest Florida and the rest of the nation
deserve a government that taxes less, spends less and regulates less.
With this legislation, we will move closer to that goal. Congress and
the President will be able to work together to rein in the federal
budget deficit--an anchor tethered to our otherwise strong economy that
needs addressing.
Moreover, if used properly, the Line Item Veto can be a positive and
important tool to help ensure taxpayer dollars are being spent wisely
and on the key services people need.
Mr. Speaker, we should not be fooled by those who believe we are
ceding budgetary authority over to the Executive Branch, for it is
Congress that has the ultimate say on any White House proposal.
Instead, we are simply increasing our avenues for ways to cut down
spending. Additionally, clear limits will be placed on what the
President is, and is not, allowed to do. Rest assured, the power of the
purse--and its maintenance--will continue to rest solely with the
United States Congress.
It is upon those principles I respectfully request my colleagues in
the House stand together and take an important step in passing this
bill authorizing the Line Item Veto. I look forward to the prospect of
it being used in the fight to reign in the cost, size and scope of
Washington.
Mr. PETRI. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Speaker and my good
friend and colleague from Wisconsin, Paul Ryan, for their willingness
to work with the Transportation Committee to ensure that transportation
trust fund budget protections will be preserved and that trust fund
dollars are not used for deficit reduction or diverted to the general
fund.
It is my understanding that we have a commitment that this bill, when
and if it comes out of conference, will be in a form that also honors
funding guarantees and that spending will not be below guaranteed
levels.
I further appreciate the clarification by Congressman Ryan that it
was not his intention to negatively impact the guarantees and that he
supports continuing to spend the revenues coming into the trust funds.
This is so important because in 1998 and in subsequent votes, this
Congress has reaffirmed the principle that user fees collected from
aviation and highway users should be used only for their intended
purpose--transportation improvements.
For too long, aviation and highway trust fund spending had been
suppressed in order to increase spending in other areas or to mask the
size of the federal deficit, to the point that we had ballooning
balances in the trust funds.
The goal of the line item veto bill here today is to achieve
savings--and it had originally provided that any vetoed item be used
for deficit reduction. For direct spending, this would have applied not
only to ``earmarks,'' but to programs that are increased and supported
by the trust funds!
This would be in direct conflict with the spending guarantees we have
had in our two previous aviation and highway bills and undermined the
principle that trust fund spending should be linked to trust fund
revenues--it is spending that is paid for.
Using gas taxes for deficit reduction (as far as the Highway Trust
Fund is concerned) was vigorously opposed by Republicans when President
Clinton proposed it in 1993. It was the right position then and it is
the right position today.
Again, this is not spending that contributes to the deficit--it is
spending that is paid for and we should not break our promise that
revenues collected will be spent on transportation.
Much as some may dispute it, programs that are supported by user fees
are different--and they merit the different budget treatment that they
currently have. It would be a terrible mistake to turn back the clock
now, and I am glad that we are taking steps to ensure that it is not
the case.
I look forward to continuing to work to fine-tune the provisions
regarding the transportation trust funds in this bill.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my
time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Terry). Pursuant to House Resolution
886, the previous question is ordered on the bill, as amended.
The question is on the engrossment and third reading of the bill.
The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, and was
read the third time.

Motion to Recommit Offered by Mr. Spratt

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentleman opposed to the bill?
Mr. SPRATT. I am in its present form.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion to
recommit.
The Clerk read as follows:

Mr. Spratt moves to recommit the bill H.R. 4890 to the
Committee on the Budget with instructions to report the same
back to the House forthwith with the following amendment:
Strike all after the enacting clause and insert the
following:

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the ``Legislative Line Item Veto
Act of 2006''.

TITLE I--LEGISLATIVE LINE ITEM VETO

SEC. 101. LEGISLATIVE LINE ITEM VETO.

(a) In General.--Title X of the Congressional Budget and
Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (2 U.S.C. 621 et seq.) is
amended by striking all of part B (except for sections 1016
and 1013, which are redesignated as sections 1018 and 1019,
respectively) and part C and inserting the following:

``Part B--Legislative Line Item Veto

``line item veto authority

[[Page H4485]]

relating to or bearing upon the proposed cancellation and the
decision to effect the proposed cancellation, and the
estimated effect of the proposed cancellation upon the
objects, purposes, or programs for which the discretionary
budget authority or the targeted tax benefit is provided;
``(vi) a numbered list of cancellations to be included in
an approval bill that, if enacted, would cancel discretionary
budget authority or targeted tax benefits proposed in that
special message; and
``(vii) if the special message is transmitted subsequent to
or at the same time as another special message, a detailed
explanation why the proposed cancellations are not
substantially similar to any other proposed cancellation in
such other message.
``(C) Duplicative proposals prohibited.--The President may
not propose to cancel the same or substantially similar
discretionary budget authority or targeted tax benefit more
than one time under this Act.
``(D) Maximum number of special messages.--The President
may not transmit to the Congress more than one special
message under this subsection related to any bill or joint
resolution described in subsection (a).
``(E) Prohibition on Presidential Abuse of Proposed
Cancellations.--Neither the President nor any other executive
branch official shall condition the inclusion or exclusion or
threaten to condition the inclusion or exclusion of any
proposed cancellation in any special message under this
section on any vote cast or to be cast by any Member of
either House of Congress.
``(2) Enactment of approval bill.--
``(A) Deficit reduction.--Amounts of discretionary budget
authority or targeted tax benefits which are canceled
pursuant to enactment of a bill as provided under this
section shall be dedicated only to reducing the deficit or
increasing the surplus.
``(B) Adjustment of levels in the concurrent resolution on
the budget.--Not later than 5 days after the date of
enactment of an approval bill as provided under this section,
the chairs of the Committees on the Budget of the Senate and
the House of Representatives shall revise allocations and
aggregates and other appropriate levels under the appropriate
concurrent resolution on the budget to reflect the
cancellation, and the applicable committees shall report
revised suballocations pursuant to section 302(b), as
appropriate.
``(C) Adjustments to statutory limits.--After enactment of
an approval bill as provided under this section, the Office
of Management and Budget shall revise applicable limits under
the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of
1985, as appropriate.
``(D) Trust funds and special funds..--Notwithstanding
subparagraph (A), nothing in this part shall be construed to
require or allow the deposit of amounts derived from a trust
fund or special fund which are canceled pursuant to enactment
of a bill as provided under this section to any other fund.
``(E) Highway funding guarantees.--None of the
cancellations pursuant to the enactment of a bill as provided
under this part shall reduce the level of obligations for the
highway category, as defined in section 251(b) of the
Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985,
below, or further below, the levels established by section
8003 of the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient
Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (Public Law
109-59; 119 Stat. 1917) for any fiscal year. An approval bill
shall not reduce the amount of funding for a particular State
where the authorization for the appropriation of funding was
authorized in such Act or authorized in title 23, United
States Code.
``(F) Transit funding guarantees.--None of the
cancellations pursuant to the enactment of a bill as provided
under this part shall reduce the level of obligations for the
transit category, as defined in section 251(b) of the
Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985,
below, or further below, the levels established by section
section 8003 of the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient
Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (Public Law
109-59; 119 Stat. 1917) for any fiscal year. An approval bill
shall not reduce the amount of funding for a particular State
or a designated recipient (as defined in section 5307(a)(2)
of title 49, United States Code), where the authorization for
the appropriation of funding was authorized in such Act or
chapter.
``(G) Aviation funding guarantees.--None of the
cancellations pursuant to the enactment of a bill as provided
under this part shall reduce the level of funding for the
Federal Aviation Administration's airport improvement program
and facilities and equipment program, in total, below, or
further below, the levels authorized by section 48101 or
48103 of title 49, United States Code, in total, for any
fiscal year.

