Author: Fritz Pettyjohn

I have an article out tomorrow at The American Thinker website.  Deputy Editor Monica Showalter helped shape it up, and my thanks to her.

As the article reveals, I want to set up an organization called Americans for a Line Item Veto (ALIVE).  For now, ALIVE’s website will be the Reagan Project.   So here’s the first ALIVE Bulletin.

Looking into the political history of the line item reveals:

1.  A campaign is underway in ultra-blue Rhode Island to give the Governor the line-item veto.  The campaign’s website says that of their 38 State Senators, 37 are in favor, none opposed, and one unknown.
2. On the 1996 vote to give President Clinton the line-item veto by statute, the following voted yea;  John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Diane Feinstein and Joe Biden.
3. The only organized opposition to the line-item veto is the John Birch Society.  Why were we not surprised?

Right now, Congress writes the budget, in a manner of speaking.  That’s why it’s a national disgrace.  The President’s budget is dead on arrival.  With the line-item veto, everything changes.  The President’s budget is the budget.  Any legislative increases can be vetoed, one by one.

The founding fathers most feared an executive tyrant, or king, so the Presidency is a deliberately weak institution.  All the power was given to Congress.  The states, using Article V, are taking some of that power from Congress, and the only place to put it is in the Presidency.

Putting Congress in its place is very good politics.  The politics of Article V are like a great untapped dome of oil, ready with a gusher of votes for the man who taps in to it.

Politics is selling candidates or policy.  Article V advocates are selling the policy of fiscal restraint, and have unwisely chosen as their brand “the balanced budget amendment.”  The words are those of an accountant.  They’re awkward.  A better brand is needed to make this sale.  Who, other than economist, get excited or inspired by the term “balanced budget amendment”?

“Line-item veto” just sounds punchier.  Nobody knows what balanced budget amendment really would be,  so it fails to strike a chord.  Everybody knows what a veto is, and line-item is a money term, so it translates into stopping the spending of money.  You don’t have to be budget bug to know exactly what it means.

We need a new organization, something like Americans for the Line Item Veto (ALIVE) or Citizens for the Line Item Veto (CLIVE).  As a brand, the “Balanced Budget Amendment Task Force (BBATF)” won’t be missed.

We need a new name to go with our new mission  — which is to balance the budget with the line-item veto.  The President will be responsible for balancing the budget.  We will have given him the power.  The responsibility comes with it.  Congress is so corrupt, and Congressmen so entrenched, that it has become unaccountable.

Presidents are accountable, as Trump will be in 2020.  Let him take full ownership of the deficit, and see what he can do with it.

The power of Congress has corrupted it, and must be reduced

A line-item veto is a transfer of power from Congress to the President.  This would be the first such transfer in our history.  The only other Constitutional changes that are comparable are the direct election of Senators and Presidential term limits.

The 17th Amendment stripped state legislatures of their power to elect Senators.  They deserved it.  A seat in United States Senate was a prize that for sale to the highest bidder.  The corruption of the state legislatures caused their loss of power.

President Franklin Roosevelt showed that a skilled politician could become President for life.  The 22nd Amendment was a repudiation of the concentration of power in the President.  Roosevelt’s refusal to give up power meant his successors were term limited..

And so it is with Congress and the line item veto.  They have richly earned their comeuppance, giving us 21 trillion reasons to reduce their spending powers.

A political campaign for the line-item veto is a campaign against Congress, and, effectively, its leaders.  As such, right now it’s hard to see how it could lose.  Whoever leads such a campaign will be richly rewarded, politically.

 

A dozen phone calls would do it.

  The President says this is the only way to fix the budget process.  His predecessors, from Ulysses S. Grant to Reagan to Obama, have wanted this authority.  Trump now believes this is also the only way to get around the filibuster.

The BBA Task Force, which I have been affiliated with for five years, has passed state legislative Resolutions across the country, calling for a Balanced Budget Amendment.  We have never recommended what the content of the Amendment would be.  There are so many ideas, to select only one would have unnecessarily alienated some devoted budget balancers.

As a result, when we’re asked, “What would a Balanced Budget Amendment actually say?”, we have no answer.  In one sense, we’ve been asking state legislators to buy a pig in a poke.  State legislators will decide at the Amendment Convention, we say, and they’ll come up with a good product.

But we don’t know that, and it’s unconvincing.  So I propose we change tactics, and push the line-item veto as the goal of a BBA.  The Amendment Convention will be controlled by the conservative legislative leaders of the thirty-plus red states.  If Trump asks for the line-item veto, they’ll give it to him.   I know these people, many of them personally, and they are the most pro-Trump group of politicians in the country.  They will be ready to follow the President’s recommendations.

In my opinion, the Amendment Convention should propose a line-item veto, and then adjourn.  It’s one thing everyone can agree on, and it’s something the public can understand.  You do not want to try to sell a multi-subject Constitutional Amendment.  Anything beyond the line-item veto will only antagonize some sector of the electorate, so “keep it simple, stupid”.  It’s always good politics.

Typical of the twelve calls will be one to Montana State Senate President Scott Sales, Republican from Bozeman.  Senator Sales is afraid of a runaway convention.  The President must assure him that he will, personally, never allow that to happen.  And tell him how much he wants that line-item veto.  Make twelve such calls to state legislative leaders in six Republican-controlled state legislatures, and we’ll get to 34 next year.  The Amendment Convention could be held in late summer, and the ratification could be done by State Conventions before the end of 2019.  If all went according to plan, Trump could have a line-item veto at the beginning of 2020, with the 2020 Presidential election just months away.

We’ve got the names and the numbers.  But the President has to make the calls.

A balanced budget amendment can alter the balance of power between the Congress and the President.  The President needs more than a veto.  He must be allowed to reduce or eliminate individual expenditures.  The executive must never be allowed to appropriate money, but he should be authorized not to spend all that Congress wants.  All this can be included in the amendment to be proposed at the BBA Article V Convention.

A budget can be limited by restrictions on spending, or by increasing revenue.  Or it can be limited by Presidential veto.  Or some combination of the three.  In one amendment, to balance the budget.

President Trump loves the exercise of power.  It’s almost like sex.  He wants as much as he can get.  This idea ought to appeal to him.  The problem is convincing him that it’s feasible.

Eventually, the case will be put before him.  He’ll need to act immediately after the fall elections.  That’s how long we’ve got to get to him.