March 7 (Bloomberg) -- George W. Bush will hit an historic milestone this month: On March 20, he'll pass James Monroe for second place, behind Thomas Jefferson, among U.S. presidents who went the longest without vetoing legislation.

During five years in office, Bush has never followed through on his threats to use his authority to reject spending or policy measures. Instead, he has revived a longtime presidential plea for a more surgical instrument -- a line-item veto -- that would let him excise individual spending provisions within broader legislation.

``Too many bills passed by Congress include unnecessary spending,'' Bush said yesterday as he sent his proposal to lawmakers. The line-item veto would ``give me the authority to strip special spending and earmarks out of a bill, and then send them back.''

Some current and former lawmakers say his effort may be as empty as his past veto threats. ``I consider the president's call for a line-item veto more of a political statement than a policy statement,'' said former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, a Texas Republican. ``A lot of us have been trying for this since 1984, and given all the challenges, a lot of people don't think it's worth their time anymore.''

Bush is combining his call for line-item veto power with a push to overhaul congressional rules on spending to take advantage of recent controversy involving congressional prerogatives known as earmarks, which allow lawmakers to insert into legislation special projects for their districts or states.

Scandals

Such spending, often approved with no debate, has played a part in both influence-peddling scandals in Washington and the ballooning federal deficit. The administration projects this year's budget deficit will reach a record $423 billion, up from $319 billion in fiscal 2005. After four years of surpluses from 1998 through 2001, the government is in its fifth year of budget shortfalls.

Bush and his aides said they have addressed the constitutional issues raised by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1998 when it overturned the line-item authority that President Bill Clinton had won from Congress two years earlier.

The administration's draft of the legislation is ``air tight'' and addresses the Supreme Court's objections, Office of Management and Budget Director Joshua Bolten said on a conference call yesterday.

No `Unilateral Authority'

While allowing Bush to veto provisions within legislation, it wouldn't give the president ``the unilateral authority to cancel spending,'' Bolten said. After suspending specific spending or special-interest tax breaks, Bush would send the legislation back to Congress for a yes-or-no vote within 10 days of its re-introduction, Bolten said.

Bush's proposal was immediately endorsed by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, who said he would co-sponsor the legislation along with fellow Republicans John McCain of Arizona and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Bush is making his pitch at a time when he is politically weakened. His job approval rating was 38 percent in a Feb. 25- March 1 Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll. He is also making the proposal at a time when some lawmakers say they are wary of extended executive power.

Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and other congressional Republicans have opposed the president on allowing some electronic eavesdropping without court approval, using torture in terrorism interrogations and approving a takeover of some U.S. seaport facilities by DP World, a company controlled by the government of Dubai, one of the United Arab Emirates.

Guarding Powers

``The Congress tends to guard its powers very jealously, now more so than ever,'' said Phil Gramm, a former Republican senator from Texas who pushed for the line-item veto during his tenure. ``There's nothing wrong with the president educating the public about the line-item veto. But any president has really got to be prepared to use the veto power he already has.''

The White House budget office said Bush has threatened to veto 133 bills as president; the most recent came Feb. 21, when he threatened to reject any congressional move aimed at blocking the Dubai ports deal. Bush has said the fact that he hasn't used the veto shows that he and the Republican-controlled Congress are working well together.

``We've had serious cooperation'' from lawmakers, he said in a Feb. 8 interview. ``It's a sign of success.''

Federal spending is up 33 percent overall since Bush became president, growing twice as fast as it did under Clinton. ``Outside of the first two years, when he used the legacy of the Clinton administration's fiscal surpluses, President Bush has yet to submit a balanced budget,'' House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California said.

Discretionary Spending

While Bush often cites the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and subsequent military campaigns along with natural disasters as the cause for the spending, increases aren't confined to those areas. From 2001 through 2005, discretionary outlays -- those set by Congress each year -- surged 49 percent, to $969 billion from $649 billion.

This past year provided a trove of anecdotes for critics of government spending. A $286.5 billion measure to fund transportation projects, signed by Bush last August, included 6,371 earmarks. Among them were $223 million for what became known as the ``Bridge to Nowhere'' between two sparsely populated hamlets in Alaska; a grant to combat the spread of ``goth culture'' among teenagers in Blue Springs, Missouri; and a therapeutic horseback riding program.

Earmarks also figured in two recent scandals. Former Representative Randy Cunningham, a California Republican, was sentenced last week to more than eight years in prison for taking $2.4 million in bribes in return for steering government projects through earmarks to a defense contractor. Part of the investigation into disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff involves political contributions from one of his Indian tribe clients as they sought a federal grant that was inserted as an earmark into an Interior Department spending measure.

Grant and Clinton

The line-item veto has been requested by presidents from Ulysses Grant to Bush, who has endorsed it in each of the budgets he's submitted. Clinton used the line-item veto 82 times before the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that it gave the president unconstitutional power to alter the text of laws properly enacted by Congress.

Forty-three states allow their governors to use a line-item veto in their budgets, and in some states, the veto is powerful: in Wisconsin, for example, the governor can cross out letters in words or make new words, and erase numbers and add smaller figures in their place.

``Now it's time to bring this important tool for fiscal discipline to Washington,'' Bush said yesterday.

To contact the reporter on this story: Holly Rosenkrantz in Washington at hrosenkrantz@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: March 7, 2006 00:00 EST