``procedures for expedited consideration

``Sec. 1012. (a) Expedited Consideration.--
``(1) In general.--The majority leader of each House or his
designee shall (by request) introduce an approval bill as
defined in section 1016 not later than the fifth day of
session of that House after the date of receipt of a special
message transmitted to the Congress under section 1011(b) .
``(2) Consideration in the house of representatives.--
``(A) Referral and reporting.--Any committee of the House
of Representatives to which an approval bill is referred
shall report it to the House without amendment not later than
the seventh legislative day after the date of its
introduction. If a committee fails to report the bill within
that period or the House has adopted a concurrent resolution
providing for adjournment sine die at the end of a Congress,
it shall be in order to move that the House discharge the
committee from further consideration of the bill. Such a
motion shall be in order only at a time designated by the
Speaker in the legislative schedule within two legislative
days after the day on which the proponent announces his
intention to offer the motion. Such a motion shall not be in
order after a committee has reported an approval bill with
respect to that special message or after the House has
disposed of a motion to discharge with respect to that
special message. The previous question shall be considered as
ordered on the motion to its adoption without intervening
motion except twenty minutes of debate equally divided and
controlled by the proponent and an opponent. If such a motion
is adopted, the House shall proceed immediately to consider
the approval bill in accordance with subparagraph (B). A
motion to reconsider the vote by which the motion is disposed
of shall not be in order.
``(B) Proceeding to consideration.--After an approval bill
is reported or a committee has been discharged from further
consideration, or the House has adopted a concurrent
resolution providing for adjournment sine die at the end of a
Congress, it shall be in order to move to proceed to consider
the approval bill in the House. Such a motion shall be in
order only at a time designated by the Speaker in the
legislative schedule within two legislative days after the
day on which the proponent announces his intention to offer
the motion. Such a motion shall not be in order after the
House has disposed of a motion to proceed with respect to
that special message. There shall be not more than 5 hours of
general debate equally divided and controlled by the
proponent and an opponent of the bill. After general debate,
the bill shall be considered as read for amendment under the
five-minute rule. Only one motion to rise shall be in order,
except if offered by the manager. No amendment to the bill is
in order, except any Member if supported by 99 other Members
(a quorum being present) may offer an amendment striking the
reference number or numbers of a cancellation or
cancellations from the bill. Consideration of the bill for
amendment shall not exceed one hour excluding time for
recorded votes and quorum calls. No amendment shall be
subject to further amendment, except pro forma amendments for
the purposes of debate only. At the conclusion of the
consideration of the bill for amendment, the Committee shall
rise and report the bill to the House with such amendments as
may have been adopted. The previous question shall be
considered as ordered on the bill and amendments thereto to
final passage without intervening motion. A motion to
reconsider the vote on passage of the bill shall not be in
order.
``(C) Senate bill.--An approval bill received from the
Senate shall not be referred to committee.
``(3) Consideration in the Senate.--
``(A) Motion to proceed to consideration.--A motion to
proceed to the consideration of a bill under this subsection
in the Senate shall not be debatable. It shall not be in
order to move to reconsider the vote by which the motion to
proceed is agreed to or disagreed to.
``(B) Limits on debate.--Debate in the Senate on a bill
under this subsection, and all amendments and debatable
motions and appeals in connection therewith (including debate
pursuant to subparagraph (D)), shall not exceed 10 hours,
equally divided and controlled in the usual form.
``(C) Appeals.--Debate in the Senate on any debatable
motion or appeal in connection with a bill under this
subsection shall be limited to not more than 1 hour, to be
equally divided and controlled in the usual form.
``(D) Amendments.--During consideration under this
subsection, any Member of the Senate may move to strike any
proposed cancellation or cancellations of budget authority or
targeted tax benefit, as applicable, if supported by 15 other
Members.
``(E) Motion to limit debate.--A motion in the Senate to
further limit debate on a bill under this subsection is not
debatable.
``(F) Motion to recommit.--A motion to recommit a bill
under this subsection is not in order.
``(G) Consideration of the house bill.--
``(i) In general.--If the Senate has received the House
companion bill to the bill introduced in the Senate prior to
the vote on the Senate bill, then the Senate may consider,
and the vote may occur on, the House companion bill.
``(ii) Procedure after vote on senate bill.--If the Senate
votes on the bill introduced in the Senate, then immediately
following that vote, or upon receipt of the House companion
bill, the House bill if identical to the Senate bill shall be
deemed to be considered, read the third time, and the vote on
passage of the Senate bill shall be considered to be the vote
on the bill received from the House.
``(b) Amendments and Divisions Prohibited.--Except as
otherwise provided by this section, no amendment to a bill
considered under this section shall be in order in either the
House of Representatives or the Senate. It shall not be in
order to demand a division of the question in the House of
Representatives (or in a Committee of the Whole) or in

[[Page H4486]]

the Senate. No motion to suspend the application of this
subsection shall be in order in either House, nor shall it be
in order in either House to suspend the application of this
subsection by unanimous consent.
(c) Consideration of Conference Reports.--(1) Debate in the
House of Representatives or the Senate on the conference
report and any amendments in disagreement on any approval
bill shall be limited to not more than 2 hours, which shall
be divided equally between the majority leader and the
minority leader. A motion further to limit debate is not
debateable. A motion to recommit the conference report is not
in order, and it is not in order to move to reconsider the
vote by which the conference report is agreed to or disagreed
to.
(2) If an approval bill is amended by either House of
Congress and a committee of conference has not completed
action (or such committee of conference was never appointed)
on such bill by the 15th calendar day after both Houses have
passed such bill, then any Member of either House may
introduce a bill comprised only of the text of the approval
bill as initially introduced and that bill shall be
considered under the procedures set forth in this section
except that no amendments shall be in order in either House.

``presidential deferral authority

``treatment of cancellations

``Sec. 1014. The cancellation of any dollar amount of
discretionary budget authority or targeted tax benefit shall
take effect only upon enactment of the applicable approval
bill. If an approval bill is not enacted into law before the
end of the applicable period under section 1013, then all
proposed cancellations contained in that bill shall be null
and void and any such dollar amount of discretionary budget
authority or targeted tax benefit shall be effective as of
the original date provided in the law to which the proposed
cancellations applied.

``reports by comptroller general

``Sec. 1015. With respect to each special message under
this part, the Comptroller General shall issue to the
Congress a report determining whether any discretionary
budget authority is not made available for obligation or
targeted tax benefit continues to be suspended after the
deferral authority set forth in section 1013 of the President
has expired.

