Congress tries to give president line-item veto

Or a better idea is just not to load up the bills with pork to begin with.

Good some common sense for a change.
If they would just stop adding stuff that has nothing to do with what needs to be passed.

I think the line item veto should be on evrything. Teh idea that things unrelated to a bill can be tacked on at the end to bully its way through in my opinion is legalized corruption

This is the only way to stop the pork and special interest krap that gets attached to virtually every bill, forcing either a veto of important legislation or letting the pork get passed as well. Voters should make note of all congressmen who are against this.

If Congress REALLY wants to give the President a line-item veto, they can do that today with no vote necessary, no controversy and no chance of being over-ruled - just start sending bills that only cover 1 item instead of bundling unrelated things into a single bill.

My Fellow Americans,

This election is of course, as is ALL elections, ALL about the economy.
AND what are Main Street America’s major concerns?

Regardless of who is President or what political party is in office, our Nation’s Spending Priorities are AND always will be:

1. 6%..... Interest on the $15 TRILLION National DEBT (100% of our GDP)
2. 20%... National DEFENSE
3. 14%... Discretionary Spending (Executive, Congressional and Judicial Branches)
4. 60%... Entitlement Spending (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, Unemployment)

BY THE NUMBERS -
33%... One out of every three Federal Tax dollars is LOST due to fraud, waste and gross mismanagement.
33%... One out of every three Federal Tax dollars goes UNCOLLECTED due to the illicit drug trade and the growing underground economy.
40%... Two out of every five Federal Tax dollars is Deficit Spending (BORROWED MONEY).
And all of the above is growing… every year… EXPONENTIALLY!
Now is that stupid as hell or what??

25% / 85%... The top 25% of the American workforce pays 85% of ALL Federal Income Taxes.
47% / ZERO PERCENT... The bottom 47% of the workforce pays ZERO PERCENT of ALL Federal Income Taxes.
Now just exactly what 'fair share' percentage of the Federal Income Taxes should that top 25% of the workforce be paying??

To take our nation from a National DEBT of $15 TRILLION to a National SURPLUS of $4 TRILLION (rainy day fund), in 30 years at 3.50% interest, is going to require Federal Spending CUTS of a TRILLION BUCKS AND Federal Tax Revenue INCREASES of a TRILLION BUCKS.

Those Federal Tax Revenue increases MUST come from a healthy, vibrant, sustainable and growing economy, NOT Federal Tax RATE increases. We MUST grow the pie BIGGER!!

Do you REALLY believe that the Federal Government can do a better job of spending, investing OR donating YOUR HARD EARNED MONEY better than you can??

Do you really want YOUR children and grandchildren ‘investing’ in Social Security or Medicare??

I didn’t think so.

We don’t have a tax problem… but we D**N sure do have a spending problem!
And it is ‘economic’ TREASON to our nation!

Source: IRS, CBO, OMB, Grace Commission Report

I am in 100% agreement with the line item veto power being granted to the President. This common sense rule should have been in place when Washington was Prez.

There would be no need for line item veto if congress would pass single purpose bills. Allowing everyone to tack on the "pork of the day" is what is killing us. If the response is that it would be inefficient, they all could stand to work a little harder and longer.

I'm sorry Mr Hoyer, but you do not dig yourself out of debt by spending the money that you save by cutting expenses.

That would be a great start! Now, if we can get term limits...Ah, who am I kidding? Term limits will never happen as long as congress has to vote it in; it'd be like voting to get laid off....

easy solution, STOP cramming different add ons and pet projects into a simple bill. Heck it should be unconstitutional, after all when I last left Washington State the simple initiatives could only contain one item. What makes DC able to get around that?

Would being able to spend the money on "other" priorities instead of deficit reduction, like Steny Hoyer {democrat] wants, mean buying more $16.00 muffins for administration meetings? Or giving 1/2 BILLION $ loans to Solyndra [bankrupt] or Fiskar cars, which is laying off employees?

Whats this? A slight breath of fresh air concerning fiscal sanity? ANYONE who opposes this BIPARTISAN proposal should be targeted for removal at the next election.

I honestly think this could do more good than bad. It would hopefully discourage law makers from trying to take on addendums not related to the law at hand that either strangle the law or sneak through something undesirable at the cost of getting what you really want done. Yes, it might get abused, but they can always rescind that power. Right now the ability to put pork in bills is by far the greater problem, active abuse that should be curbed and this is a way to do that.

