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Friday, Jul 10, 2009
Bush's bloated budget will likely put the U.S. over $1 trillion in debt. But criticize it, and the White House calls you soft on terror.
Feb 4, 2003 | In a conference call with reporters Sunday before the arrival of President Bush's budget the next day on Capitol Hill, a certain Bush administration official made sure to point out to reporters that the Bush budget would be proposing a $470 million budget increase for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, to $3.9 billion.
Almost a half billion dollar increase for NASA, announced one day after its worst space disaster since 1986? Not bad timing. Some conspiracy-minded Democrats on the Hill smelled a rat, though further poking revealed that the budget had been typeset and shipped to the printer weeks before.
But others weren't surprised by the NASA increase, since Bush hasn't shown much willingness to rein in spending. Which is why the big news behind his $2.3 trillion budget proposal is printed clearly in the report itself: "If the President's policies are enacted the federal government will run a deficit of some $304 billion this year" and $307 billion next year -- the largest deficit in U.S. history. The Bush administration now anticipates that deficits will continue at least through 2008, adding up to $1.1 trillion.
The once unplugged National Debt Clock -- the 11-by-26-foot Times Square electronica that details our leaders' irresponsibility -- is back on, and the numbers are getting big fast.
Moreover, say nonpartisan experts, there appears to be no plan -- other than hoping the economy will grow and revenues will increase -- to free the nation from that ever ticking burden. "What's significant about this budget is that it appears to abandon any particular fiscal policy goal," says Bob Bixby, executive director of the nonpartisan Concord Coalition. "It's a return of deficits as far as the eye can see and a president trying to justify why that's OK."
"It's truly remarkable: The president's budget doesn't ever balance. It's deficits forever," says Susan Tanaka of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB). In the analytic appendix of the budget, under (perhaps ironically) "Stewardship," the graphs indicate that over the next decade, the budget never gets balanced, she says. "There has been up until now a general political consensus that it's the right goal to aim for budget balance, if not year by year then at least over the business cycle."
The Bush administration has a simple, somewhat nasty response to anyone who questions its budget. In addition to $670 billion in proposed tax cuts, the budget proposes a $15.4 billion increase in the defense budget for next year, $30 billion for the Department of Homeland Security. Thus, on Monday afternoon, the acid-tongued Mitch Daniels, director of the Office of Management and Budget, told CNN's Judy Woodruff that "the deficit is one priority among many. Those who would make it the top priority have to step forward say what they wouldn't do. Would they not prosecute the war on terror?"
Such a snipe might make good TV, but it belies more complex budgetary issues. "You look at where the percentage increases are occurring in this budget, and all the increases are in defense and homeland security -- that's something we all support," says Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee. "But he's not cutting spending; he's increasing it. Tax cuts can be positive if they're offset by spending reductions. But he hasn't done that."
The White House seems to have two responses to this. One: It's not Bush's fault. "A recession and a war we did not choose have led to the return of deficits," Bush said in his official budget message. And two -- as stated near the top of the White House budget fact sheet -- "President Bush believes that the best way to hold down deficits is to promote pro-growth policies and control government spending."
On point one, even deficit hawks like Bixby acknowledge that because of the recession and 9/11, "the idea of balancing the budget in the short term is not doable." That said, Bixby underlines, "what's significant about this budget is all of its long-term proposals both on the tax and spending side. It says, 'These are the things we want to do, and if there are deficits as a result -- fine.' That's the significant switch here." Seconds Tanaka, "Yes, we have some real difficulties, but the economy will recover -- one would think there would be some attempt at some point to bring spending in line with revenues."
