President Clinton had this power after Congress granted it to him in 1996. The Supreme Court, however, ruled the law unconstitutional in 1998 because it is Congress's responsibility to control the federal government's spending.
Even if a new law could be passed that would pass constitutional muster, line-item veto power would be especially dangerous with this administration. The Republican-controlled Congress has a tendency to pass large multi-faceted bills in order to reduce the number of votes that its members must cast, under the theory that the fewer votes cast, the fewer chances for the opposition to attack their voting records. As a result, the bills often contain unrelated compromises in order to convince moderate Republicans and some Democrats to vote for the entire bill. If Bush could then veto those compromises, it would render the Democrats and moderate Republicans completely isolated from the decision-making process. We can only imagine the results. If you think Bush's budget is terrible now, can you imagine what it would look like if he had line-item veto power?