``definitions

``Sec. 1016. As used in this part:
``(1) Appropriation law.--The term `appropriation law'
means an Act referred to in section 105 of title 1, United
States Code, including any general or special appropriation
Act, or any Act making supplemental, deficiency, or
continuing appropriations, that has been signed into law
pursuant to Article I, section 7, of the Constitution of the
United States.
``(2) Approval bill.--The term `approval bill' means a bill
or joint resolution which only approves proposed
cancellations of dollar amounts of discretionary budget
authority or targeted tax benefits in a special message
transmitted by the President under this part and--
``(A) the title of which is as follows: `A bill approving
the proposed cancellations transmitted by the President on
____', the blank space being filled in with the date of
transmission of the relevant special message and the public
law number to which the message relates;
``(B) which does not have a preamble; and
``(C) which provides only the following after the enacting
clause: `That the Congress approves of proposed cancellations
____', the blank space being filled in with a list of the
cancellations contained in the President's special message,
`as transmitted by the President in a special message on
____', the blank space being filled in with the appropriate
date, `regarding ____.', the blank space being filled in with
the public law number to which the special message relates;
``(D) which only includes proposed cancellations that are
estimated by CBO to meet the definition of discretionary
budgetary authority or that are identified as targeted tax
benefits pursuant to paragraph (9) of section 1016; and
``(E) if no CBO estimate is available, then the entire list
of legislative provisions affecting discretionary budget
authority proposed by the President is inserted in the second
blank space in subparagraph (C).
``(3) Calendar day.--The term `calendar day' means a
standard 24-hour period beginning at midnight.
``(4) Cancel or cancellation.--The terms `cancel' or
`cancellation' means to prevent--
``(A) budget authority from having legal force or effect;
or
``(B) a targeted tax benefit from having legal force or
effect; and
to make any necessary, conforming statutory change to ensure
that such targeted tax benefit is not implemented and that
any budgetary resources are appropriately canceled.
``(5) CBO.--The term `CBO' means the Director of the
Congressional Budget Office.
``(6) Direct spending.--The term `direct spending' means--
``(A) budget authority provided by law (other than an
appropriation law);
``(B) entitlement authority; and
``(C) the food stamp program.
``(7) Dollar amount of discretionary budget authority.--(A)
Except as provided in subparagraph (B), the term ``dollar
amount of discretionary budget authority'' means the entire
dollar amount of budget authority--
``(i) specified in an appropriation law, or the entire
dollar amount of budget authority or obligation limitation
required to be allocated by a specific proviso in an
appropriation law for which a specific dollar figure was not
included;
``(ii) represented separately in any table, chart, or
explanatory text included in the statement of managers or the
governing committee report accompanying such law;
``(iii) required to be allocated for a specific program,
project, or activity in a law (other than an appropriation
law) that mandates the expenditure of budget authority from
accounts, programs, projects, or activities for which budget
authority is provided in an appropriation law;
``(iv) represented by the product of the estimated
procurement cost and the total quantity of items specified in
an appropriation law or included in the statement of managers
or the governing committee report accompanying such law; or
``(v) represented by the product of the estimated
procurement cost and the total quantity of items required to
be provided in a law (other than an appropriation law) that
mandates the expenditure of budget authority from accounts,
programs, projects, or activities for which budget authority
is provided in an appropriation law.
``(B) The term `dollar amount of discretionary budget
authority' does not include--
``(i) direct spending;
``(ii) budget authority in an appropriation law which funds
direct spending provided for in other law;
``(iii) any existing budget authority canceled in an
appropriation law; or
``(iv) any restriction, condition, or limitation in an
appropriation law or the accompanying statement of managers
or committee reports on the expenditure of budget authority
for an account, program, project, or activity, or on
activities involving such expenditure.
``(8) OMB.--The term `OMB' means the Director of the Office
of Management and Budget.
``(9) Targeted tax benefit.--(A) The term `targeted tax
benefit' means any revenue-losing provision that provides a
Federal tax deduction, credit, exclusion, or preference to
100 or fewer beneficiaries (determined with respect to either
present law or any provision of which the provision is a
part) under the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 in any year for
which the provision is in effect;
``(B) for purposes of subparagraph (A)--
``(i) all businesses and associations that are members of
the same controlled group of corporations (as defined in
section 1563(a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986) shall
be treated as a single beneficiary;
``(ii) all shareholders, partners, members, or
beneficiaries of a corporation, partnership, association, or
trust or estate, respectively, shall be treated as a single
beneficiary;
``(iii) all employees of an employer shall be treated as a
single beneficiary;
``(iv) all qualified plans of an employer shall be treated
as a single beneficiary;
``(v) all beneficiaries of a qualified plan shall be
treated as a single beneficiary;
``(vi) all contributors to a charitable organization shall
be treated as a single beneficiary;
``(vii) all holders of the same bond issue shall be treated
as a single beneficiary; and
``(viii) if a corporation, partnership, association, trust
or estate is the beneficiary of a provision, the shareholders
of the corporation, the partners of the partnership, the
members of the association, or the beneficiaries of the trust
or estate shall not also be treated as beneficiaries of such
provision;

[[Page H4487]]

``(C) for the purpose of this paragraph, the term `revenue-
losing provision' means any provision that is estimated to
result in a reduction in Federal tax revenues (determined
with respect to either present law or any provision of which
the provision is a part) for any one of the following
periods--
``(i) the first fiscal year for which the provision is
effective;
``(ii) the period of the 5 fiscal years beginning with the
first fiscal year for which the provision is effective;
``(iii) the period of 10 fiscal years beginning with the
first fiscal year for which the provision is effective; or
``(iv) the period of 20 fiscal years beginning with the
first fiscal year for which the provision is effective; and
``(D) the terms used in this paragraph shall have the same
meaning as those terms have generally in the Internal Revenue
Code of 1986, unless otherwise expressly provided.

``expiration

``Sec. 1017. This title shall have no force or effect on or
after 2 years after the date of enactment of this section.''.

SEC. 102. TECHNICAL AND CONFORMING AMENDMENTS.

``Part B--Legislative Line Item Veto

``Sec. 1011. Line item veto authority.
``Sec. 1012. Procedures for expedited consideration.
``Sec. 1013. Presidential deferral authority.
``Sec. 1014. Treatment of cancellations.
``Sec. 1015. Reports by Comptroller General.
``Sec. 1016. Definitions.
``Sec. 1017. Expiration.
``Sec. 1018. Suits by Comptroller General.
``Sec. 1019. Proposed Deferrals of budget authority.''.

(c) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this Act shall
take effect on the date of its enactment and apply only to
any dollar amount of discretionary budget authority or
targeted tax benefit provided in an Act enacted on or after
the date of enactment of this Act.

TITLE II--PAY-AS-YOU-GO EXTENSION

SEC. 201. PAY-AS-YOU-GO EXTENSION.

(a) Section 252 Amendments.--Section 252 of the Balanced
Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 is amended
by striking ``2002'' both places it appears and inserting
``2011''.
(b) Section 275 Amendment.--Section 275(b) of the Balanced
Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 is amended
by striking ``2006'' and inserting ``2016''.

