Washington, D.C. – The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) today pushed the House of Representatives to pass line-item veto legislation.  The House is scheduled to vote today on The Legislative Line-Item Veto Act of 2006 (H.R. 4890), introduced by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), which would allow the President to propose the elimination of individual spending items and special tax breaks in legislation.  Congress would then have 14 legislative days to hold an up-or-down vote on the President’s requested rescissions.

“Members of Congress often look out for their own interests at the expense of the national interest.  With a line-item veto, the President can eliminate the worst excesses of Congress and help reduce overall spending,” CCAGW President Tom Schatz said.   

Congress last instituted a line-item veto in 1996.  Before it was struck down by the Supreme Court, President Bill Clinton vetoed 82 items to save $2 billion over five years.  Rep. Ryan’s version would allow Congress to override the President’s vetoes with a simple majority in the House and Senate, compared with the two-thirds margin required by the old version.

“The line-item veto gives the President a corrective role in the spending equation without sacrificing constitutional principles,” Schatz continued.  “Most opponents of the line-item veto are not protecting Congress’s ‘power of the purse,’ but rather their own pet projects.”    

Most earmarks are quietly slipped into spending bills by individual appropriators without debate.  A disproportionate amount of pork goes to the states and districts of Appropriations Committee members.  The 2006 Congressional Pig Book identified 9,963 pork projects costing a record $29 billion in the fiscal 2006 appropriations bills.  These projects included $1 million for the Waterfree Urinal Conservation Initiative, $550,000 for the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington, $500,000 for the Sparta Teapot Museum in Sparta, North Carolina, and $500,000 for the Arctic Winter Games in Alaska.

Earmarks have played a central role in a wave of ethics and lobbying scandals on Capitol Hill.  Former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.) is serving an eight-year jail sentence for taking $2.4 million in bribes from contractors in exchange for earmarks.  Other members of Congress are being investigated for allegedly profiting from earmarks and for directing earmarks to campaign contributors. 

“The line-item veto is about more than saving tax dollars.  Pork-barrel spending is a cultural disease in Congress.  Earmarks are the currency of corruption and the gateway drug to bigger government.  The line-item veto is a crucial part of overall budget reform.” 

The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.