Republican-Led House Approves Line-Item Veto for President

There is a distinct reason the Founders did not have a line-item veto for the President and laid the power of the purse with the House only!

“But Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers, R-Ky., said he opposed the measure because it would weaken the authority of Congress and give the president “a power that our founding fathers did not see fit to give to him.” He added that a president can use the line-item veto to give preferences to his own spending priorities.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans put aside their usual antipathy toward President Barack Obama on Wednesday to give the president, and his successors, the line-item veto, a constitutionally questionable power over the purse that long has been sought by presidents of both parties.

A minority of Democrats joined in casting a 254-173 vote in favor of allowing the president to pick out specific items in spending bills for elimination. Currently, the chief executive must sign or veto spending bills in their entirety.