EDITORIAL : PORKBUSTER BECOMES LAW CLINTON HAS A NEW TOOL TO REDUCE WASTE, SPECIAL FAVORS.

BILL Clinton begins the new year with a tool no president has ever had - the line-item veto.

A product of the Republican Congress that was elected in 1994, the line-item veto will permit the president to blue-pencil specific spending items or special tax breaks in individual bills without rejecting the legislation in its entirety. The tightly written law gives the president powers comparable to those enjoyed by governors in more than 40 states, including California.

(Vetoes, however, aren't necessarily final. They can be overridden if the Senate and the House of Representatives muster two-thirds majorities to sustain the original legislation.)

The bill was sponsored by Republicans who were frustrated when prior Democratic Congresses tried to make spending bills veto-proof by including appropriations that they wanted with those favored by GOP presidents. But as luck or politics would have it, the first president who will be able to use the line-item veto is a Democrat.

Clinton signed the veto bill in April, saying: ``For years, presidents of both parties have pounded this very desk in frustration at having to sign necessary legislation that contains special interest boondoggles, loopholes and pure pork. The line-item veto will give us a chance to change that, to permit presidents to better represent the public interest by cutting waste, protecting taxpayers and balancing the budget.''

That's supposed to be how the line-item veto will work in practice, regardless of who sits in the White House and which party controls Congress. But there's a chance - and we hope it's an extremely remote one - that the law establishing the line-item veto might be set aside in the courts.

Critics, including Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, and Rep. David Skaggs, D-Colo., have charged that the measure is unconstitutional because it allows the president to assume powers that belong to the legislative branch. (There is nothing in the Constitution that gives the president the power to veto part of a bill.)

We tend to be strict constructionists when it comes to interpreting the Constitution and maintaining the independence of the three branches of government - the legislative, the executive and the judicial. But in this instance Congress isn't giving away any powers that it cannot reclaim; the law will only be in effect until 2004 and, in the meantime, it can be amended or repealed. So, it's not as if Congress, as was the case with the late and unlamented one-house veto of executive regulations, is upsetting the symmetry of the federal government.

The intent of the bill is to protect Americans from wasteful spending and other shenanigans. If Congress wants to enlist the help of the president in curbing its own excesses, the courts shouldn't stand in the way.