Divided They Cut

The virtues of a Bush-Congress spending fight.

Wall Street Journal
Saturday, November 17, 2007 12:01 a.m.

Hide the children: Democrats say President Bush is being unfair by taking a strict line against their spending, even though he indulged the Republican Congress during its decadent late period.

This budget war is now underway in earnest--six weeks into the fiscal year with only one spending bill signed into law--so let's follow the Democratic logic. Democrats are right that Mr. Bush and the GOP majority did a thorough job of undermining their fiscal credibility prior to 2006. But Democrats are now pursuing their own escalation in federal spending, while insisting on a foolish consistency: Mr. Bush was wasteful then; ergo, he must be wasteful now.

That argument flouts the 2006 election, where voters were plainly fed up with Beltway excess and corruption. Whatever the argument over Iraq, Democrats campaigned loudly as more responsible fiscal stewards and promised to scrub down Capitol Hill. Now back in power, however, they are reverting to their tax and spending habits.

Their collision with Mr. Bush concerns the $22 billion they want to spend above his request. The President's top line would increase nondefense discretionary spending by 6.9%, in nominal dollars--evidently not enough for Democrats. Their extra $22 billion is usually preceded by "only," but once passed it becomes part of the permanent baseline upon which future increases are built. That means that, five years out, federal outlays will have increased by at least $205 billion.


Mr. Bush is exercising his veto power, and Democrats don't seem to have the votes for overrides. On Thursday, Congress failed to reverse Mr. Bush's rejection of the overstuffed Labor-HHS-Education appropriation. If divided government ends up producing spending restraint, it will be a rare moment of fiscal virtue. Taking earmarks as the measure, some progress is already evident. According to a preliminary audit from Citizens Against Government Waste, the 2008 budget will likely wheel in with about 8,000 projects costing between $18 billion and $20 billion. That's down from the 2005 earmark peak of 13,997 and $27.3 billion.

Competition between Bill Clinton and a new GOP Congress led to spending restraint in the mid-1990s. But once a balanced budget was achieved, spending began to soar once again. Mr. Clinton gave more earmarks and defense spending to Tom DeLay, who in return gave more domestic spending to Mr. Clinton.

There's a lesson here in the importance of the Presidency, since Congress obviously won't police itself. Mr. Bush's great mistake was that he never said no to Republican spending monarchs like Jerry Lewis and Roy Blunt. If he's now curbing Democrats David Obey and Kent Conrad, Mr. Bush is doing what he should have done all along.

Democrats say their increases are urgent for pent-up domestic priorities, but that doesn't square with the pork. Typical is a $3 million earmark inserted by South Carolina Democrat James E. Clyburn--in the defense appropriation signed this week by Mr. Bush--for youth programs at the James E. Clyburn Golf Center. Also typical is $301,500 for the International Peace Garden, in Dunsieth, North Dakota, courtesy of Mr. Conrad.

Democrats have also resorted to every sort of funding gimmick to circumvent their "pay as you go" budgeting rules, which are supposed to prevent deficit spending. Even that shouldn't be necessary, considering that federal revenue is about 18.8% of GDP, compared with the 18.2% average over the last four decades. Instead of making trade-offs, their grift is to disguise costs, which will lead to tax hikes later on.


Then there's the Democrats' favorite game of three-card monte, that military spending in Iraq and the larger war on terror is somehow displacing domestic social programs. But Iraq hardly presents some unique or overwhelming fiscal burden. As a percentage of the total federal budget, the U.S. is spending relatively little on defense, even including the Iraq supplemental currently jammed up in Congressional feuding.

The Administration's total defense request for 2008 is 20.1% of federal outlays, which is less than what it was when Mr. Clinton took office (21.6%) and before he slashed defense spending as part of what we now know was an illusory "peace dividend." Mr. Bush has gradually increased defense outlays, though they remain low by historic wartime standards. Given the country's security threats, such spending will have to remain where it is now, or higher, no matter who is in the White House.

Democrats are planning to suture together the remaining appropriations into an "omnibus" bill that will split the $22 billion difference between Congress and Mr. Bush. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says that surgery would involve "some tremendously difficult cuts." We can only imagine.