CUTTING LINE BY LINE

From the days of Thomas Jefferson, presidents have lamented their lack of power to cut specific items from spending bills. Beginning next year, that will change.

In an unprecedented shifting of power, the Republican-controlled Congress this month shifted to the White House power to strip individual items from congressional spending packages. President Clinton signed the bill, although he won't be able to exercise his new authority unless he is re-elected in the fall.

The Republican freshmen in the House included the line-item veto, long championed by the GOP, in their 1994 Contract With America platform. Now that the Republicans are in power, it is to their credit they went ahead and approved the measure, even though a Democratic president might get the chance to use it against them.

Under the new legislation, a package of any items vetoed by the president will go back to Congress, which then has 30 days to decide which items it wants to restore. A two-thirds vote is needed to overturn a presidential veto and to restore deleted funding.

The line-item veto has an eight-year lifetime, which gives Congress a chance to take another look at it if the balance of power tips too much toward the executive branch. The measure also might face a legal challenge. Critics say it violates the Constitution's separation of powers among the branches of government by letting the president, in effect, rewrite legislation after it is passed by Congress.

That means government's third branch -- the courts -- likely will have the last say on the line-item veto.

Balance-of-power issues aside, though, line-item veto power for the president is long overdue. Previously, the president could only veto entire spending bills. That makes it difficult for the president to keep pork-barrel projects of which Congress is so fond out of spending bills.

Another benefit of the line-item veto is that it will remove as an excuse a president's complaint that Congress forced him into wasteful spending with its all-or-nothing spending bills.

That isn't to say line-item veto power for the president will magically balance the national budget. Runaway spending in the budget comes from entitlement programs that aren't likely to feel the line-item pinch like relatively small, pork-barrel projects.

But it is time unnecessary spending was cut out of the budget as a matter of principle, if nothing else. If a line-item veto for the president accomplishes that, it is good law.