Despite Proposed Cuts, Bush Budget Is Bigger

[violentkitten]

the era of big government is alive and well


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...home-headlines

Despite Proposed Cuts, Bush Budget Is Bigger

By Janet Hook, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — Even as President Bush proposes deep cuts in healthcare, farm subsidies and other domestic programs, his new budget makes one thing clear about the legacy of his first term in the White House: The era of big government is back.

Bush's $2.6-trillion budget for 2006, if approved by Congress, would be more than one-third bigger than the budget he inherited four years ago. It is a monument to how much Republicans' guiding fiscal philosophy has changed over the 10 years since the GOP "Contract With America" called for a balanced budget and abolition of entire Cabinet agencies.

No longer are Republicans arguing with Democrats about whether government should be big or small. They are at odds over what kind of big government the United States should have.

"This Republican Party is much less fiscally conservative than the one that took Congress 10 years ago," said Brian Riedl, a budget analyst at the Heritage Foundation. "That Congress believed in eliminating entire departments that weren't justified. You don't hear that these days. I wish we did."

Bush is releasing his budget at a time when many fiscal conservatives in his party are dismayed by how much he allowed federal spending and the deficit to rise during his first term in the White House. This vocal but outnumbered faction of the GOP was furious when Bush in 2003 signed a big increase in federal farm subsidies and pushed Congress to expand Medicare to cover prescription drug benefits.

Bush has moved to placate those critics in this budget by restating his pledge to cut the deficit in half by 2009; by pledging to abolish or cut back spending for 150 programs, and by taking on fast-growing en lements like farm programs and Medicaid.

Many analysts view those promises with skepticism because Bush in his first term had a disappointing record of confronting Congress on popular spending programs. He is the first president since Martin Van Buren to spend an entire term in the White House without vetoing a single bill.

"This is a promise in which his position so far is not credible," said William A. Niskanen, a former economic advisor to President Reagan and chairman of the Cato Ins ute, a libertarian think tank. "President Bush also promised to reduce the deficit in half last year, but it went up $15 billion."

Much of the deficit growth during Bush's first term was the result of increased Defense and Homeland Security programs after the 9/11 attacks and four rounds of tax cuts.

Bush and fellow Republicans argued for the last three years' budgets that eliminating the deficit had to take a back seat at a time when the country is at war and the economy was sagging. Now that the economy is in better shape and Iraq has elected its own government, the pressure is on Bush to give higher priority to combating the deficit.

However, Bush's budget projections surely understate future deficits because they do not include the cost of three priorities that are at the core of his bid for a second term legacy: ongoing military operations in Iraq; making his 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanent; and overhauling Social Security.

And even where Bush is pushing to reduce spending, analysts say, there may be less there than meets the eye.

Bush is right in saying that his budget is very tight — but only for domestic discretionary programs that make up only 17% of the budget. Those programs would be cut by 1%. But Defense would get an increase of almost 5% — bringing its overall growth to 41% since 2001. Domestic security spending would grow 7% over last year. Medicare is on track to increase by $50 billion.

Bush calls that variation in funding "setting priorities." Democrats say it confirms their worst fears that the deficit that has been run up under Bush will be used only as a pretext for cutting programs favored by Democrats and their cons uencies — Amtrak trains that are popular in Democratic states up and down the East Coast; Medicaid programs that serve the poor; job training programs that are backed by labor unions.

"What this president is doing is what Republican presidents and Congresses have been doing for a generation: Using the budget deficit to justify the destruction of programs the American people trust and rely on," said John Lawrence, Democratic staff director of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Democrats will not be alone in resisting Bush's domestic spending cuts. Republicans have joined them in blocking past efforts to abolish popular programs. Of the 65 programs he proposed eliminating last year, Congress approved only five. And Republicans are already squawking.

"Programs like Amtrak, beach replenishment and education funding have so much support in Congress that I believe the funding will be restored," said Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.).

What's more, analysts say that serious progress cannot be made in reducing the deficit and controlling the spending without controlling the en lement programs like Medicare. Bush does take a whack at curbing farm subsidies, which had been expanded tremendously under a 2003 farm bill that dismantled market-oriented reforms established shortly after Republicans took control of Congress.

Conservatives pleaded with Bush at the time to veto the bill, but he was under heavy pressure from farm belt Republicans not to alienate their cons uencies by blocking the measure. For the same political reason, Congress is considered unlikely to undercut farm benefits that are so important to the "red" states that voted for Bush in 2004.

In defending his budget proposals, Bush is offering a rationale far different from the root-and-branch, anti-government rhetoric Republicans used 10 years ago, arguing that the federal government had no business subsidizing education, the arts and other domestic activities. Bush argues that his budget cuts are driven by a managerial interest in eliminating waste, duplication and ineffective programs.

"I fully understand that sometimes it's hard to eliminate a program that sounds good," Bush said today. "The important question that needs to be asked for all cons uencies is whether or not the programs achieve a certain result."

That is a far cry from the heated rhetoric Republicans used in 1995, when they first came to power brimming with government slashing fervor. Rep. Bob Livingston (R-La.), the new House Appropriations Committee chairman, brought a machete to his first panel meeting to dramatize his commitment to cutting programs. And 1996 was the only year since Republicans took control of Congress that discretionary spending was cut.

Republicans' commitment to eliminating the deficit, a cornerstone of the Contract With America, also seems a thing of the past. They now argue that the deficit — although it has hit a record in absolute numbers — is manageable because it is not as large as Ronald Reagan's 1983 deficit, when measured as a share of the gross national product.

But Stan Collender, a budget analyst with Financial Dynamics Business Communications, said that amounts to "using the budget failure of one Republican to make the large deficits of another appear to be less troubling."

"President Bush would never admit this, but he has transformed the party into the party of permanent big deficits," said Collender.

A key question is whether that prospect spooks Republicans into taking more aggressive steps to reduce the deficit and curb spending. The price may be paid in Bush's ability to win his costly signature initiatives. Some already are balking at his Social Security overhaul because of its high transition costs. And others are giving second thoughts to his proposal to make his tax cuts permanent.

[Nbadan]

"This Republican Party is much less fiscally conservative than the one that took Congress 10 years ago," said Brian Riedl, a budget analyst at the Heritage Foundation. "That Congress believed in eliminating entire departments that weren't justified. You don't hear that these days. I wish we did."

It's much sweeter to get elected as a reformer who appeals for smaller government and tax cuts than an in bant who is expected to bring home the bacon to his/her district, isn't it? Everyone repeat after me, Reagan and W did not cut taxes, they deferred taxes.