Transcripts

Commentary: Taking Sides In The Line-Item Spending Veto

SUSIE GHARIB: In tonight`s commentary, making the line-item spending veto a national priority. Here`s Daniel Henninger, deputy editor of the editorial page of the "Wall Street Journal."

DANIEL HENNINGER, DEPUTY EDITOR, WALL STREET JOURNAL EDITORIAL PAGE: With a war in its third year, President Bush`s approval rating is hauling through history in the mid-30s, no surprise there. What Vince Lombardi is supposed to have said about football is no less true of a nation at war: winning isn`t everything; it is the only thing.

That said, it is not good for this country`s governance to have a president with many months left in his term at such low ebb in popular approval, including among members of his own party. Mr. Bush`s Republican problems aren`t with the war, but are almost wholly caused by the rising levels of congressional spending, a subject new White House chief of staff Josh Bolten knows well. The Bush people argue they cannot afford a big spending fight with Congress amid a major war and they have a point.

Budget bills are monstrous things making vetoes hard. Ironically, during the Vietnam war, a Democratic controlled Congress took away the ability to veto individual spending items from Richard Nixon. We now find the nation in a hard war with a president lacking real power to discipline Congress. George W. Bush has sent Congress a new line item veto bill. John Kerry says he supports the item veto. Mr. Bush and incoming chief of staff Bolten can do themselves and future president`s a big favor here. They should make bipartisan restoration of the line item spending veto a national priority. I`m Dan Henninger.