Well, that was unexpected.
President Trump just signed the $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill into law moments ago. This came after the President threatened to veto the bill, arguing that it didn’t contain a solution for individuals protected by the Obama-era DACA program, which is currently in legal limbo, or funding for the border wall between Mexico and the United States.
Minutes after Trump issued his veto threat, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis immediately called him up to warn him that putting military funding at risk wasn’t a good idea. It looks like Trump got the message, and has signed the law into effect.
But not before making a huge demand of Congress: the power of the line-item veto.
The line-item veto is an authority many governors have, and it allows them to strike items from budgets they deem to be unnecessary, superfluous, and unconstitutional. For instance, a Republican president could veto spending on Planned Parenthood in a budget passed by Congress if he or she deemed it fit.
You can check out Trump making the demand below:
Unhappy with concessions in omnibus spending bill, Pres. Trump calls on Congress “to give me a line-item veto for all government spending bills.” https://t.co/fBMEKzHiX4 pic.twitter.com/cmdzMQ4QGI
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) March 23, 2018
Trump is not the first president to demand the power of the line-item veto. Both Obama and Bush sought the authority to strike certain spending priorities from budgets.
There’s just one problem with the line-item veto, and it’s a constitutional doozy. The power vested in the line-item veto actually amounts to an executive – the president – being able to legislate by virtue of choosing what actually gets funded in a government budget. That’s not how the executive branch of our federal government was designed, however. The president enforces the law – he does not make them.
As George Will once wrote, “The line-item veto expresses liberalism’s faith in top-down government and the watery Caesarism that has produced today’s inflated presidency.”
It’s doubtful that Congress will ever hand over the power of the line-item veto to a president. We should be thankful for that.
What do you think of Trump’s request for the line-item veto authority? Tell us your thoughts below!