TITLE III--RECONCILIATION INSTRUCTIONS MAY NOT INCREASE THE DEFICIT

SEC. 301. DEFINITION OF RECONCILIATION.

Section 310 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 is
amended by adding at the end the following new subsection:
``(h) Definition of Reconciliation Legislation.--As used in
this Act, a reconciliation bill or reconciliation resolution
is a measure that, if enacted, would reduce the deficit or
increase the surplus for each fiscal year covered by such
measure compared to the most recent Congressional Budget
Office estimate for any such fiscal year.''.

TITLE IV--EARMARK REFORM

SEC. 401. CURBING ABUSES OF POWER.

Rule XXIII of the Rules of the House of Representatives
(the Code of Official Conduct) is amended--
(1) by redesignating clause 14 as clause 16; and
(2) by inserting after clause 13 the following new clauses:
``14. A Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner shall
not condition the inclusion of language to provide funding
for a district-oriented earmark, a particular project which
will be carried out in a Member's congressional district, or
a limited tax benefit in any bill or joint resolution (or an
accompanying report thereof) or in any conference report on a
bill or joint resolution (including an accompanying joint
statement of managers thereto) on any vote cast by the
Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner in whose
Congressional district the project will be carried out.
``15. (a) A Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner who
advocates to include a district-oriented earmark in any bill
or joint resolution (or an accompanying report) or in any
conference report on a bill or joint resolution (including an
accompanying joint statement of managers thereto) shall
disclose in writing to the chairman and ranking member of the
relevant committee (and in the case of the Committee on
Appropriations to the chairman and ranking member of the full
committee and of the relevant subcommittee)--
``(1) the name of the Member, Delegate, or Resident
Commissioner;
``(2) the name and address of the intended recipient of
such earmark;
``(3) the purpose of such earmark; and
``(4) whether the Member, Delegate, or Resident
Commissioner has a financial interest in such earmark.
``(b) Each committee shall make available to the general
public the information transmitted to the committee under
paragraph (a) for any earmark included in any measure
reported by the committee or conference report filed by the
chairman of the committee or any subcommittee thereof.
``(c) The Joint Committee on Taxation shall review any
revenue measure or any reconciliation bill or joint
resolution which includes revenue provisions before it is
reported by a committee and before it is filed by a committee
of conference of the two Houses, and shall identify whether
such bill or joint resolution contains any limited tax
benefits. The Joint Committee on Taxation shall prepare a
statement identifying any such limited tax benefits, stating
who the beneficiaries are of such benefits, and any
substantially similar introduced measures and the sponsors of
such measures. Any such statement shall be made available to
the general public by the Joint Committee on Taxation.''.

SEC. 402. KNOWING WHAT THE HOUSE IS VOTING ON.

(a) Bills and joint resolutions.--
(1) In general.--Rule XIII of the Rules of the House of
Representatives is amended by adding at the end the following
new clause:
``8. Except for motions to suspend the rules and consider
legislation, it shall not be in order to consider in the
House a bill or joint resolution until 24 hours after or, in
the case of a bill or joint resolution containing a district-
oriented earmark or limited tax benefit, until 3 days after
copies of such bill or joint resolution (and, if the bill or
joint resolution is reported, copies of the accompanying
report) are available (excluding Saturdays, Sundays, or legal
holidays except when the House is in session on such a
day).''.
(2) Prohibiting waiver.--Clause 6(c) of rule XIII of the
Rules of the House of Representatives is amended--
(A) by striking `or' at the end of subparagraph (1);
(B) by striking the period at the end of subparagraph (2)
and inserting `; or'; and
(C) by adding at the end the following new subparagraph:
``(3) a rule or order that waives clause 8 of rule XIII or
clause 8(a)(1)(B) of rule XXII, unless a question of
consideration of the rule is adopted by a vote of two-thirds
of the Members voting, a quorum being present.''.
(b) Conference Reports.--Clause 8(a)(1)(B) of rule XXII of
the Rules of the House of Representatives is amended by
striking ``2 hours'' and inserting ``24 hours or, in the case
of a conference report containing a district-oriented earmark
or limited tax benefit, until 3 days after''.

SEC. 403. FULL AND OPEN DEBATE IN CONFERENCE.

(a) Numbered amendments.--Clause 1 of rule XXII of the
Rules of the House of Representatives is amended by adding at
the end the following new sentence: ``A motion to request or
agree to a conference on a general appropriation bill is in
order only if the Senate expresses its disagreements with the
House in the form of numbered amendments.''.
(b) Promoting Openness in Deliberations of Managers.--
Clause 12(a) of rule XXII of the Rules of the House of
Representatives is amended by adding at the end the following
new subparagraph:
``(3) All provisions on which the two Houses disagree shall
be open to discussion at any meeting of a conference
committee. The text which reflects the conferees' action on
all of the differences between the two Houses, including all
matter to be included in the conference report and any
amendments in disagreement, shall be available to any of the
managers at least one such meeting, and shall be approved by
a recorded vote of a majority of the House managers. Such
text and, with respect to such vote, the total number of
votes cast for and against, and the names of members voting
for and against, shall be included in the joint explanatory
statement of managers accompanying the conference report of
such conference committee.''.
(c) Point of Order Against Consideration of Conference
Report Not Reflecting Resolution of Differences as
Approved.--
(1) In general.--Rule XXII of the Rules of the House of
Representatives is amended by adding at the end the following
new clause:
``13. It shall not be in order to consider a conference
report the text of which differs in any material way from the
text which reflects the conferees' action on all of the
differences between the two Houses, as approved by a recorded
vote of a majority of the House managers as required under
clause 12(a).''.
(2) Prohibiting waiver.--Clause 6(c) of rule XIII of the
Rules of the House of Representatives, as amended above, is
amended
(A) by striking `or' at the end of subparagraph (2);
(B) by striking the period at the end of subparagraph (3)
and inserting `; or'; and
(C) by adding at the end the following new subparagraph:
``(4) a rule or order that waives clause 12(a) or clause 13
of rule XXII.''.

[[Page H4488]]

Mr. SPRATT (during the reading). Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent
that the motion be considered as read and printed in the Record.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from South Carolina?
There was no objection.

