Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, like most Americans, I support the line-item veto. Too often wasteful spending has slipped into a statute, it has hitched a ride into the statute books, and this is a way to try to prevent it. We need to seize on every tool that we can to oppose wasteful spending. We have the line-item veto in Texas. It has worked up to a point. I think that over the last several sessions Governors, Republican and Democrat alike, have managed to veto through the line item about one-quarter of 1 percent of the 2-year spending budget. Of course, here, the line-item veto usage would be even more limited since only about one-third of all spending actually occurs in the annual appropriations bill. We must be very careful with this type of reform. There is no guarantee that, in fact, a line-item veto will be used as intended, and that is why we offer this amendment tonight. We believe it would be prudent to sunset this legislation every 5 years and, indeed, we believe it would be prudent to sunset every new initiative of this type every 5 years so that the Congress focused on what it was passing and we had a real sense of accountability.”