Talent proposes line-item veto for president

The constitutional amendment would give the president veto power over specific spending items.

WASHINGTON -- The last time Congress approved a line-item veto, it didn't take long for the Supreme Court to rule it unconstitutional.

Now, Sen. Jim Talent wants to write that power into the Constitution. The Missouri Republican on Tuesday proposed a constitutional amendment to give the president veto authority over particular spending items without having to veto an entire bill.

Talent, who is up for re-election next year, introduced the measure with Virginia Sen. George Allen, a possible candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.

While similar efforts have failed before, the lawmakers said deficit spending for the Iraq war and hurricane rebuilding have put a new emphasis on belt-tightening. Bush has ruled out raising taxes to pay Hurricane Katrina-related expenses and said other government spending must be cut.

"We are focusing right now on how we can find ways to reduce spending that is less than top priority," Talent said at a news conference. "The line-item veto is the one idea that is out there that has been proven and used."

Missouri State Auditor Claire McCaskill, a Democrat challenging Talent's Senate re-election bid, said she supports a line-item veto and blamed Talent for supporting "out of control spending" that has caused budget deficits.

"Unfortunately for the working families in Missouri getting hit with $3-a-gallon gas prices, a line-item veto cannot bring back the $14 billion in tax giveaways to companies like Exxon, Shell and Amoco that Jim Talent helped push through Congress," McCaskill said in a statement.

Currently, 43 states allow the governor to use a line-item veto. Talent's measure would authorize the president to both eliminate and reduce line items, a broader power that only a dozen states offer.

After his re-election last year, President Bush announced that he wanted a line-item veto that "passed constitutional muster" so he could exert more control over the budget.

The previous line-item veto law passed in 1996, after the new Republican majority in the House made the tool part of its "Contract With America." President Clinton signed the legislation, and in 1997 he used his new power 82 times to negate specific projects in larger spending bills.

But the Supreme Court that year ruled on a 6-3 vote that the law gave the president unconstitutional unilateral power to change laws enacted by Congress.

A constitutional amendment was last proposed in the Senate by Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., whose husband, former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan., was a chief sponsor of the 1996 measure with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

For the measure to be added to the Constitution, it must be approved by two-thirds of the members of the House and Senate, then ratified within seven years by at least 38 state legislatures.