Thomas Foley: “Well, if you think about the debate that can occur, and when people say line-item veto, what power does that give the…”

“Well, if you think about the debate that can occur, and when people say line-item veto, what power does that give the President? Well, just like you mentioned with your Governor, they can strike through the appropriation as wasteful pork spending without having to veto an entire bill. But the safeguard for Congress is if a President, and a lot of people say, well, they can take retribution against a Member. If the President does not like Congressman Foley, he can strike out all of his projects. Well, if my projects are so good, I can go back to the floor after the veto and defend them among my colleagues and get an override within the next couple of days to restore the project. So I do not sense this disastrous consequence of a line-item veto. In fact, I sense that there could be a bigger opportunity for us to really tighten the rein of Government, and give the President an active hand in budgetary negotiations, and in fact strike through some of these things you read about, these studies, asparagus studies, or, you know, this and that study, none of which lead to any better prosperity for anyone that has a response to the study. It is just another give-back to communities, a little pork barrel spending that I think has to stop. Line-item veto is the only mechanism in which to do that.”