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From: orb@whuts.UUCP (SEVENER)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Line Item Veto at Presidential Level
Message-ID: <559@whuts.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 24-Feb-86 09:33:39 EST
Article-I.D.: whuts.559
Posted: Mon Feb 24 09:33:39 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 27-Feb-86 05:16:32 EST
References: <155@jc3b21.UUCP> <1405@mhuxt.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 47

> From Jeff Sonntag: 
>      Dictators tend to be people who can force a country's government to do
> things extremely unpopular with the vast majority of the population.  Exactly
> how would a line-item veto enable the pres to do this?
> 
 
Let us take an example which has just recently come to light
in which the Administration has deliberately sidestepped Congress.
Last year the Congress voted for a ban on any anti-satellite weapons
testing because the Soviet Union has stopped all its anti-satellite
weapons testing.  The ban states that no anti-satellite weapons tests
are to be funded against targets in space.  The Pentagon therefore has
decided that this ban only specifies that no tests will be
conducted against targets in space which are actual satellites
but they *can* be done against stars or other "lightsources".
This is already a deliberate thwarting of the will of Congress.
One can only imagine how much worse such abuses would be with a
line-item veto.

> >  From Emery Mandel:
> > Line item veto power would, on the good side, allow
> > the President to have greater control over the budget
> > which has put us in DEEP debt over the years.
 
This makes the totally erroneous assumption that the President is *NOT*
responsible for the current incredible deficits.  This assumption is
*WRONG* as I have tried to point out numerous times.  In point of fact
the Executive Branch (i.e. the President) has the responsibility to
submit the budget proposal to the Congress.  The budgets proposed
by President Reagan have been ones proposing deficits in the hundreds
of billions.  The Congress in turn has actually *CUT* deficits in
its final approved budgets.  At the same time however, Congress has
approved 95% of Reagan's proposed deficits.
 
The fiscal irresponsibility of Reagan is most evident in his latest
budget proposal which proposes an increase of $40 billion in military
spending, cuts of some $20 billion in domestic spending for things
like AMTRAK, student financial aid, the Agricultural Extension Service,
etc. and no new taxes to pay for the consequent hundred plus billion
dollar deficit.

It is Ronald Wilson Reagan, more than anyone else, who is responsible
for the current monstrous deficits.  Giving the President more such
power is a prescription for disaster for our system of checks and
balances.
 
       tim sevener   whuxn!orb