The itemized veto - a power presidents always seek and Congress always resists - has been oversold and overrated as a White House weapon against the deficit.
Even so, President-elect Clinton wants it, or something like it.The line-item veto involves governing powers, not party lines. Every modern president has asked for the authority to veto specific items in appropriations bills without rejecting the entire bill.
It was a fixture in President Bush's campaign speeches and budgets, as in Ronald Reagan's before him.
But Congress never has been willing to yield the leverage it can wield by packaging disputed spending into bills an administration needs enacted. The question has been testiest with the branches divided between the parties. That ends on Jan. 20; congressional resistance to the change will not.
It would alter the balance of power between the branches. Item vetoes could be overridden by two-thirds votes, but a congressional majority could no longer force a president to accept provisions he doesn't want in order to get things he seeks.
That sort of forced compromise goes on in every session. Clinton won't be spared, although it may happen less frequently with a Democrat in the White House.
The veto talk has more to do with political symbolism than with sharp cuts in the deficit. What looks like a step to curb spending would sound good back home, where the deficit was a major voter concern. That's why the House voted overwhelmingly in favor of a watered-down version before the election but too late for enactment. It wasn't even considered in the Senate.
The bulwark of opposition there is Sen. Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, appropriations chairman, former majority leader, historian and determined guardian of congressional powers.
The change at the White House doesn't change that. Byrd remains opposed to any legislation that would give the president more authority over spending and Congress less.
That would include the fallback proposal Clinton calls intriguing, the power to rescind items in appropriations bills unless majorities of the House and Senate vote to override. The way it works now, presidents can undo appropriations only if both houses concur, and there's no requirement that they vote on his cuts.
In the last Congress, Bush proposed about $6.8 billion in spending recissions. Congress rewrote his proposal and passed its own, for $8.2 billion in cuts.
Sen. George Mitchell, the Democratic leader, cites those numbers when he talks, skeptically, about changes in the process. When Thomas Foley suggested the House plan to Clinton, Mitchell took wordy, senatorial shelter:
"I told President-elect Clinton and Speaker Foley that I would, as is my usual practice, review the matter, consult with my colleagues in the Senate, consult with the parliamentarian on the precise practical application of the proposed alternative, and then make a judgment."
On this one, the Senate Republican leader is more supportive of Clinton's position. Sen. Bob Dole says the revised system for rescinding spending items is better than nothing, but he still prefers the outright line-item veto, as he did for Republican presidents. "Many of us support the line-item veto as a better way to make certain that the president has the power to strike out the pork or anything else that can't be justified."
Pork-barrel spending, for public works and other favors powerful members of Congress get for their districts and states, is a designated target for advocates of the item veto. The symbolism of cuts like those would be more significant than the dollars involved.
Arguing that case in what turned out to be his last meaningful budget message, President Bush said the current system promotes special interest spending.
"The president, as representative of the general interest, should have the power to strike from legislation provisions that reflect only narrow interests," Bush said.
Then again, presidents have their own interests and priorities, and the definition of what is narrow and what is needed depends on who is doing the defining.