Jack Kingston: “Of course, the great American you are speaking of is Ronald Reagan, and he was a man even before he was elected…”

“Of course, the great American you are speaking of is Ronald Reagan, and he was a man even before he was elected President who talked about the concept of the line-item veto. And the analogy that I have given my voters is just imagine if you are in a grocery store and you are buying your meat and potatoes, your fruit and your vegetables, and you are in the checkout line and the cashier says buy some caviar for me. You say I don't owe you any caviar. I don't eat caviar, it is too expensive. He says if you want your meat and potatoes, you have got to buy my caviar. That sounds bizarre, but that is how the Congress has treated the American people, and the American presidents, for all these years. That anytime the President would go into an area like a flood disaster or something like that, we would always go in there and tack on our latest social program, our new little warm and fuzzy midnight basketball of the month or whatever it was. We say OK, we know you want to take care of the California earthquake victims, but in addition to this I want a little research money for the university back my way. This gives the President the actual ability to take a pen and line item that out, that pork out of there, and say we do not need it anymore.”