Point of Order

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I reluctantly raise a point of
order to the motion to recommit on the grounds that the motion includes
provisions that are not germane to the bill. On those grounds, that is
why I raise the point of order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Does any other Member wish to speak?
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, the motion to recommit concerns entirely
the budget process. It is germane and completely germane to the budget
process. We add to the bill or would add to the bill the so-called pay-
as-you-go provisions which were the law of the land from 1990 to 2002.
We reinstate that as a complement to, and it is complementary to, the
other powers granted by this bill. It relates to entitlement spending.
The bill relates to entitlement spending. So this is well within the
ambit of the subject matter of this bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Does anybody else wish to speak on the point
of order?
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I will just rise to say that that
is evidence of my point of order which PAYGO is outside of the
germaneness of this bill. Earmark reform is outside the germaneness of
the bill. It is on those grounds that I raise this point of order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Are there any other speakers on the point of
order? Seeing none, the Chair is prepared to rule.
The gentleman from Wisconsin makes a point of order that the
instructions contained in the motion to recommit are not germane.
Clause 7 of rule XVI, the germaneness rule, provides that no
proposition on a subject different from that under consideration shall
be admitted under color of amendment. Among the central tenets of the
germaneness rule are that an amendment may not introduce a subject
matter not represented in the pending bill.
The test of germaneness of a motion to recommit with instructions is
the relationship of those instructions to the bill as a whole, as
amended by House Resolution 886.
H.R. 4890 addresses a procedure for the President to propose
cancellations of certain provisions of law, and a procedure for
Congress to approve such cancellations. It further provides that the
President may defer the effectiveness of the provisions of law
associated with such proposed cancellations pending approval or
disapproval by the Congress.
The amendment contained in the motion to recommit addresses, in part,
a reinstatement of sequestration procedures within the executive
branch, a change in permissible reconciliation instructions contained
in a concurrent resolution on the budget, and various points of order
regarding House procedures.
Such provisions address subject matters not contained in H.R. 4890,
as amended.
Accordingly, the Chair finds that the instructions in the motion to
recommit are not germane. The point of order is sustained. The motion
is not in order.

Motion to Recommit Offered by Mr. Spratt

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I offer an alternate motion to recommit,
which does not contain the objectionable features.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentleman opposed to the bill?
Mr. SPRATT. I am in its present form.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion to
recommit.
The Clerk read as follows:
Mr. Spratt moves to recommit the bill H.R. 4890 to the
Committee on the Budget with instructions to report the same
back to the House forthwith with the following amendment:
Strike all after the enacting clause and insert the
following:

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the ``Legislative Line Item Veto
Act of 2006''.

SEC. 2. LEGISLATIVE LINE ITEM VETO.

(a) In General.--Title X of the Congressional Budget and
Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (2 U.S.C. 621 et seq.) is
amended by striking all of part B (except for sections 1016
and 1013, which are redesignated as sections 1018 and 1019,
respectively) and part C and inserting the following:

``Part B--Legislative Line Item Veto

``line item veto authority

``Sec. 1011. (a) Proposed Cancellations.--Within 10
calendar days after the enactment of any bill or joint
resolution providing any discretionary budget authority or
targeted tax benefit, the President may propose, in the
manner provided in subsection (b), the cancellation of any
dollar amount of such discretionary budget authority or
targeted tax benefit. Except for emergency spending, if the
10 calendar-day period expires during a period where either
House of Congress stands adjourned sine die at the end of a
Congress or for a period greater than 10 calendar days, the
President may propose a cancellation under this section and
transmit a special message under subsection (b) on the first
calendar day of session following such a period of
adjournment.
``(b) Transmittal of Special Message.--
``(1) Special message.--
``(A) In general.--The President may transmit to the
Congress a special message proposing to cancel any dollar
amounts of discretionary budget authority or targeted tax
benefits.
``(B) Contents of special message.--Each special message
shall specify with respect to the discretionary budget
authority proposed or targeted tax benefits to be canceled--
``(i) the dollar amount of discretionary budget authority
(that OMB, after consultation with CBO, estimates to increase
budget authority or outlays as required by section 1016(9))
or the targeted tax benefit that the President proposes be
canceled;
``(ii) any account, department, or establishment of the
Government to which such discretionary budget authority is
available for obligation, and the specific project or
governmental functions involved;
``(iii) the reasons why such discretionary budget authority
or targeted tax benefit should be canceled;
``(iv) to the maximum extent practicable, the estimated
fiscal, economic, and budgetary effect (including the effect
on outlays and receipts in each fiscal year) of the proposed
cancellation;
``(v) to the maximum extent practicable, all facts,
circumstances, and considerations relating to or bearing upon
the proposed cancellation and the decision to effect the
proposed cancellation, and the estimated effect of the
proposed cancellation upon the objects, purposes, or programs
for which the discretionary budget authority or the targeted
tax benefit is provided;
``(vi) a numbered list of cancellations to be included in
an approval bill that, if enacted, would cancel discretionary
budget authority or targeted tax benefits proposed in that
special message; and
``(vii) if the special message is transmitted subsequent to
or at the same time as another special message, a detailed
explanation why the proposed cancellations are not
substantially similar to any other proposed cancellation in
such other message.
``(C) Duplicative proposals prohibited.--The President may
not propose to cancel the same or substantially similar
discretionary budget authority or targeted tax benefit more
than one time under this Act.
``(D) Maximum number of special messages.--The President
may not transmit to the Congress more than one special
message under this subsection related to any bill or joint
resolution described in subsection (a).
``(E) Prohibition on Presidential Abuse of Proposed
Cancellations.--Neither the President nor any other executive
branch official shall condition the inclusion or exclusion or
threaten to condition the inclusion or exclusion of any
proposed cancellation in any special message under this
section on any vote cast or to be cast by any Member of
either House of Congress.
``(2) Enactment of approval bill.--
``(A) Deficit reduction.--Amounts of discretionary budget
authority or targeted tax benefits which are canceled
pursuant to enactment of a bill as provided under this
section shall be dedicated only to reducing the deficit or
increasing the surplus.
``(B) Adjustment of levels in the concurrent resolution on
the budget.--Not later than 5 days after the date of
enactment of an approval bill as provided under this section,
the chairs of the Committees on the Budget of the Senate and
the House of Representatives shall revise allocations and
aggregates and other appropriate levels under the appropriate
concurrent resolution on the budget to reflect the
cancellation, and the applicable committees shall report
revised suballocations pursuant to section 302(b), as
appropriate.
``(C) Adjustments to statutory limits.--After enactment of
an approval bill as provided under this section, the Office
of Management and Budget shall revise applicable limits under
the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of
1985, as appropriate.
``(D) Trust funds and special funds..--Notwithstanding
subparagraph (A), nothing in this part shall be construed to
require or allow the deposit of amounts derived from a trust
fund or special fund which are canceled pursuant to enactment
of a bill as provided under this section to any other fund.
``(E) Highway funding guarantees.--None of the
cancellations pursuant to the enactment of a bill as provided
under this part shall reduce the level of obligations for the

[[Page H4489]]

highway category, as defined in section 251(b) of the
Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985,
below, or further below, the levels established by section
8003 of the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient
Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (Public Law
109-59; 119 Stat. 1917) for any fiscal year. An approval bill
shall not reduce the amount of funding for a particular State
where the authorization for the appropriation of funding was
authorized in such Act or authorized in title 23, United
States Code.
``(F) Transit funding guarantees.--None of the
cancellations pursuant to the enactment of a bill as provided
under this part shall reduce the level of obligations for the
transit category, as defined in section 251(b) of the
Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985,
below, or further below, the levels established by section
section 8003 of the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient
Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (Public Law
109-59; 119 Stat. 1917) for any fiscal year. An approval bill
shall not reduce the amount of funding for a particular State
or a designated recipient (as defined in section 5307(a)(2)
of title 49, United States Code), where the authorization for
the appropriation of funding was authorized in such Act or
chapter.
``(G) Aviation funding guarantees.--None of the
cancellations pursuant to the enactment of a bill as provided
under this part shall reduce the level of funding for the
Federal Aviation Administration's airport improvement program
and facilities and equipment program, in total, below, or
further below, the levels authorized by section 48101 or
48103 of title 49, United States Code, in total, for any
fiscal year.

