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McCain, Ryan Push for Line-Item Veto


Well, Senator ignore-our-Constitution McCain is at it again and looking to subjugate the delicate balance of power our founding fathers created between the Legislature and Presidency. Mr. McCain pretends to us that line item veto power being exercised by President Obama is in our best interests and will lead to ending pork barrel spending. But the truth is, if line item veto were available to President Obama or any president, special interest projects and pork barrel spending favored by the president would prevail over projects and pork disfavored by him.


But let us take a look at the intentions and beliefs under which our Constitution was adopted and is what McCain is looking to overturn.

Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution contains a specific procedure for the president to follow regarding a bill having passed both houses of Congress

''__if he approve, he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated__''

No allowance has been granted to the president by the Constitution to alter a bill to his own liking by striking some parts and leaving others, and attempting to have a bill so amended enacted into law.


Likewise, no provision can be pointed to in our Constitution granting power to Congress to overrule the specific procedure stated in Article 1, Section 7 and vest in the president a power favored by McCain..


Madison`s Notes on the Convention of 1787 informs us that only three of the original 13 states allowed their executive to exercise a veto power (Massachusetts, South Carolina and New York), And, in discussing veto power, Benjamin Franklin, on June 4 of the Constitutional Convention, reminds the delegates how the veto power had been exercised by royal governors and why the convention should not grant such power to the president:


''The negative of the governor was constantly made use of to extort money. No good law whatever could be passed without a private bargain with him. An increase of salary or some donation, was always made a condition; till at last, it became the regular practice to have orders in his favor on the treasury presented along with the bills to be signed, so that he might actually receive the former before he should sign the latter. When the Indians were scalping the Western people, and notice of it arrived, the concurrence of the governor in the means of self-defense could not be got, until it was agreed that the people were to fight for the security of his property, whilst he was to have no share of the burdens of taxation.''

The Convention finally did reach a compromise, and granted veto power to the president, but only in the limited fashion as detailed in Article 1, Section 7, which preempts the kind of presidential blackmail which line-item veto most assuredly would resurrect and which McCain supports!


If McCain is sincere in wanting to control reckless spending and borrowing, and encourage Congress to start practicing sound fiscal policy, he ought to be promoting our Founding Father’s plan, and in particular, the founder’s method of extinguishing deficits created by Congress’s pork barrel spending. This method would make every member of Congress immediately accountable to their State Governor and Legislature should Congress borrow to finance its pork during the course of a fiscal year!


Under the founders plan, if insufficient revenue was raised by Congress from its normal taxing powers, [imposts, duties and miscellaneous excise taxes] and Congress borrowed to pay for its pork, Congress was then intended to lay a direct tax among the states for the total sum of the deficit created.


To insure protection against the abuse of the direct taxing power found in our Constitution [including class warfare], our founding fathers provided a fair share formula to be followed which determines each State`s share when Congress decides to call upon the people of the various States to extinguish a deficit created by Congress.

Considering subsequent amendments to our Constitution, that fair share formula may be represented as follows:



State`s population
-------------------------------X SUM TO BE RAISED = STATE`S SHARE
Total U.S. Population




The theory of the founder`s fair share formula is very much part of federalism and is based upon a conservative idea ___ Representation with proportional obligation,___ an idea which socialists and the friends of big government dread with a passion!


After determining each state`s share of the total sum to be raised using the fair share formula, each State`s Congressional Delegation is to return to their own state with a bill for their State`s share of the sum being raised and the various state Governors and Legislatures are to be left with the responsibility of transferring their State`s share from the state treasury into the treasury of the United States, or, raising additional taxes within the state and then transferring that money into the treasury of the United States. For documentation of this tax being practiced see: Act laying a direct tax for $3 million August 2, 1813, and each state`s share of the tax. Also see:Section 7 of direct tax of 1813 allowing states to pay their respective quotas and be entitled to certain deductions.


Those who claim to want fiscal accountability from Congress ought to ask themselves what would happen to the king of pork, the pride and joy of Pennsylvania, Representative John Murtha, if he should have to return home with a bill for his state Governor and Legislature to pay to finance the millions of pork barrel earmarks he now channels to his district by plundering the federal treasury?


The point is, our founder`s plan provides a very real moment of accountability when Congress finds it necessary to borrow and yet, not one of our Republican members of Congress including Senator McCain, dares to promote our Constitution’s solution to pork barrel borrowing and spending.


Maybe this is because there are no loopholes and no manipulation if Congress decides to borrow, and, those state congressional delegations with the biggest mouth in Congress, who would dare use their large voting strength to squander federal revenue, create big government or send our money to distant lands through a “United Nationsâ€