A) Republicans thought that they were likely to benefit in future (with a Republican president)
B) They might have thought they’d benefit in the present too (e.g. By inserting clauses into bills that would be popular with supporters, but which they knew Clinton would line-item veto; so he gets the flack)
C) They calculated it would likely reduce government spend overall (by preventing “must-pass” bills being stuffed full of pork)
C) They calculated it would likely reduce government spend overall (by preventing “must-pass” bills being stuffed full of pork)
That was the public goal of the line item veto, and I would imagine that both President Clinton and the vast majority of members of Congress wanted to decrease the amount of pork in the budget (even if those same members wanted to increase the amount of pork for their state or district).
This model of the line-item veto game makes a few faulty assumptions that make it a poor representation of reality:
It represents the relationship between the Republican Congress and President Clinton as essentially zero-sum (given the possibility of a deadlock, it’s not quite zero-sum, but very close), when in reality, they had some shared goals beyond just averting a government shut-down
It models Congress as a single agent, when it is really 535 agents. Note to non-Americans: the two parties that dominate American politics generally use primaries to select their candidates for Congress, and it is very rare for a member of Congress seeking re-election to change districts, which means that keeping voters in one’s home district happy is typically more important to members of Congress than keeping party officials happy.
It models the line-item veto as a much coarser instrument than it was. It would have given the President the ability to veto funding for particular projects, not just “increased domestic spending” or “increased military spending.”
Because members of Congress answer more to their own districts than to party leadership, there is a tragedy of the commons problem where each member has a strong incentive to go after pork in their own district/state, and although they all want less pork, no one has much incentive to do anything about it. The line item veto would have given one person the ability and incentive to address the issue.
Not sure about the politics, but presumably:
A) Republicans thought that they were likely to benefit in future (with a Republican president)
B) They might have thought they’d benefit in the present too (e.g. By inserting clauses into bills that would be popular with supporters, but which they knew Clinton would line-item veto; so he gets the flack)
C) They calculated it would likely reduce government spend overall (by preventing “must-pass” bills being stuffed full of pork)
That was the public goal of the line item veto, and I would imagine that both President Clinton and the vast majority of members of Congress wanted to decrease the amount of pork in the budget (even if those same members wanted to increase the amount of pork for their state or district).
This model of the line-item veto game makes a few faulty assumptions that make it a poor representation of reality:
It represents the relationship between the Republican Congress and President Clinton as essentially zero-sum (given the possibility of a deadlock, it’s not quite zero-sum, but very close), when in reality, they had some shared goals beyond just averting a government shut-down
It models Congress as a single agent, when it is really 535 agents. Note to non-Americans: the two parties that dominate American politics generally use primaries to select their candidates for Congress, and it is very rare for a member of Congress seeking re-election to change districts, which means that keeping voters in one’s home district happy is typically more important to members of Congress than keeping party officials happy.
It models the line-item veto as a much coarser instrument than it was. It would have given the President the ability to veto funding for particular projects, not just “increased domestic spending” or “increased military spending.”
Because members of Congress answer more to their own districts than to party leadership, there is a tragedy of the commons problem where each member has a strong incentive to go after pork in their own district/state, and although they all want less pork, no one has much incentive to do anything about it. The line item veto would have given one person the ability and incentive to address the issue.