Posted on 03/19/2004 6:32:30 AM PST by conservativecorner
Fiscal restraint often goes out the window in election years as politicians create new programs and expand entitlements to send home the bacon. The Bush administration, however, has taken on constituencies and politicians of both parties by producing a budget that proposes to eliminate 65 federal programs even as the president threatens to veto a big-spending transportation bill.
To George W. Bush's critics on the right, still angry about his signing of the 2002 farm bill, adding a prescription-drug entitlement to Medicare, proposing to increase the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts by 15 percent, and not once using his veto pen on exorbitant spending bills, this effort at fiscal restraint is still too little and possibly too late.
But Democrats, who never tire of blaming Bush for the deficit despite their own bigger-spending ways, have called even Bush's modest cuts draconian. Rep. John Spratt (D-S.C.), the senior Democrat on the House Budget Committee, told the press that Bush's budget would hurt "priority services that the American people want and expect." Scott Lilly, Democratic staff director of the House Appropriations Committee, told the Washington Post that Bush had produced "a blatantly radical budget" that "destroys any credibility he might have had in terms of being compassionate or moderate." And Democratic front-runner Sen. John Kerry blasts Bush's budget on the Kerry campaign Website, sloganeering: "The administration's motto should be 'Leave no special interest behind,' because they are leaving millions of children behind every day."
But in an interview with Insight in his office at the Eisenhower Executive Building of the White House complex, Joel Kaplan, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), calmly responds to criticisms of Bush's spending record that come from both the left and right. He explains that much of the spending increases have gone to defense and homeland security - which conservatives always have said are the core functions of the federal government - largely because of the war on terrorism and Bill Clinton's sharp reductions in defense spending over eight years.
President Bush's proposed budget for fiscal 2005 holds the growth of discretionary spending, including spending for defense and homeland security, to 3.9 percent. The growth of nondefense and non-homeland-security discretionary spending is reduced to .5 percent, less than the rate of inflation.
"You've got an overall number of 4 percent, roughly the rate of growth of the average family income, and you have to look at where that's going," Kaplan tells Insight. "Really what that's going toward is very substantial increases to protect America and very limited growth - less than the rate of inflation, so a cut in real terms - on the rest of the discretionary side of the budget. So for the things that are not related to the defense of the homeland or to winning the war, the president has proposed to limit the growth to .5 percent. That's the lowest any president has proposed in more than 10 years." The OMB says this budget, with overall cuts of $14.5 billion, will set the course for cutting the budget deficit in half in five years.
"It's a good start," says Brian Riedl, federal budget analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation and a critic of Bush's spending record. "However, I think many, many more programs should be eliminated than just those 65, which averaged only $75 million in their 2004 budgets. There are many more programs that could be eliminated, but it's a step in the right direction."
Especially so, conservatives tell this magazine, when some of the federal programs Bush wants to eliminate are examined closely. From the list of programs to be terminated provided by the White House, Insight found many that, while small, are wrongheaded and could have very harmful consequences for the people they're intended to help, according to policy experts. Many conservatives with whom Insight spoke had no idea that programs they had inveighed against for years were on the chopping block in the new Bush budget. This may be because the White House has depended on its conservative friends to give it the benefit of the doubt. In the documents provided to this magazine, the OMB simply says it is zeroing out programs "that are wasteful, duplicative, ineffective or have simply accomplished their mission." Informed of what is taking place, conservative leaders say they are pleased Bush has challenged these programs but think the White House must make a stronger case against them in the wake of attacks by Kerry and resistance to spending cuts by a Congress that wants to deliver pork in an election year.
Take the "Even Start" family literacy program, which the Bush budget zeroes out for a savings of $247 million. Even Start was enacted under George H.W. Bush at a cost of $14 million, but massively had grown to $250 million in the last budget year of the Clinton administration. The program requires parental participation in efforts to teach reading skills to children age 8 and younger. The purpose is to "help parents become full partners in educating their children," according to a 1998 description by the Clinton Education Department. Kerry cited this program in criticizing Bush's budget cuts, and the liberal advocacy group Children's Defense Fund called the president's earlier cuts to the program part of his administration's "consistent failure to make the investments that will ensure the development of strong, healthy and educated children who are vital to our nation's lasting security."
The White House explains that Even Start is redundant since Head Start is trying to teach children to read and adult literacy programs are funded by other grants. The budget guide provided to Insight adds that "evaluations ... found that the program did not achieve" the desired results of improving reading skills. OMB points to a 2003 study of 18 Even Start sites conducted by the research firm Abt Associates. The study found no difference in reading results between families enrolled in the program and those who were not on 38 of 41 outcome measurements. On two of the remaining three measurements, families that received "no services" actually did better than the Even Start families.
But its complete ineffectiveness is not even the most important reason for getting rid of the program, say Even Start critics. In addition to the hideous cost, the best reason for axing the program is that it seeks to interfere in the parent-child relationship. Home visits and "parenting education" are required, and "topics addressed may include helping families to use learning resources, increasing parents' understanding of normal child-development patterns and of their role in their children's education, and training parents on reading to young children," according to the Clinton Education Department description.
Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), a hero to limited-government proponents, expressed concerns about Even Start's intrusiveness in a House floor statement in 2000. "Even Start does rest on the premise that it is legitimate for the federal government to interfere with the parent-child relationship to 'improve' parenting," Paul said. "Once one accepts that premise, it is a short jump to interfering in all aspects of family life in order to promote the government's vision of 'quality parenting.'"
Phyllis Schlafly, the conservative activist and president of Eagle Forum who for years has fought government programs to "train parents," did not know Bush was eliminating Even Start and was pleased to learn about it when Insight called for a response. "We'll be happy to spread the word on this," she said. "A lot [of people] in the grass roots want to do a whole lot more, but yes, they'll be somewhat pacified by some baby steps toward that."
