Russ Feingold: “on the first of January, the clock began ticking on an historic 8-year experiment. The Line-Item Veto Act became…”

“on the first of January, the clock began ticking on an historic 8-year experiment. The Line-Item Veto Act became effective on that date, a law that provides the President with significant new authority to cancel discretionary spending and new entitlement spending, along with an extremely limited ability to cancel new spending done through the Tax Code. Though the version enacted was flawed in several ways, I supported this new authority to provide the President with some additional flexibility to eliminate inappropriate spending. I do not believe the line-item veto is the whole answer to our deficit problem, or even most of the answer, but it certainly can be part of the answer. A key part of the new Presidential authority is the sunset clause. Unless Congress renews this authority, it will expire. The sunset clause will put the burden on those who want to retain the authority to demonstrate the experiment has worked. Mr. President, though the continuing Federal budget deficits justify granting this temporary authority to the President on a trial basis, there are many extremely serious issues surrounding this proposal that merit close monitoring over the next several years.”