1 - Fast and Furious - Operation Gun Runner
2 - G.E sending 36000 Jobs Overseas,(Obama handpicked G.E. CEO to head his Jobs Committee)
3 - Solyndra
4 - Lightsquared
5 - Increased our deficit over 40% in 2/12 years
6 - The harassment of Gibson Guitars
7 - The Drilling Moratoriums
8 - Soaring FOOD and Gas Prices
9 - NO Shovel Ready Jobs
10 - The Downgrade of America's credit rating ( First time in American history)
11 - First time in American history over 42 MILLION Americans are living in poverty
12 - Never passed a BUDGET ( First time in 34 YEARS)
13 - America drops to 5th place in GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS
14 - Over 400,000 small businesses closing every year under Obama
15 - Our Debt has increased $4,247,000,000,000 in just 945 days! . (That's the fastest increase under any president ever!)
16 - No Summer Recovery
17 - Fed Suing States and States suing Feds
18 - Pressured Retired General Shelton to ALTER his testimony
19 - Enable the LARGEST number of HOME FORECLOSURES
20 - Turn America into the LARGEST FOOD STAMP NATION
21 - Start another War WITHOUT CONGRESSIONAL APPROVAL
22 - Force a Trillion dollar disaster down our throats called Obamacare WITHOUT EVEN READING THE BILL
23 - Create OVER 25 million UNEMPLOYED
24 - Appoint a TAX CHEAT for Sec. of the TREASURY!
25 - Appoint over 34 UN-ELECTED CZARS
26 - Eric Holder turns a blind eye to voter intimidation by the Black Panthers then justifies with racial comments
27 Eric Holder pardons Mark Rich! (indicted on charges of tax evasion and illegal trading with Iran.)
28 - First President to File Lawsuits Against the States He Swore an Oath to Protect
29 - First President to Terminate America's Ability to Put a Man into Space
30 - First President to Tell a Major Manufacturing Company In Which State They Are Allowed to Locate a Factory
31 - First President to Propose an Executive Order Demanding Companies Disclose Their Political Contributions to Bid on Government Contracts
32 - First President to Withdraw an Existing Coal Permit That Had Been Properly Issued Years Ago
33 - First time in American history a President with a Socialist radical anti American past gets elected, with the help of ACORN and the Black Panthers and gets away with it!
34 - Blocks fact finding mission of congressional investigation of solyndra $$$ scandal.
35 - First President to Encourage Racial Discrimination and Intimidation at Polling Places

"minority whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland, voiced opposition, saying that while he had supported line-item veto bills in the past, he thought the bill was too restrictive in requiring that money saved from a rescission go to deficit reduction rather than other priorities"

Steny Hoyer doesn't want his hand removed from the cookie jar. Put him on the long list of Senators from both parties who need voted out!

As long as Congress has the ability to override a Presidential veto then it falls in line with the checks and balances system established by the Constitution.

thank god. There's wayToo much pork barrelling in Congress. Every president needs this power (Rep or Dem) to pluck out the ridiculous clauses that get attached to each bill from the minority party.

Remember these three numbers; The US government spends $10 billion a day (2.75 billion more than we take in), we are in debt $15 trillion (and growing by $2.75 billion per day) and we add over $1 trillion of debt per year.

So when you read that something saved the government $2 billion and you think thats a big number, think again. That $2 billion would cover about an 1-1/2 hours of government spending (8 hour day) and not even eliminate the deficit spending for 1 day.

While I am at, when you hear someone imply that taxing the rich is going to solve our problems.....the top 1% make just over $1 trillion per year collectively and pay a bit more than $300 billion in federal taxes. If you were to increase their marginal tax rate by 10 points (10%), that would cover less than 2 weeks of government spending. It would decrease the annual deficit by about 10%, which is nothing to sneeze at, but that still leaves more than a $1 trillion annual deficit. Don't be disctracted by the politicians over this tax the rich scheme. Its only there to disctract you from the enormity of the problem. Our problems are far beyond taxing the rich. Just look at the numbers and do the math yourself.

To put this in perspective, assuming the government increased taxes on the rich, they would still have to cut more than 30% of the annual spending to iliminate the annual deficit. This would still leave the $15 trillion deficit that we would have to address.

I like this idea. Congress is basically admitting what we have known for years.. it cannot on its own rein in earmarks. Period. Congress (both parties) needs #$%$ spending to be highlighted by someone else, and then it needs to be forced to vote just on the #$%$. No more hiding junk spending as riders in otherwise worthy bills. This is the first bipartisan win-win I have seen since the Clinton years with a GOP Congress.As for executive abuse of power concerns, make the provision sunset every year. Thus, Congress would have the option every year to revoke or continue the power if needed.