``procedures for expedited consideration

``presidential deferral authority

``treatment of cancellations

``Sec. 1014. The cancellation of any dollar amount of
discretionary budget authority or

[[Page H4490]]

targeted tax benefit shall take effect only upon enactment of
the applicable approval bill. If an approval bill is not
enacted into law before the end of the applicable period
under section 1013, then all proposed cancellations contained
in that bill shall be null and void and any such dollar
amount of discretionary budget authority or targeted tax
benefit shall be effective as of the original date provided
in the law to which the proposed cancellations applied.

``reports by comptroller general

``definitions

``expiration

``Sec. 1017. This title shall have no force or effect on or
after 2 years after the date of enactment of this section.''.

SEC. 3. TECHNICAL AND CONFORMING AMENDMENTS.

``Part B--Legislative Line Item Veto

Mr. SPRATT (during the reading). Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent
that the motion be considered as read and printed in the Record.

[[Page H4491]]

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from South Carolina?
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, let me just tell you quickly, by laundry-
list fashion, the changes that this amendment would add to the bill.
First of all, we have followed the model of similar bills, the bills
that were passed by this House in 1993 and 1994. We have gone back to
those to create expedited rescission authority.
Secondly, we have prohibited the President or any other officer of
the executive branch from using the rescission authority, that power,
as a bargaining tool to extract votes on other unrelated legislation.
Number three, we have provided that during the consideration of a
rescission request by the President, there is to be a motion to strike;
in other words, a provision by which 100 Members of the House could ask
for a separate vote on a separate item which they deem worthy, and they
could have an opportunity in the well of the House to make the case for
this worthy spending item.
Number four, we have limited the number of cancellation proposals
that the President can send up to one appropriation bill, which is an
entirely sensible change to the bill. Otherwise, under the terms of the
bill, the President will be able to send 5 different rescission
requests on 11 different appropriations bills, in total 55 bills, which
could wreak havoc with the process and in this place. It invites chaos.
It is not necessary. It was not in previous bills. It does not need to
be in this bill.
Number five, we have reduced the amount of time the President has to
propose a cancellation or rescission after signing a bill from 45 days
to 10 days. Why is that? We think that 10 days is more than enough. The
original bills passed by the House provided only 3 days. We have
extended it to 10 days, but 10 days give the President all the time he
needs for a budgetary scrub-down of the budget. Forty-five days is apt
to cause him to look for political applications as opposed to budgetary
applications.
Number six, we have reduced the amount of time that the President can
withhold funds, impound funds when he proposes a rescission or
cancellation from 90 days, as in the bill, to 30 days and 7 days for
emergency spending. We think that is reasonable. That is roughly the
time it would take for a rescission to run its course.
Then we think this is extremely important, not just reasonable, but
critically important. This is a major experiment. Let us not extend it
to entitlement spending. Americans depend upon Social Security and
Medicare and veterans benefits. Are we going to take something that
important from which people depend and put it on the fast track, the
up-or-down vote process that this vote calls for? I would hope not.
This particular amendment would put Social Security and Medicare and
veterans benefits beyond the reach of the President's rescission power,
fast-track rescission powers.
This then defines tax benefits the way we originally defined it. One
of the evolutions in the history of this bill was for us to go back and
say a lot of money is spent through tax expenditures in the Tax Code.
There are a lot of earmarks in the Tax Code, as well as in the
appropriation bills. So let us call attention to something called the
targeted tax benefits that have fewer than 100 intended beneficiaries,
and let us provide as to these earmarks in the tax bill the President
will have the same authority. This bill has been changed significantly
from 100 beneficiaries to 1 beneficiary, which guts the meaning of that
original provision.
Finally, this is an experiment. We are ceding a lot of authority to
the President of the United States that the Congress has under Article
I of the Constitution. In order to make sure that this authority is not
misused or abused or manipulated, we are providing simply that we have
a sunset of 2 years. Two full years would mean President Bush would
have this authority for 2 fiscal years, but that we would review it and
decide whether or not we should go forward with it or make major
changes.
These are all serious, substantive amendments. They are not tilted in
any direction at all except in the direction of getting a better bill
which we can vote upon.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the
motion to recommit.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the gentleman
for a very substantive motion to recommit. I would like to go through a
number of the provisions he raises and some of the concerns I have with
them and why I have to rise in opposition.
Number one, Mr. Speaker, he excludes direct spending from the line
item veto. A case in point. When we do the transportation
reauthorization bill, that thing contains something like 5,000
earmarks. The bridge to nowhere is one of the most prolific examples of
such things. I do not think those things should be exempt from this
line item veto tool.
Number two, he reduces the number of messages from five to one. My
fear with this change is that it will reduce the effectiveness of this
tool. If the President only has one bite at the apple, only one bill he
can send, he will only go after one or two earmarks. What if a bill has
5,000 earmarks? What if a bill has 500 earmarks? The President ought to
be able to send us more votes so we can go after more earmarks and cut
out more wasteful spending. If he only gets to send 1 bill, and he puts
50 pieces in that bill, then the President will be growing his vote
coalition against it. Fifty State delegations also vote against it. So
I think if you just do one bill, you are going to make this tool very,
very small. It will not be nearly as effective because the President
will be disincentivized from putting many earmarks in it because they
will fall under their own weight. That is why we put five bills so we
can go after a great number of earmarks so that we can get maximum
output for this.
Now, the other thing, it permits amendments to strike. I understand
the intent of this. I think it is valuable, but the problem I have with
permitting amendments to strike is that then you are going to ping-pong
back and forth with the House and Senate. You will see no end to this.
The reason why we do not allow amendments to conference reports is
because conference reports represent a conclusion of a legislative
process, the end of a legislative process before a bill becomes law.
But that is where a lot of mischief happens, and mischief occurs
because people insert earmarks in conference reports. I think by doing
this you are going to encourage that. Even if you try to come up with
language to streamline the conference report process, I still think
this produces those problems.
Lastly, Mr. Speaker, the tax provision. This is one that is worthy of
very good debate. Mr. Spratt wants to limit the number of tax
beneficiaries from 100 to 10. Let me give you an example. We chose to
do it the way we did it so we would go after tax pork, rifleshot tax
policy, you know, this tax cut for this person, this tax entity,
instead of tax policy. Let me just give you one example. The orphan
drug tax credit.
We have the orphan drug tax credit in tax law today because there are
a lot of small diseases that do not have a lot of constituencies, that
do not have a lot of people--lupus, Duchenne's disease, and you are not
going to see pharmaceutical companies engaging in committing millions
of dollars in research to cure such small diseases, but we want cures
for these smaller diseases, these rare diseases. So we created the
orphan drug tax credit. How many people utilize this orphan drug tax
credit? Very few, surely not 100, maybe 3, 4 companies. Researchers
will research a cure for a rare disease, but if they do the research,
they qualify for the tax credit. That is tax policy. Fewer than 100
beneficiaries get it, but we wanted to have a tax incentive so that
researchers will commit their dollars to researching and finding cures
for rare diseases. That is just one example of how broadening the scope
of this goes into tax policy.
The goal of this is not to give the President the power to rewrite
policy, to rewrite entitlement policy, to rewrite tax policy. The goal
of the legislative line item vote is to give us the tool to go after
pork, tax pork.

