House Approves Line-Item Veto, Estate Tax Cut

WASHINGTON - President Bush would receive greater power to try to kill "pork barrel" spending projects under a bill passed yesterday by the House.

Lawmakers voted to give Mr. Bush and his successor a weaker version of the line-item veto law struck down by the Supreme Court in 1998, despite a recent series of lopsided votes in which they've rallied to preserve each other's back-home projects. The new power would expire after six years.

The idea advances amid increasing public concern about lawmakers' penchant for stuffing parochial projects into spending bills that the president must accept or reject in their entirety.

The House passed the bill by a 247-172 vote. Thirty-five Democrats joined with most Republicans in voting for the bill; 15 Republicans opposed the measure and others voted for the bill despite private reservations.

The measure must still pass the Senate, and that's by no means a certainty.

The House also voted yesterday to cut taxes on inherited estates and relieve thousands of heirs from paying tax collectors beginning next decade.

The 269-156 vote, just a few months before an election with control of Congress at stake, saw majority Republicans temporarily setting aside their ambition to abolish the tax. Instead, they voted to exempt from taxation individual estates up to $5 million and couple's estates up to $10 million, while also blunting the impact on even richer families. The compromise measure now goes to the Senate. The White House called the bill "a step in the right direction."