At the close of 1987, Congress presented a 1053 page continuing resolution bill to avoid a government shut down that took 300 members of Reagan's office to read. It was just two weeks before the government was to begin a new fiscal year, and without the line item veto, President Reagan had but two choices 'take it or leave it".
The fiscal year for the federal government runs from October 1 to September 20 of the following year. For each department, agency or program, the federal government must set aside an appropriation bill that sets aside money for operations, personnel, equipment and activities. Quite often, congress and the president fail to agree on or pass one or more of these regular appropriations bill. In this case a continuing resolution is passed which allows the funding of the entity to continue at a rate based upon the previous year's funding. These "stop gap" bills provide funding for a specific date or until regular appropriations bills can be passed. Without these "stop gap" bills, the government would shut down.
Fiscal year 1988 was one of those years. In September 1987, President Reagan took a new tack in his budget battle with Congress. He asked congress to send him separate stop gap bills, one for each specific area of the federal government, rather than one single stop gap measure. Reagan took his message to the American people in one of his weekly radio addresses. It was just two weeks before the Federal Government was to begin a new fiscal year, and Congress had not sent even one of the 13 appropriations bills. Instead Congress was putting together one big lump sum continuing resolution and sending it to the President to be signed in a "take-it-or-leave-it proposition". President Reagan shared that he "felt for some time that no President should be placed in that position." Instead he asked congress to break it down separate parts. President Reagan concluded with these remarks: "Doing so would provide me with at least some opportunity to exercise my rightful judgment as President—an opportunity I intend to insist on."
Senior Congressional aides said they were puzzled by the President's comments. Was the president proposing 13 separate resolutions or 25 (one for each agency)? In a flurry of activity, the House passed 9 of the 14 annual appropriation bills, but Senate leaders did not set any dates to take the bills up on the Senate floor. Two months later, Congress sent the president one long-term continuing resolution bill, 1057 pages long weighing 14 pounds. In President Reagan's final state of the union, he staged a bit of theatrics. He brought several bills with him, 43 pounds of paper and ink and spoke these words:
"And then, along came these behemoths. This is the conference report—1,053 pages, report weighing 14 pounds. Then this—a reconciliation bill 6 months late that was 1,186 pages long, weighing 15 pounds. And the long-term continuing resolution—this one was 2 months late, and it's 1,057 pages long, weighing 14 pounds. That was a total of 43 pounds of paper and ink. You had 3 hours—yes, 3 hours—to consider each, and it took 300 people at my Office of Management and Budget just to read the bill so the Government wouldn't shut down. Congress shouldn't send another one of these. No, and if you do, I will not sign it.Then Reagan repeated a request he had been repeating for years, and asked for the line item veto.
Let's change all this. Instead of a Presidential budget that gets discarded and a congressional budget resolution that is not enforced, why not a simple partnership, a joint agreement that sets out the spending priorities within the available revenues? And let's remember our deadline is October 1st, not Christmas. Let's get the people's work done in time to avoid a footrace with Santa Claus. [Laughter] And, yes, this year—to coin a phrase—a new beginning: 13 individual bills, on time and fully reviewed by Congress."
"I'm also certain you join me in saying: Let's help ensure our future of prosperity by giving the President a tool that, though I will not get to use it, is one I know future Presidents of either party must have. Give the President the same authority that 43 Governors use in their States: the right to reach into massive appropriation bills, pare away the waste, and enforce budget discipline. Let's approve the line-item veto."
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=36035
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=34819
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuing_resolution
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/20/us/reagan-suggests-separate-stopgap-spending-bills.html
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Photograph_of_President_Reagan_giving_the_State_of_the_Union_Address_to_Congress_-_NARA_-_198590.jpg
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