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From: js2j@mhuxt.UUCP (sonntag)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Line Item Veto at Presidential Level
Message-ID: <1409@mhuxt.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 25-Feb-86 12:53:35 EST
Article-I.D.: mhuxt.1409
Posted: Tue Feb 25 12:53:35 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 27-Feb-86 05:26:36 EST
References: <155@jc3b21.UUCP> <1405@mhuxt.UUCP> <559@whuts.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 33

> > 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.

    They're going to be testing nuclear weapons against stars?  The one 
nearby, or one of the ones many light years away?  How will they tell
whether the nuclear weapon went off or not?
     Seriously, what does this have to do with a line-item vetoe?  Abuses
like this take place all of the time, and we have a branch of the government
set up to interpret the law.  I'm sure there is *some* mechanism within
our government to prevent the executive branch from ignoring the law.
     As for the rest of the article, Tim, I appreciated the Reagan bashing,
but I really don't think that I should decide whether I want a line-item
veto for the president based on who the president happens to be right now.
After all, he'll be gone in a coupla years, and we can all breath a sigh
of relief.
-- 
Jeff Sonntag
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