I particularly like the request for a Line-Item Veto....

Post #243,140 by Simon_Jester 2/1/06 1:12:06 PM Reply	I particularly like the request for a Line-Item Veto.... gee, it's not like we tried that before.
Post #243,144 by Silverlock 2/1/06 1:46:37 PM Reply	Yeah because it's so disrupting to veto the whole bill. Maybe that's why he's never done so. ----------------------------------------- NOTICE: Due to Presidential Executive Orders, the National Security Agency may have read this email without warning, warrant, or notice, and certainly without probable cause. They may do this without any judicial or legislative oversight. You have no recourse nor protection save to call for the impeachment of the current President. -Put it on all your emails
Post #243,196 by bepatient 2/1/06 10:21:53 PM Reply	Better idea States (many of them) only allow legislation appropriating funds to include one line item. Makes it an easy accept/reject proposal..as opposed to the current desire of taking these initiatives that have 27 good things and to get them passed you have to add 5 bad things to get the 7 extra votes. If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. _{Fudd's First Law of Opposition} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #243,204 by ben_tilly 2/1/06 11:24:04 PM Reply	I like I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
Post #243,207 by Andrew Grygus 2/2/06 12:22:13 AM Reply	California ballot measures are like that. If something wins, but someone else takes it to court and the court says it's really more than one thing - it's void. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #243,227 by admin 2/2/06 8:38:18 AM Reply	"If I Were President" I always thought one of the first things I'd do is tell Congress that I would automatically veto anything with more than one item. If they wanted the sloppy big pork enough they'd have to get the votes to override. Regards, -scott anderson "Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
Post #243,229 by Simon_Jester 2/2/06 9:22:43 AM Reply	Point missed.... the line-item veto was passed (and Clinton had it). It went to the Supreme Court and was struck down.
Post #243,233 by bepatient 2/2/06 9:40:09 AM Reply	No. I know it was rejected. And it would be rejected again, IMO. My suggestion removes the need for it at all. If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. _{Fudd's First Law of Opposition} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #243,242 by Simon_Jester 2/2/06 10:17:32 AM Reply	Agreement....your point is very well thought out. It's a shame that the President didn't offer that request in the SOTU...and instead asked for something that would likely be rejected again.
Post #243,250 by Another Scott 2/2/06 10:32:56 AM Reply	Unfortunately, there are ways around it. E.g. [link\|http://www.rules.house.gov/archives/96-996.htm\|State Techniques to Blunt the Governor's Item-Veto Power] (from 1996): Legislators and legislative committees at the state level have used various tactics to counteract, blunt, or neutralize the governor's item-veto power. There's always ways around such things - especially when it's in the interests of the powerful members of appropriations committees to have the ability to specify funding for pet projects. Probably the best solution to the earmarks problem is a requirement for a balanced budget. But we know how popular that is... Cheers, Scott.
Post #243,253 by ben_tilly 2/2/06 10:47:11 AM Reply	A balanced budget is bad fiscal policy You really do want a government to run a deficit in bad years. Think about it. In bad years it is the safety net for a lot of people. And tax revenues are going to be down because it is a bad year. That means that you lose money. However you also want to run a surplus in good years so that it isn't a problem to run a deficit from time to time. (Which is the half that politicians like to ignore.) So in the long run you want government's budget to balance. But it is a really, really bad idea to make it balance every year. Cheers, Ben I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
Post #243,260 by Another Scott 2/2/06 11:03:53 AM Reply	As an absolute, yes. I agree that the government needs to have tools to even out the business cycle, especially when a crash appears imminent. However, one needs to have some mechanism to control spending. In other words, we need to have some definition of "bad years" and "good years". Or we need something like the EU's policy of having member countries [link\|http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4119282.stm\|commit to having budget deficits of < 3% of GDP]. Yes, it's fuzzy (Germany has gone over that limit, as have France, Italy, Portugal...), so it's no silver bullet either. As it stands now, there's almost no constraint on spending by the federal government. The opposition party doesn't have the votes to impact the budget in Congress, and the president has never vetoed anything. Some sort of statutory requirement, with teeth, is needed. Even the Clinton-era [link\|http://www.reason.com/rauch/021305.shtml\|offsets] would help greatly. Not that I expect it to happen any time soon.... :-( Cheers, Scott.
Post #243,308 by ben_tilly 2/2/06 7:02:36 PM Reply	"Balanced over every 7 year period" could work. Number randomly chosen to be fairly short but longer than most business cycles. Ramping up by staying balanced from the start to the present. So the first year is balanced. The first + second are balanced and so on until the 8'th year. Cheers, Ben I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
Post #243,412 by Another Scott 2/4/06 11:07:54 AM Reply	I like it.
Post #243,263 by bepatient 2/2/06 11:22:11 AM Reply	Not an item veto thats a different setup. WV and other states allow only 1 appropriation per bill. No need to line item veto...since there is only one line item. If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. _{Fudd's First Law of Opposition} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #243,265 by Another Scott 2/2/06 11:32:16 AM Reply	It mentions, in passing, cases like that. :-) There are ways around that too: Some states take details out of public laws and place them in unofficial and informal documents, such as committee or subcommittee reports. The purpose of these documents is to give guidance to agencies on how a lump sum should be spent. Although the documents are advisory and legally non-binding, agencies normally comply. In Michigan, after the governor threatened to veto a provision granting a waiver for college tuition to Native Americans, the legislature rolled the funds into another account and reached an understanding with the agency head, by letter, that it use the funds to waive the tuition. There was no legislative language for the governor to veto. I'm sure there are similar things that can happen in WV. Cheers, Scott.
Post #243,273 by bepatient 2/2/06 1:12:08 PM Reply	Sure. It does make it harder to do, though If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. _{Fudd's First Law of Opposition} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #243,421 by broomberg 2/4/06 11:50:28 AM Reply	Not really Seems like the budgetory version of security through obscurity. Those that know about the loopholes can abuse them, those that don't are abused.

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