Proponent of reform suggest that by prohibiting specific dollar amounts in authorizing legislation, or by mandating longer authorization periods completely separate from the timing of the appropriations cycle, authorizations would be forced to focus on longer-term policy questions, rather than short-term funding issues. Some workload saving would probably accrue from any lengthening of the duration of authorizations. In addition, by more clearly delineating policy and funding questions, supporters claim that spending legislation could be expected to move through the process in a more streamlined fashion, unencumbered by unresolved policy questions. Critics of such proposals maintain that policy and funding questions are inextricable, and that funding questions inherently allow policy questions to be revisited. These critics also claim that by specifying upper or lower limits for appropriations, authorizing committees can enhance their influence over appropriations levels. Further, they contend that the current format of authorizations developed as a means for articulating congressional policy positions and program details, and that authorizations are a significant part of congressional oversight. As such there should not be any formal prohibition on short-term authorizations, especially in volatile policy areas such as foreign assistance. B. Impact on the Deficit Although the idea of removing authorization limits from authorizations seems counter-productive in the current fiscal climate, supporters of this option contend that aggregate level control of appropriations (through the allocation process under Section 302 of the Budget Act or appropriations spending caps under the Budget Enforcement Act) would continue to be effective, and that the only impact would be on priorities within the aggregate amounts. Issues Raised by Restructuring Appropriations Subcommittees The Appropriations Committees of both the House and Senate currently operate with 13 parallel subcommittees which each report a single general appropriations bill annually. This subcommittee structure is the result of a piecemeal evolution rather than any single plan for alignment. In addition, the jurisdictional alignment of the subcommittees doesn't correspond to any other alignment system. The result is that appropriations for such diverse entities as the Departments of Housing and Urban Development and Veterans' Affairs and some large independent agencies (such as NASA and NSF) are considered as part of the same appropriations bill; defense appropriations are considered in the Department of Defense and Military Construction appropriations bills (and form a substantial portion of the Department of Energy's appropriations as well); and authorizations in the jurisdiction of the House Energy and Commerce Committee are considered by several different Appropriations subcommittees. The differences between the structure of the budget resolution and appropriations jurisdictions is also the subject of criticism. The budget resolution and the allocations to committees under section 302(a) of the Budget Act are made on the basis of functional categories, so that the connection of these allocations to the suballocations made by committees under section 302(b) is sometimes unclear. A realignment which established a more cohesive system for structuring appropriations bills could increase clarity in the spending process. For example, proponents of such a reform suggest that if there was a closer correspondence between functional categories and Appropriations subcommittees, the impact of decisions made in the budget resolution might be clearer. Opponents point out that although the groupings of entities under the jurisdiction of Appropriations subcommittees may have developed in an ad hoc manner, they do have a rational alignment based on programmatic/administrative issues. Functional categories are not based on what entities actually administer spending within the category. As a consequence, an alignment based on functional categories might be counterproductive in terms of overall clarity by fragmenting decision making with respect to a particular department or agency. Unless the number of Appropriations subcommittees and appropriations bills were reduced in such a realignment, it does not seem likely that there would be any significant reduction of workload. However, the workload could be substantially reallocated within the appropriations process. For example, the amount of time for floor consideration of appropriations bills is roughly equal although the level of funding varies widely. This may have the effect of raising the salience of some issues with comparatively modest spending impact and reducing the salience of others with greater impact. Realigning Appropriations subcommittees could have an impact by making the spending level of appropriations bills and the time allocated for their consideration generally more proportional Questions 1. Is the primary purpose of dispersing appropriations jurisdiction to increase clarity of responsibility for budgetary actions or to reduce congressional workload? 2. Is parity of appropriations jurisdiction between House and Senate necessary to make the system work? 3. Does the system which gives nominally equal importance to the District of Columbia appropriations bill and the Department of Defense appropriations bill distort the process? 