Enhanced Rescission: A Bad Idea That Would Save Little And Would Replace Congressional Pork With White House Pork.

Yesterday's White House proposal to give the President an up-or-down vote without amendments on "enhanced rescissions" from appropriations bills would:

 

1. Save little -- maybe a few billion or a few tens of billions a year, but nothing major. This GAO report shows, from 1974 through 2008, presidents have proposed $76 billion of rescissions and Congress has approved $25 billion of them. Congress itself has passed $222 billion of rescissions;

 

2. Would substitute White House pork for congressional pork -- Unless you have worked in the right places in Washington, you rarely see how much White House pork moves into bills before Congress. We tend to focus on congressional pork without realizing that presidents will use additional power to rescind as a lever to gain votes or to punish those who don't go along or to reward supporters. A president may generate some modest budgetary savings on balance compared to what Congress wanted to spend, but it wouldn't be worth the price in my opinion.

 

3. Further enhance the president's power at the expense of Congress. The Founding Fathers were very smart and experienced people. They meant it when they put the power of the purse in the "people's House," where all tax and spending bills must originate. American presidents have long wielded more spending power than the Founding Fathers ever intended. I wouldn't give the president more power over the purse.