Another program slated for elimination that conservatives have criticized severely is the Hope VI housing program. Again, the Bush administration has not given a strong policy rationale for getting rid of it, saying in the OMB budget guide only that the program has "achieved [its] goal." Though conservatives and libertarians have regarded these goals as misguided, they could have been counted on to cheer the president's action if someone had bothered to let them know what he was doing.
Originally intended simply to tear down and replace the worst 10 percent of public-housing units, Hope VI became a pet project of Clinton Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Andrew Cuomo. He transformed it into efforts to build "new next-generation utopian public-housing projects where you were going to have people of different income levels," says Howard Husock, director of the Manhattan Institute's Social Entrepreneurship Initiative and a research fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Hope VI developments mix together new houses, market-rate rentals and public-housing tenants in one complex.
The goal expressed by Clinton officials was to have the low-income tenants learn responsibility by observing the habits of middle-income folks, but Husock says the effect has been to frustrate the efforts of "hardworking minorities to put some distance between themselves and the bad actors." Noting the support of both Republicans and Democrats in Congress that have public-housing authorities and construction companies in their districts eager for Hope VI developments, Husock observes, "It's rather courageous of [Bush] to take this on." Even James Bovard, a libertarian writer who strongly has attacked the Bush administration, grudgingly tells Insight, "It is encouraging that Bush is at least attempting to wipe out one HUD boondoggle."
Another boondoggle Bush's budget would eliminate is the Advanced Technology Program (ATP), which has cost taxpayers $2 billion since its enactment in 1988. This prime example of "corporate welfare" provides matching grants to businesses engaged in commercial research in areas such as electronics and biotechnology. "Taxpayers fund these investments, but businesses receive all the profits," notes a paper by the Heritage Foundation's Riedl, who points out that more than 40 percent of program grants have been distributed to Fortune 500 companies such as IBM and General Motors. Clinton blocked attempts by the Republican Congress to defund the program in the 1990s. In its budget guide, the Bush administration explains that this program "is terminated because it overlaps with activities that would already be undertaken by private companies."
One would think that a government program that uses the hard-earned tax dollars of waitresses, mill workers and schoolteachers to subsidize Fortune 500 companies with billions of dollars would be just the type of thing that Kerry would want to abolish. Kerry even says in his statement denouncing the Bush budget cuts: "George Bush and I both want to eliminate government programs. ... I teamed up with [Arizona Republican Sen.] John McCain to get rid of government corporate welfare - lock, stock and barrel." But the Kerry campaign did not return phone calls by Insight asking whether Kerry would abolish the ATP. Nor did the campaign answer Insight's repeated requests to name any government program Kerry would eliminate.
The National Taxpayers Union (NTU) found early on that Kerry's campaign promises would increase spending by $277 billion a year, though he keeps upping the ante - a GOP release as Insight goes to press puts the figure at $900 billion. This would greatly increase the deficit even with Kerry's proposed repeal of part of the Bush tax cuts, says NTU President John Berthoud. He faults Bush on spending and says the president will have to fight very hard indeed for his spending cuts to convince Congress and the conservative base that he means business. But, Berthoud adds, "When it comes to spending, there are two parties in Washington: bad and worse."
Still, Bush inherited much of this spending from his predecessor. The Clinton administration had increased budget authority for discretionary spending not related to homeland security or defense by 15 percent for fiscal 2001, cleverly arranging for the outlays to appear on Bush's watch. Bush has reduced that percentage every year, with budget authority growing only 4 percent in 2004 and slated to grow just .5 percent in the new budget. At the same time, because of what House Budget
Committee Chairman Jim Nussle (R-Iowa) has called the "defense deficit" left by Clinton's deep military cuts, Bush has increased budget authority for defense, and most sharply for homeland security, which had to be increased 85 percent in fiscal 2003 and is slated for a 10 percent increase this year. Kaplan points out that "spending for homeland security is not just for the Department of Homeland Security; it goes to the FBI and others who are protecting the homeland" as well.
Riedl insists OMB's argument about increased domestic spending not being Bush's fault is mostly "smoke and mirrors," but when pressed, he concedes that Bush "inherited a third of Clinton's last budget." Kaplan says a priority of Bush budgets has been "redirecting" federal spending from nonessential programs to defense and homeland security.
Midwestern polemicist Richard Nadler, a political adviser to the Republican Leadership Coalition, an advocacy group, says although Bush can be faulted somewhat on spending, "the sheer financial magnitude of what happened on 9/11 is something that a lot of people don't take into account. ... The scariest part of 9/11 was that it basically was a threat to the entire free-market order. If someone with fairly low-tech means could wipe out hundreds of billions of dollars in one act, it would undermine the whole property order, not to mention the lives lost. Protecting the homeland is the federal government's most important function. Failing to do so would have an astronomical cost."
John Berlau is a writer for Insight magazine.
Because "free traders" refused to addressed why jobs are leaving town: It is not because of the labor rate; it is because of the other and much greater costs of doing business under the burdens of government taxation and regulation.
The same burdens that will force, by will of all the socialists and supporters of a government by judiciary, parents to give up their rights and their authority over their children and homes.
We should not have to read the fine print in an article, such as the above, when the President should be speaking out IN PUBLIC and QUITE OFTEN about the needs to shrink the federal government and elimnate government waste.
But in an interview with Insight in his office at the Eisenhower Executive Building of the White House complex, Joel Kaplan, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), calmly responds to criticisms of Bush's spending record that come from both the left and right. He explains that much of the spending increases have gone to defense and homeland security - which conservatives always have said are the core functions of the federal government - largely because of the war on terrorism and Bill Clinton's sharp reductions in defense spending over eight years.
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