Cite as: 524 U. S. 417 (1998)
Breyer, J., dissenting
more systematically as follows: First, as I have just said, like statutes delegating power to award broadcast television licenses, or to regulate the securities industry, or to develop and enforce workplace safety rules, the Act is aimed at a discrete problem: namely, a particular set of expenditures within the federal budget. The Act concerns, not the entire economy, cf. Schecter Poultry Corp., supra, but the annual federal budget. Within the budget it applies only to discretionary budget authority and new direct spending items, that together amount to approximately a third of the current annual budget outlays, see Tr. of Oral Arg. 18; see also Budget 303, and to "limited tax benefits" that (because each can affect no more than 100 people, see 2 U. S. C. § 691e(9)(A) (1994 ed., Supp. II)), amount to a tiny fraction of federal revenues and appropriations. Compare Analytical Perspectives 73-75 (listing over $500 billion in overall "tax expenditures" that OMB estimated were contained in federal law in 1997) and Budget 303 (federal outlays and receipts in 1997 were both over $1.5 trillion) with App. to Juris. Statement 71a (President's cancellation message for Snake River appel-lees' limited tax benefit, estimating annual "value" of benefit, in terms of revenue loss, at about $20 million).
Second, like the award of television licenses, the particular problem involved—determining whether or not a particular amount of money should be spent or whether a particular dispensation from tax law should be granted a few individuals—does not readily lend itself to a significantly more specific standard. The Act makes clear that the President should consider the reasons for the expenditure, measure those reasons against the desirability of avoiding a deficit (or building a surplus), and make up his mind about the comparative weight of these conflicting goals. Congress might have expressed this matter in other language, but could it have done so in a significantly more specific way? See National Broadcasting Co. v. United States, supra, at 216 ("[P]ublic interest, convenience, or necessity" standard is
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