Congress And The Line Item Veto Fiscal Responsibility Or Constitutional Folly

On March 28,1996 the United States Congress passed a historic bill giving the president the equivalent of a line item veto authority. The measure was among the most significant new laws produced by the 104th Congress - and among the very few on which the hard line, deficit-cutting Republicans and President Clinton readily agreed What made the action more surprising was the willingness Congress displayed to relinquish a significant portion of its long cherished and jealously guarded power of the purse. By passing the Line Item Veto Act of 1996, (PL 104-130), Congress granted the nation's chief executive an important budgetary power actively sought by White House occupants since the post-Civil War presidency of Ulysses S. Grant.