Reply #114: Bush seeks to restore ‘pork-barrel spending’ veto

[EuroObserver]

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/27303c04-ad2a-11da-9643-0000779e2340.html
By Christopher Swann in Washington
Published: March 6 2006 16:00 | Last updated: March 6 2006 18:42

george w bushThe White House on Monday proposed legislation to restore the president’s power to veto specific spending measures, a move that could sharply increase his authority to block items deemed wasteful, “pork barrel” spending.

President George W. Bush said the proposed law would be designed “to meet Supreme Court standards” and would “give me the authority to strip special-interest spending and earmarks out of a bill and then send them back to Congress for an up-or-down vote.”

The Republican-controlled Congress gave the president a line-item veto in 1996, but it was struck down by the Supreme Court in 1998, with six of the nine justices ruling that it overstepped the president’s constitutional authority.

Mr Bush’s effort to restore the veto comes at a time of mounting concern in both the White House and Congress about the inability of either to restrain the growth in government spending. The Congressional Budget Office said on Friday that the budget deficit would rise to $371bn (£212bn, €312bn) this year, from $318bn in 2005, despite record tax revenues.

While most of the spending growth has come from the military and homeland security, and from entitlement programmes such as Medicare and Social Security, it has been exacerbated by the growth of so-called “earmarks” – specific spending measures targeted at favoured constituencies by members of Congress.

Circumventing the Supreme Court’s judgment on the line-item veto will be challenging, however. The 1996 bill allowed the president to strip out specific spending items, and required a two-thirds majority vote by Congress to reinstate them.

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