4. Could the structure of Appropriations subcommittees be changed? Could the number of subcommittees be reduced? Could they be realigned more closely with authorizing committees? Could they be realigned to correspond with the functional categories in the budget resolution? Would it be necessary for the House and Senate to realign along parallel lines? Line Item Veto and Statutory Alternatives Many Presidents have sought the authority to reduce or eliminate specific items in appropriation bills, a power possessed by 43 of the 50 state governors. The President currently has only two options--either to sign or veto a bill in its entirety. Proponents of the item veto say that this limits the President's ability to eliminate wasteful spending. Accordingly, they propose to empower the President to reduce particular portions of appropriation bills (called line items), while approving the balance of the bill. They argue that the President, as a representative of the general interest, should have the power to strike provisions that serve only a narrow interest. Proposals to Provide the President with Line Item Veto Authority The line item veto was originally proposed as a constitutional amendment. More recently, however, various statutory changes have been proposed that would provide the President with the authority to veto particular line items, without amending the Constitution. *A constitutional amendment could be enacted that would provide the President with additional options. Such an amendment could be proposed by twothirds of those voting in each House and would need to be ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures. Already in the 103rd Congress, more than ten such proposals have been introduced. Most of these proposed amendments would allow the President to eliminate particular line items, although some of them would also permit him to reduce budget authority for particular items. *Enhanced rescission proposals are designed to have the same effect as the item veto, without requiring a constitutional amendment. They would change the current procedures for rescinding--or canceling--appropriations after enactment. At least three different such proposals have been introduced during the 103rd Congress. The proposals receiving the greatest attention in the 102nd Congress were the Solomon proposal (H.R. 5915) and the Coats-McCain proposal (S. 196). Currently, the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 permits the President to propose the rescission (in whole or in part) of budget authority, which takes effect only if approved by each House within 45 days of continuous session after it is proposed. The Congress can effectively disapprove Presidential rescission proposals by ignoring them. Enhanced rescission (often called "legislative line item veto") proposals would reverse the existing procedure. A Presidentially-proposed rescission would automatically take effect unless disapproved by both House of Congress through passage of a "rescission disapproval bill". This bill could then be vetoed by the President, and it would take a two-thirds vote of both Houses to override. In effect, enhanced rescission would force vetoed items to face the same test as a constitutionally-enacted line item veto. Many analysts argue that enhanced rescission is an even more potent tool for the President than a line item veto enacted by Constitutional amendment, since it would permit the President to define the nature of a "line item" (there is currently no specific definition). While a constitutional amendment would allow the Congress to limit the President's options by creating very large line items in appropriation bills, enhanced rescission would permit the President to define a line item as a much smaller, and more discrete, portion of spending in an appropriation bill. Consider a case in which the Congress passed the entire appropriation for the Treasury Department as a single line item, but the President wished to eliminate the budget for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). If the item veto were enacted as a constitutional amendment, he could not eliminate funding for the IRS without striking funds for the whole Treasury Department. Enhanced rescission authority would allow him to propose rescission of only the IRS budget, leaving the rest of the Treasury budget in tact. *Expedited rescission proposals (such as H.R. 2164, which passed the House in the last days of the 102nd Congress) are more limited in their grant of authority to the President. They would require the Congress to vote on rescissions proposed by the President; a simple majority vote would prevail. In this case, though, the President is accorded an agenda-setting role. Congressional spending that he disagrees with must face an additional test, but is not required to receive the support of extraordinary majorities in each House in order to be enacted. H.R. 2164 would have enacted this change as a pilot test that would have terminated at the conclusion of the 102nd Congress. *Requiring line items to be enrolled separately is the final proposed statutory alternative to the item veto. Such proposals would require the clerk of each House to enroll each item in an appropriation act (or tax bill) as a separate bill, for purposes of presentment to the President. This means, of course, that the President would be able to veto individual items of appropriation (or changes in tax law) through the normal veto process. Senator Hollings has advanced such proposals in the 103rd Congress and the 102nd Congress. Senator Bradley has advocated, but not introduced, a bill that would extend this authority to tax legislation as well. Issues Raised by Such Item Veto Proposals and Statutory Alternatives Proponents of the line-item veto argue that a lot of wasteful spending currently occurs because provisions are added during the legislative process. Many of these, it is argued, do not benefit the larger public interest but benefit only narrow constituencies. Further, many of these "riders" are added in conference committees without much public scrutiny. Item-veto supporters say that by |