On the recordFebruary 8, 2012
I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this bill. In article I, section 9, clause 7, the U.S. Constitution bestows upon Congress what we now call the ``power of the purse''--that the representatives of the people should distribute taxpayer dollars as warranted and needed. The line-item veto would weaken that power, shifting budgetary authority to the executive branch and giving the President a power that our Founding Fathers did not see fit to give to him. In fact, a previous effort to provide the President a line-item veto, as has been noted, was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1998. Two weeks ago, during his State of the Union address, we heard how the President would choose to spend our precious taxpayer dollars. The line-item veto would strengthen the President's ability to give preference to his spending priorities over those of the Congress and the constituents that you represent. Our Founding Fathers had seen firsthand what an absolute authority could do when wielding too much influence, particularly over spending and taxation, and they drafted our Constitution accordingly, providing for checks and balances to prevent too much power from falling into the hands of one branch of government, the executive. The Framers would surely shake their heads at the idea of transferring this much authority to the executive branch. So powerful was this defense of Congress' role that James Madison in Federalist Paper No.…
