Legislative Line Item Veto Act and Other Expedited Rescission Bills: Brief Overview Page: 1 of 6
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Order Code RS22425
April 20, 2006
CR8 Report for Congress
Received through the CRS Web
Legislative Line Item Veto Act and Other
Expedited Rescission Bills: Brief Overview
Virginia A. McMurtry
Specialist in American National Government
Government and Finance Division
Summary
Under current law, if the President wants to rescind (cancel) funding provided in
an appropriations act, he must transmit a special message to Congress and obtain the
approval of both houses within 45 days of continuous session, or the funds must be
released. Instead of allowing Congress to ignore presidential rescission requests,
"expedited rescission" requires at least one house to vote on his proposals. A draft
measure from the Bush Administration incorporating expedited rescission has been
introduced as H.R. 4890 and S. 2381; and H.R. 2290 (Section 311), H.R. 4699, and S.
2372 contain similar provisions. Expedited rescission bills have attracted supporters
over the years, because the approach is generally regarded as transferring less power
from Congress to the President than most other ways to alter the rescission framework.
This report will be updated as events may warrant.
Background
Under the framework established by the Impoundment Control Act (ICA) of 1974
(P.L. 93-344, 88 Stat. 297), whenever the President wants to rescind (cancel) budget
authority, he must transmit a special message to Congress and obtain the support of both
houses within 45 days of continuous session. If denied congressional approval during this
time period, the President has to make the budget authority available to executive
agencies for obligation and expenditure.
President George W. Bush had access to the item veto as Governor of Texas and has
called repeatedly for similar authority for the President, most recently in his State of the
Union address on January 31, 2006, when he noted, "We can tackle this problem [of too
many special interest 'earmark' projects] together, if you pass the line-item veto."' An
'Constitutions in 43 states provide an item veto to allow the Governor to eliminate discrete items
in a bill before signing the measure into law, but a constitutional amendment would be necessary
to give the President such "true" line item veto authority. Various statutory alternatives such as
expedited rescission are sometimes referred to as giving the President a "line item veto"; this is
not entirely accurate, but calls attention to some functional similarities.
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Legislative Line Item Veto Act and Other Expedited Rescission Bills: Brief Overview, report, April 20, 2006; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc817391/m1/1/: accessed April 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.