[[Page H4492]]

{time} 1730

Now, what we want to accomplish with this, Mr. Speaker, is to give us
the tools to go after wasteful spending, wasteful direct spending,
wasteful discretionary spending, and wasteful tax pork. The key thing
is that we reserve the power. The Executive can give us the bill; the
Executive, the President, can pull the pork out; but who makes the
decision is Congress. Congress and Congress alone, the legislative
branch, are the ones who execute the action.
I think the compromise we have come up with, the base bill, is the
right way to go.
And the last point I will make is the gentleman reduces the deferral
period to 30 days. Here is the problem with that. That means Congress
can pass a huge omnibus appropriations bill in October, as we often do,
and then leave for recess until January 20, when the President has the
State of the Union address. He is out of session for 3 months and
Congress cannot waive the deferral period.
I urge a ``no'' vote on the motion to recommit.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the previous question is
ordered on the motion to recommit.
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to recommit.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the noes appeared to have it.

Recorded Vote

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.
A recorded vote was ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 and clause 9 of rule
XX, this 15-minute vote on the motion to recommit will be followed by
5-minute votes on the question of passage, if ordered, and the motion
to suspend the rules on House Resolution 323.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 170,
noes 249, not voting 14, as follows:

[Roll No. 316]

AYES--170

Abercrombie
Ackerman
Allen
Andrews
Baca
Baird
Baldwin
Barrow
Bean
Becerra
Berry
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Blumenauer
Boren
Boswell
Boucher
Boyd
Brady (PA)
Brown, Corrine
Butterfield
Capps
Capuano
Cardin
Cardoza
Carnahan
Carson
Case
Chandler
Clay
Cleaver
Clyburn
Cooper
Costa
Costello
Cramer
Crowley
Cuellar
Cummings
Davis (AL)
Davis (CA)
Davis (IL)
Davis (TN)
DeFazio
DeGette
Delahunt
Dingell
Doyle
Edwards
Emanuel
Engel
Eshoo
Etheridge
Farr
Fattah
Filner
Ford
Frank (MA)
Gonzalez
Gordon
Green, Al
Green, Gene
Grijalva
Gutierrez
Harman
Hastings (FL)
Herseth
Higgins
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Holden
Holt
Hooley
Hoyer
Inslee
Israel
Jackson (IL)
Johnson, E. B.
Jones (OH)
Kaptur
Kennedy (RI)
Kildee
Kilpatrick (MI)
Kind
Langevin
Lantos
Larsen (WA)
Levin
Lewis (GA)
Lipinski
Lowey
Lynch
Markey
Marshall
Matsui
McCarthy
McCollum (MN)
McDermott
McGovern
McIntyre
McKinney
McNulty
Meehan
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Melancon
Michaud
Millender-McDonald
Miller (NC)
Moore (KS)
Moore (WI)
Moran (VA)
Nadler
Napolitano
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Otter
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Payne
Pelosi
Peterson (MN)
Pomeroy
Price (NC)
Rahall
Reyes
Ross
Rothman
Roybal-Allard
Ruppersberger
Rush
Sabo
Salazar
Sanchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Sanders
Schakowsky
Schiff
Scott (GA)
Scott (VA)
Sherman
Simpson
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Spratt
Stark
Strickland
Stupak
Tanner
Tauscher
Taylor (MS)
Thompson (MS)
Towns
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Van Hollen
Velazquez
Visclosky
Wasserman Schultz
Watson
Watt
Waxman
Weiner
Wexler
Wynn

NOES--249

Aderholt
Akin
Alexander
Bachus
Baker
Barrett (SC)
Bartlett (MD)
Barton (TX)
Bass
Beauprez
Biggert
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bishop (UT)
Blackburn
Blunt
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonilla
Bonner
Bono
Boozman
Boustany
Bradley (NH)
Brady (TX)
Brown (OH)
Brown (SC)
Brown-Waite, Ginny
Burgess
Burton (IN)
Buyer
Calvert
Camp (MI)
Campbell (CA)
Cannon
Cantor
Capito
Carter
Castle
Chabot
Chocola
Coble
Cole (OK)
Conaway
Conyers
Crenshaw
Cubin
Culberson
Davis (KY)
Davis, Jo Ann
Davis, Tom
Deal (GA)
DeLauro
Dent
Diaz-Balart, L.
Diaz-Balart, M.
Dicks
Doolittle
Drake
Dreier
Duncan
Ehlers
Emerson
English (PA)
Everett
Feeney
Ferguson
Fitzpatrick (PA)
Flake
Foley
Forbes
Fortenberry
Fossella
Foxx
Franks (AZ)
Frelinghuysen
Gallegly
Garrett (NJ)
Gerlach
Gibbons
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gingrey
Gohmert
Goode
Goodlatte
Granger
Graves
Green (WI)
Gutknecht
Hall
Harris
Hart
Hastert
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Hayworth
Hefley
Hensarling
Herger
Hobson
Hoekstra
Honda
Hostettler
Hulshof
Hunter
Hyde
Inglis (SC)
Issa
Istook
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jenkins
Jindal
Johnson (CT)
Johnson (IL)
Jones (NC)
Kanjorski
Keller
Kelly
Kennedy (MN)
King (IA)
King (NY)
Kingston
Kirk
Kline
Knollenberg
Kolbe
Kucinich
Kuhl (NY)
LaHood
Larson (CT)
Latham
LaTourette
Leach
Lee
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (KY)
Linder
LoBiondo
Lofgren, Zoe
Lucas
Lungren, Daniel E.
Mack
Maloney
Manzullo
Marchant
Matheson
McCaul (TX)
McCotter
McCrery
McHenry
McHugh
McKeon
McMorris
Mica
Miller (FL)
Miller (MI)
Miller, Gary
Mollohan
Moran (KS)
Murphy
Murtha
Musgrave
Myrick
Neal (MA)
Neugebauer
Ney
Northup
Norwood
Nunes
Nussle
Osborne
Paul
Pearce
Pence
Peterson (PA)
Petri
Pickering
Platts
Poe
Pombo
Porter
Price (GA)
Pryce (OH)
Putnam
Radanovich
Ramstad
Rangel
Regula
Rehberg
Reichert
Renzi
Reynolds
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Royce
Ryan (OH)
Ryan (WI)
Ryun (KS)
Saxton
Schmidt
Schwartz (PA)
Schwarz (MI)
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shadegg
Shaw
Sherwood
Shimkus
Shuster
Simmons
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Sodrel
Solis
Souder
Stearns
Sullivan
Sweeney
Tancredo
Taylor (NC)
Terry
Thomas
Thompson (CA)
Thornberry
Tiahrt
Tiberi
Tierney
Turner
Upton
Walden (OR)
Walsh
Wamp
Weldon (FL)
Weldon (PA)
Weller
Westmoreland
Whitfield
Wicker
Wilson (NM)
Wilson (SC)
Wolf
Woolsey
Wu
Young (AK)
Young (FL)

NOT VOTING--14

Berkley
Berman
Davis (FL)
Doggett
Evans
Jefferson
Johnson, Sam
Miller, George
Owens
Oxley
Pitts
Serrano
Shays
Waters

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

The SPEAKER pro tempore (during the vote). Members are advised 2
minutes remain in the vote.

