WASHINGTON – It was less than two years ago that House Republicans gave President Bush a vote on a modified version of the line-item veto.

He lost. Badly. As in 237-174, with 89 Republicans, including then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Republican of Texas, voting to uphold the prerogatives of Congress rather than bestow more power on the president.

Now, with Republicans in Congress eager to show they are tough on spending and wasteful hometown projects, Mr. Bush hopes to turn the tables.

Mr. Bush is seeking new power to weed parochial spending from legislation passed by Congress. While he calls it the line-item veto, it’s really a modified, weaker proposal than the version struck down by the Supreme Court eight years ago.

“The spending scandals in Congress and the public’s outrage on those brought us to this point,” said Rep. Paul Ryan, a Republican of Wisconsin, who helped write the proposal. “Which means we have a good chance of winning.”

Like presidents dating back to Ulysses S. Grant, Mr. Bush wants the power to strike individual items from a bill without having to veto the entire measure.

President Clinton got that wish in 1996, when the revolutionary new Republican majority in the House ignored qualms about giving him the authority and pushed through a line-item veto law that allowed him to kill individual spending projects and special interest tax breaks.

Two years later, the Supreme Court declared the law – one of the key planks of the House GOP’s “Contract With America” – unconstitutional because it allowed the president to amend laws passed by Congress.

Now, instead of being able to strike items from bills, he would send one or more items back to Congress for an up-or-down vote. Present law permits Congress to ignore these proposed rescissions, but under the Bush proposal lawmakers would have to vote on them. If majorities in both the House and the Senate agreed with the president, the cuts would take effect.

“Forty-three governors have this line-item veto in their states,” Mr. Bush said. “Now it’s time to bring this important tool of fiscal discipline to Washington, D.C.”

Mr. Bush has not vetoed any legislation during five years in office, but he said the modified line-item proposal would help “reduce wasteful spending, reduce the budget deficit and ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent wisely.”

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, a Republican of Illinois, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Republican of Tennessee, issued statements supporting Mr. Bush, as did several conservative lawmakers.

And Senator Kerry, a Democrat of Massachusetts, who promoted a similar approach in his presidential campaign against Mr. Bush in 2004, immediately jumped on board.

“It’s no secret that President Bush and I don’t agree on much, but I fully support giving him the line-item veto,” Mr. Kerry said. “I’m going to introduce this legislation, Congress should immediately pass it, and I want to see President Bush use this veto pen to get tough on wasteful spending.”

The earlier version of the line-item veto was used by Mr. Clinton in 1997 against about 80 parochial projects and a few special-interest tax breaks. Congress, by a huge margin, overturned Clinton’s vetoes of 38 military construction projects.