Posted by Tina
The WSJ reports some intriguing ideas put forth by John Boehner at a recent American Enterprise Institute conference. One would reform the policy put forth during the Nixon years that removed presidential power to stop congressional spending:
Mr. Boehner suggested that “we ought to start at square one and give serious consideration to revisiting, and perhaps rewriting, the 1974 Budget Act.” Now he’s getting somewhere. That law, passed over the veto of a Watergate-weakened Richard Nixon, further rigged the budget process to abet spending. It killed the President’s impoundment power not to spend money, and it established the annual “budget baseline” that makes spending increases automatic. Thus even a reduction in the amount of spending increase in a program becomes a budget “cut” that special interests can attack.
This one idea alone would put a big smile on a lot of American’s faces. Let’s hope they win the opportunity to do this and a lot more to limit spending and the size of government.