{time} 1753

Messrs. NORWOOD, GOODLATTE, RANGEL, KUCINICH, RYAN of Ohio, DICKS,
LARSON of Connecticut, Ms. SCHWARTZ of Pennsylvania, Ms. SOLIS, and Ms.
WOOLSEY changed their vote from ``aye'' to ``no.''
Messrs. BISHOP of Georgia, OTTER, and SHERMAN changed their vote from
``no'' to ``aye.''
So the motion to recommit was rejected.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the passage of the bill.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.

Recorded Vote

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.
A recorded vote was ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. This will be a 5-minute vote.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 247,
noes 172, not voting 14, as follows:

[Roll No. 317]

AYES--247

Akin
Alexander
Andrews
Bachus
Baker
Barrett (SC)
Barrow
Bartlett (MD)
Barton (TX)
Bass
Bean
Beauprez
Biggert
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bishop (UT)
Blackburn
Blunt
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonilla
Bonner
Bono
Boozman
Boren
Boustany
Boyd
Bradley (NH)
Brady (TX)
Brown (OH)
Brown (SC)
Brown-Waite, Ginny
Burgess
Burton (IN)
Calvert
Camp (MI)
Campbell (CA)
Cannon
Cantor
Capito
Cardoza
Carter
Case
Castle
Chabot
Chandler
Chocola
Coble
Cole (OK)
Conaway
Cooper
Costa
Crenshaw
Cubin
Cuellar
Culberson
Davis (KY)
Davis (TN)
Davis, Jo Ann
Davis, Tom
Deal (GA)
DeFazio
Delahunt
Dent
Diaz-Balart, L.
Diaz-Balart, M.
Doolittle
Drake
Dreier
Duncan
Edwards
Ehlers
English (PA)
Everett
Feeney
Ferguson
Fitzpatrick (PA)
Flake
Foley
Forbes
Ford
Fortenberry
Fossella
Foxx
Franks (AZ)
Frelinghuysen

[[Page H4493]]

Gallegly
Garrett (NJ)
Gerlach
Gibbons
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gingrey
Gohmert
Goode
Goodlatte
Gordon
Granger
Graves
Green (WI)
Gutknecht
Hall
Harris
Hart
Hastert
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Hayworth
Hefley
Hensarling
Herger
Herseth
Hoekstra
Hooley
Hostettler
Hulshof
Hunter
Hyde
Inglis (SC)
Inslee
Issa
Istook
Jenkins
Jindal
Johnson (CT)
Johnson (IL)
Keller
Kelly
Kennedy (MN)
King (IA)
King (NY)
Kingston
Kirk
Kline
Knollenberg
Kolbe
Kuhl (NY)
LaHood
Langevin
Latham
LaTourette
Leach
Lewis (KY)
Linder
LoBiondo
Lucas
Lungren, Daniel E.
Mack
Maloney
Manzullo
Marchant
Marshall
Matheson
McCaul (TX)
McCotter
McCrery
McHenry
McHugh
McIntyre
McKeon
McMorris
Melancon
Mica
Miller (FL)
Miller (MI)
Miller, Gary
Moran (KS)
Murphy
Musgrave
Myrick
Neugebauer
Ney
Norwood
Nunes
Nussle
Osborne
Pearce
Pence
Peterson (PA)
Petri
Pickering
Platts
Poe
Pombo
Porter
Price (GA)
Pryce (OH)
Putnam
Radanovich
Ramstad
Regula
Rehberg
Reichert
Renzi
Reynolds
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Ross
Royce
Ryan (WI)
Ryun (KS)
Saxton
Schiff
Schmidt
Schwarz (MI)
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shadegg
Shaw
Sherwood
Shimkus
Shuster
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Smith (WA)
Sodrel
Souder
Stearns
Strickland
Sullivan
Tancredo
Tanner
Taylor (MS)
Taylor (NC)
Terry
Thomas
Thornberry
Tiahrt
Tiberi
Turner
Udall (CO)
Upton
Walden (OR)
Wamp
Weldon (FL)
Weldon (PA)
Weller
Westmoreland
Whitfield
Wicker
Wilson (NM)
Wilson (SC)
Wolf
Wynn
Young (AK)
Young (FL)

NOES--172

Abercrombie
Ackerman
Aderholt
Allen
Baca
Baird
Baldwin
Becerra
Berry
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Blumenauer
Boswell
Boucher
Brady (PA)
Brown, Corrine
Butterfield
Buyer
Capps
Capuano
Cardin
Carnahan
Carson
Clay
Cleaver
Clyburn
Conyers
Costello
Cramer
Crowley
Cummings
Davis (AL)
Davis (CA)
Davis (IL)
DeGette
DeLauro
Dicks
Dingell
Doyle
Emanuel
Emerson
Engel
Eshoo
Etheridge
Farr
Fattah
Filner
Frank (MA)
Gonzalez
Green, Al
Green, Gene
Grijalva
Gutierrez
Harman
Hastings (FL)
Higgins
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Hobson
Holden
Holt
Honda
Hoyer
Israel
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Johnson, E. B.
Jones (NC)
Jones (OH)
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kennedy (RI)
Kildee
Kilpatrick (MI)
Kind
Kucinich
Lantos
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Lee
Levin
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (GA)
Lipinski
Lofgren, Zoe
Lowey
Lynch
Markey
Matsui
McCarthy
McCollum (MN)
McDermott
McGovern
McKinney
McNulty
Meehan
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Michaud
Millender-McDonald
Miller (NC)
Mollohan
Moore (KS)
Moore (WI)
Moran (VA)
Murtha
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal (MA)
Northup
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Otter
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Paul
Payne
Pelosi
Peterson (MN)
Pomeroy
Price (NC)
Rahall
Rangel
Reyes
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Rothman
Roybal-Allard
Ruppersberger
Rush
Ryan (OH)
Sabo
Salazar
Sanchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Sanders
Schakowsky
Schwartz (PA)
Scott (GA)
Scott (VA)
Sherman
Simmons
Simpson
Skelton
Slaughter
Snyder
Solis
Spratt
Stark
Stupak
Sweeney
Tauscher
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Tierney
Towns
Udall (NM)
Van Hollen
Velazquez
Visclosky
Walsh
Wasserman Schultz
Watson
Watt
Waxman
Weiner
Wexler
Woolsey
Wu

NOT VOTING--14

Berkley
Berman
Davis (FL)
Doggett
Evans
Jefferson
Johnson, Sam
Miller, George
Owens
Oxley
Pitts
Serrano
Shays
Waters

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

The SPEAKER pro tempore (during the vote). Members are advised 2
minutes remain in this vote.

{time} 1801

So the bill was passed.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
The title of the bill was amended so as to read: ``A bill to amend
the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 to provide
for the expedited consideration of certain proposed rescissions of
budget authority''.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

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