7 - Veto Threats

Summary

Let them be forewarned, no matter how well intentioned they might be, no matter what their illusions may be, I have my veto pen drawn and ready for any tax increase that Congress might think of sending up. And I have only one thing to say to the tax increasers: Go ahead and make my day.

President Ronald Reagan (Berman 1990:12)

Repeatedly I have said there are right ways and wrong ways to cut the deficit. This legislation [H.R. 15161, FY 96 Foreign Aid and State Department Authorization] is the wrong way. We did not win the Cold War to walk away and blow the opportunities of the peace on shortsighted, scattershotted budget cuts and attempts to micro-manage the United States foreign policy. If this bill passes in its present form I will veto it.

President Bill Clinton (CQ Weekly Report, May 27, 1995:1514)

Veto threats pose a puzzle. The political struggles between the president and Congress are not the verbal sparring matches of college debating societies. They involve real stakes: redistributing wealth, creating rights, making war. But a veto threat is just words. How can the president's verbal posturing, mere words, make much difference in high-stakes bargaining? The problem is a general one in political science. “Actions speak louder than words” is a profound principle of politics, and one that is easy to understand. But why should words, the sheerest “cheap talk,” speak at all? Yet they seem to. Rhetoric often has a profound influence on the course of bargaining.