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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (March 28, 1995)
EDITORIAL New veto power needed\ overdue The Senate parsed a bill last week which could moan n now and potentially more cost-effective way of doing business in Wsshi'ig!4*? That bill is the line-item veto. The line-item veto, which has been sought by various representatives and senators for years, gives the presi dent the right to veto individual items spending in a bill, commonly railed “lino items * It has boon argued that a lino-item veto disturbs the balance of power between the legislative and executive branches of government. However, the truth is that the benefits of this new veto outweigh the possible nega tives suggested by opponents. The line-item veto will promote fiscal responsibility in Congress The object of the bill is not to give the exe< - utivo brant h sweeping new powers, but to give the pres ident the power to eliminate wasteful or unneeded spending. The president, as goes the logic, doesn't have the same kind of political pressure from constituents that senators anti representatives do and can look more impartially at spending items than can others Members of Congress will no longer have reason to sneak unnecessary or inflated funding measures into a bill for folks back home in tin* hope that the president will look past it and sign the entire bill Into law. With a line-item veto, the president need only veto the one line in the bill, rather than the entire bill as has been previously required Although the bill was brought up in a Republican controlled Congress, it is important to note that a line item veto is not a Republican issue, but one of fiscal responsibility Rather than disrupt the system of < hecks and balances as they had been envisioned when the Constitution was written, this system adds a muc h needed choc k — individual items of funding that Con gress passes will undergo a final review by the presi dent. It is true that, some day in the future, the line-item veto could become more of a partisan weapon than a cost-cutting tool. A president can, theoretically, veto an item for any reason and that could translate into cut ting Out spending for political rather than fiscal reasons. That would Ihi unfortunate and beyond the spirit of the line item veto, but that is a risk that must be taken when additional powers are given to other branches of gov ernment. Tire tool now given to the executive branch must be used wisely and with discretion. The line-item veto, already enjoyed by most state gov ernors, Is long overdue for the president. If used to elim inate wasteful spending, it has the potential to eliminate billions of dollars annually of waste of taxpayer dollars Who could disagree with something that simple? The line-item veto will he a powerful new tool that will, if used as has berm proposed, f>e a positive and use ful new weapon in the fight against wasteful federal spending. 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Oa>i. ■ V e* Newvoom iAO liu 0*»pi«y AdvertlMftg MB-37t2 Bu*ma** Ofrxa 346 S512 Ctas*if»ad Advertising 346-4343 " The trouble is these things are so eas/y to produce that almost anyone can do it” /"^tENWOUSf tip gas * v> A. -<*■««• Wav L **i '* A*tA. lit */oknv A&ounr ruts t***fuiv£0 •vtXTHE* CUAfiS UP o \ / 43 ££. it % 'jjJ ■ OPINION Spring break in Troutdale means TV Robbi* Rhvls With the beginning of spring term, it's time for everyone to snap out of the spring break daze and into tin* sober reality of the new term Damn. When many people 1 know talked about spring break venter day visions were evoked of some tropical paradise with Hit degree weather and blinding sun. usually complete with palm trees and drinks Invari ably. the sun tan was indicative of a destination of Tahiti or Mexico, if not a nuclear fireball. 1. on the other hand, spent my spring break on the cheap Sit ting at home in a little town c alled Troutdale — somewhere near the distant edge of civilisa tion in the Portland area — I soaked up a different kind of radiation, the TV. The wav I figure, we're all get ting c ancer in the long run am - wav. plus it was spring break, when all cerebral thought is optional, so 1 vegetated I'm proud of it. too, A friend here at the Emerald (who. for the purpose of retain ing intac t his/her image, will remain nameless) reintroduc ed me to the world of trashy teiev i sion talk shows 1 used to glance at them years ago, wav ba< k in the pioneering days of Geraldo After all. who c an forget the time that Geraldo got his nose bashed by a c hair in a fight on TV7 Times have changed, a* l have now realized Instead of broken noses being adventurous, guests on talk shows are being mur dered, as a recent interviewee on the /film-Jours show recent ly realized I couldn't even count the number of new shows, but from the look* of a couple of them, Oprah. I’lnl and Sally look like they could he nominated for sainthood. However, to give equal credit where it is due. the zillions of other losers with talk shows during the day are quite creative in topics for their shows and even more so in finding guests in fact, one such show had a man with a rup piece about the fallopian tubes. Enough said. It'll he another five years before I watch that allow again. Tuning through tin* dial, being the political junkie that I am (compounded by the fact that spring break lasts all of nine davsl. i caught up on Congress with a tom h of ( SPAN ('-SPAN, of course, is that net work where live proceedings of Congress are broadcast to the world 1 tend to think of it as America airing its dirty laundry to the world I tuned in for part of the debate on welfare reform This is the debate where, as some might have seen, some Republi cans compared welfare recipi ents to alligators and wolves, while opposing Democrats, a! times, m reamed. "Si! down and shut up!" to the Republicans This, my friends, is the democracy that we brag to the res! of the w orld a!>uut Only in America would we actually broadcast it. And 1 thought that I was watching some sort o! sick comedy. It was clear that it was time to reach for the remote Actually, after (" SPAN. I think that I dived, si reaming, (or it Ah, the next channel was quite a find. Unfortunately, Emerald rules prohibit me from mentioning any more, specifi cally the fact that 1 spent a total of 10 hours of my spring break watching certain legal proceed ings from the state of (California But then again, if I did tell you that I saw the ex-football star intently watching testimony from the Los Angeles detective and the long-blond-haired brain less friend of the defendant. I'd probably be strung up by most of the people reading this, not to mention the Emerald staff But if you have any doubt as to who I'm talking about, turn on CNN It s on for five or six hours a day But as bad as all of this can (a*, it couldn't l>e anywhere near as had os the news 1 caught a little of (CNN and enough of the Today Shun to see that Jane Pauley left But from nerve gas being spread in Tokyo to several gasbag presidential < andidates laying the groundwork for their stab at the presidency, 1 deter mined that 1 prefer to live in the land of the unreal. After all, that's why I live in Troutdale and watch the tube during spring break As you can see. spring break isn't all bad in Troutdale. After catching up on all of the trash on television in the time allot ted. 1 fool reborn, tike a new man of sorts. Or, at least, until the in room i able TV installation is completed in the dorms Here's to another break in front of the tube! Robbie Reeves is the editorial editor for the Emerald ■ LETTERS POLICY The Oregon Daily Emerald will attempt to print alt letters containing comments on topics of interest to the University community. The Emerald reserves the right to edit any letter for length or style.
