Jerry Moran: “the Spratt-Moran amendment which we are now considering greatly improves upon the Line-Item Veto Act. In the Contract on…”

“the Spratt-Moran amendment which we are now considering greatly improves upon the Line-Item Veto Act. In the Contract on America and every piece of literature touting the Line-Item Veto Act, the Republicans are quick to claim that this would give the President the authority to cut out pork spending and targeted tax benefits. But if you look at the actual legislation, you will see that it does not give the President the authority to truly cut targeted tax benefits. The original Line-Item Veto Act only allowed the President to veto tax benefits if they benefited five or fewer taxpayers. This is a joke. There is no law, no pork project, and no tax cut, no program enacted by this Congress that only benefits five or fewer Americans. This bill was amended in committee to increase the number up to 100, but it still is worthless. No omnibus tax bill contains a tax cut for John Doe of Alexandria, VA, or the Smith family in Fairfax. There are very, very few tax benefits targeted to any class with less than 100 persons. Tax bills, however, do contain special interest giveaways. They are loaded with individual provisions designed to either induce taxpayers to do a certain activity or discourage taxpayers from doing another. Just last month, the Senate Budget Committee released a compendium of tax expenditures that identified $453 billion in individual tax provisions for fiscal year 1995 alone.…”