Hi everyone, great going on setting this up. I am impressed. I am just checking in quickly and will look through the postings more thoroughly on Wednesday. Just wanted to touch base. Well done.

I agree that partisan politics has a large impact on the practice of vetoing appropriations. I also agree that some decisions based purely on party affiliations do little to actually benefit the public as a whole. I think party decisions are more commonly seen when one party has majority control. The president is a Democrat and both the house and senate are controlled by Democrats. In the past year we have seen many major bills pushed through such as additional stimulus plans, bailouts, and the still undecided health care bill. In these cases Republicans argued against bills but Democrats stood along party lines to support their president. However not all Democrats supported these bills because they feared dim re-election chances if they supported the spending.
I will admit I pay very little attention to the happenings within the Pennsylvania state government. I am definitely more aware of what is taking place at the national level. I do feel that since Gov. Rendell is granted the authority to veto bills and line items he has a responsibility to the citizens of Pennsylvania to do what is in their best interest and to not be self serving. I feel an effective politician should work with all parties involved to reach an amicable agreement that best suits everyone not just their respected party. Budgets are very controversial and everyone is effected whether at the local, state or national level.

Sorry if it wasn't clearly shown before - I posted this as a comment to the original post on Saturday instead of a new post. I'm still figuring out how to use the blog.

After reading Chapter 3 in Rubin, I was particularly interested in the section on Budget Process and Power and how state governments are affected. I have to admit that I did not know off the top of my head which veto option Governor Rendell has at his disposal, but after a quick Google search I learned that he has the right to veto legislative bills as well as the power to line-item veto specific provisions of a bill. The argument behind this type of veto power in the book is that it provides a system of checks and balances between the executive and legislative branches, in this case of state government. Therefore, whenever members of the legislature are using the state budget to pursue self-seeking or partisan objectives, the governor will step in and “seek the public policy goal of balanced and efficient budgets, with the minimum of waste.”

I suppose my question for the group is whether or not we agree with the assertion that governors who are elected to act in the best interest of the entire state population are able to be non-partisan in their use of vetoes or line-item vetoes to remove unnecessary appropriations from proposed legislation. We can even go further with the topic and discuss Governor Rendell’s use of the line-item veto in Pennsylvania or we can keep the topic more general.

Personally, I have to agree with the authors, Glenn Abney and Thomas Lauth, referenced on pg. 85 in Rubin, who determined that governors are more likely to use veto power, specifically line-item vetoes when they face a majority of party opposites in their state legislature. Therefore, it seems obvious that partisan politics have a larger impact on the practice of vetoing appropriations than whether or not they are beneficial to the general population. While I am not saying that the only reason governors veto legislation or parts of legislation is to squash an opposing party’s agenda, I do think the use of such vetoes deserves a closer examination of the politics behind the decision.