Crossing the line

Always ready to welcome a new convert, even President Bush discovering fiscal restraint:

WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- In a welcome message to the new Democratic Party-controlled Congress, U.S. President George Bush asked to be given line-item veto authority for spending bills.

'One important message I took away from the (Nov. 7) election is that people want to end the secretive process by which Washington insiders are able to slip into legislation billions of dollars of pork-barrel projects that have never been reviewed or voted on by Congress,' Bush said. 'It`s time Congress give the president a line-item veto.'

Every modern president has wanted the line-item veto, but no Congress has been willing to confer it, precisely because those Washington insiders like being able to slip those billions into giant omnibus bills. Bush wasn't able to get the line item from a Republican-controlled Congress, and he's asking for it from a Democratic one? The line-item veto is a good idea even if it turned out not to save that much money, because it would promote accountability. But that's why a president isn't likely to get it. Who wants to have to vote by name to override the veto of the bridge to nowhere?

The federal government wouldn't exactly be breaking new ground here. The governors of all but seven states have the line-item veto? Would you be shocked to learn that Indiana is one of the seven? How about it, Mr. Bauer, Mr. Long?