Ryan, Feingold call for presidential support of line item veto

After President Barack Obama indicated his interest in line item veto legislation introduced by Democratic Senator Russ Feingold and Republican Congressman Paul Ryan at a meeting with Republican members of the House of Representatives, Feingold and Ryan wrote to the president asking to meet and discuss their bipartisan proposal. The line item veto legislation introduced by Sen. Feingold and Rep. Ryan would give the president the authority to cancel wasteful, unauthorized pet projects and send these earmarks back to Congress to vote on whether or not to rescind, or cancel, the funding.

“Unauthorized congressional earmarks are a serious problem. For all the lip service Congress pays to this issue, there are still thousands of earmarked spending provisions enacted every year,” the legislators wrote. “We believe that this tool will provide you with the means to both reduce earmarks, as well as promote transparency in the earmark process by highlighting egregious requests. With the enormous budget challenges facing our nation, it has never been more necessary to limit this abusive practice.”

The Feingold and Ryan line item veto proposal requires both the House and Senate to vote, up or down, on the spending the president proposes to cancel. If both houses pass the proposed measure, the spending is cancelled and the resulting savings is used to reduce the deficit.