Posted on 01/05/2004 1:19:09 PM PST by G. Chapman
Conservatives simmer as spending mushrooms under Bush WASHINGTON (AP) — Conservatives wait warily as President Bush makes final decisions about his election-year budget, three years into an administration on whose watch spending has mushroomed by 23.7%, the fastest pace in a decade.
While Bush has emphasized repeatedly the need to rein in spending, overall federal expenditures have grown to an estimated $2.31 trillion for the budget year that started Oct. 1. That is up from $1.86 trillion in President Clinton's final year, a rate of growth not seen for any three-year period since 1989 to 1991.
Much of the increase stems from the fight against terrorism and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Also expanding relentlessly have been huge programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which grow automatically with inflation, higher medical costs and more beneficiaries.
What has vexed conservatives most is the 31.5% growth since Bush took office in discretionary spending. That is the one-third of the budget lawmakers approve annually for defense, domestic security, school aid and everything else except Social Security and other benefits.
Such spending grew by an annual average of 3.4% during Clinton's eight years.
Further infuriating conservatives, Bush and the Republican-run Congress have enacted a $400 billion, 10-year enlargement of Medicare; $87 billion in expanded benefits for farmers; and $40 billion for increased veterans' payments and the Air Force's leasing and buying of refueling tankers.
"Re-election has become the focus of Republicans in the White House and Congress. And those in power have determined the road to staying in power is paved with government spending," said Brian Riedl, who monitors the budget for the conservative Heritage Foundation.
Mounting spending has combined with the recession and two major tax cuts to turn a four-year string of annual surpluses into deficits that last year hit $374 billion, the worst ever in dollar terms. Administration officials and private forecasters say red ink could hit $500 billion this year, with more to follow.
Things look bleak in the long run, too. Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has said the Medicare bill could cost from $1.7 trillion to $2 trillion during its second 10 years, as the huge baby boom generation retires and foists added costs on taxpayers.
"The U.S. budget is out of control," the investment bank Goldman, Sachs & Co. wrote its clients, projecting large deficits for the next decade. "Any thoughts of relief thereafter are a pipe dream until political priorities adjust."
In the new budget Bush is to send Congress on Feb. 2, Bush is expected to propose limiting the growth of discretionary programs to 4%, perhaps excluding defense and domestic security. Last February, Bush proposed holding discretionary spending increases to 4% this year and next, although aides now say he meant to exclude the military and anti-terror activities.
Discretionary expenditures will hit an estimated $873 billion this year, assuming the Senate completes a House-passed measure in January combining the year's seven remaining spending bills. That is $27 billion, or 3.2%, more than last year.
"President Bush has been resolute in pursuing his priorities of winning the war on terrorism, protecting the homeland and strengthening our economy. In pursuing those, he's also exercised fiscal restraint," said Joel Kaplan, deputy director of the White House budget office.
Critics say with nine months left in the government's budget year, there's plenty of time for more spending increases, such as for war costs. And they note this year's discretionary spending increase, though low, adds to boosts of 11% and then 15% in Bush's first two years as president.
"It's an administration that in principle is committed to controlling spending but is unwilling to make hard choices," said Maya MacGuineas, executive director of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a bipartisan anti-deficit group.
The administration says most discretionary spending increases have been for defense and programs it considers anti-terror — the Homeland Security Department and other domestic security efforts.
Of the $209 billion three-year discretionary increase under Bush, which includes $20 billion Bush added for homeland security for 2001 right after the Sept. 11 attacks, the administration says $159 billion has been for defense and domestic security.
That means 76% of the increases have been for those programs.
During that same period, spending for all remaining discretionary programs has grown from $331 billion to $381 billion. That's 15%, or 5% a year.
"There clearly is a need for the Republican majority to sharpen its pencils and return to its foundation of discipline" in spending, said conservative Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind.
"There is room for more restraint, especially as the economy recovers, but this is hardly the record of a domestic-program spending spree," White House budget chief Joshua Bolten wrote last month in The Wall Street Journal.
The Republicrats tried to scare you with the Dems until you found out they were just like the Dems. Now they will pump the terrorism thing to keep you going to the polls for them. Don't think that they are the only ones who can deal with this situation, that is what they are banking on to keep rolling out their socialist agenda.
They did pay a price for that didn't they? The arguments of their spokespeople were so outlandish and went against everything they had ever stood for that even normally friendly reporters and interviewers expressed disgust with them. Even Katie Couric, as I recall- shook her head in disbelief and commented on what a joke NOW had become after a story on their stand on Clintons' impeachment.
I rarely see anyone from NOW interviewed anymore much less even quoted on "women's issues."
Bush took office without a mandate. This is a bad situation to start from. (I'll not elucidate)
In order to assure two terms, he had to do some things.
What he did, a brilliantly done, was to take away the three main issues of the democrats and usurp their agenda. He made it his and put his changes into it and got it all passed. Every bit of it.
He did it because it would have been done anyway, had the rats got the office back and he wanted to put a Republican face on it. he also did it with much less money than was anticipated and he will get that second term, assuming the sky does not fall in.
The Republican congress is preparing to get the cutting tools out and find room in the budget for these things. The democrats will now have to go along with it because of those damn tax cuts and it is really ticking them off. They see it coming!
lastly, even with all this stuff, we are still below the Reagan years as a percentage of GDP.
I look forward to some veto's in the coming four years. I also look forward to a better and brighter future because of what has been accomplished.
Stay with the team. The offense is going to be great next year and the possibility of a win in 2008 is not out of the question for sure!
Go team! Can't wait to see them play in the second period!
/sarcasm
Show me one other party candidate that supports our actions in Iraq. The second the word "preemptive" comes out of a persons mouth, I lose all respect for their intellect.
These useless symbolic runs for the Presidency underscore the intellectual vanity and lack of seriousness on the part of nearly all 3rd parties.
I guess doing the hard work of local campaigning and actually building a consituency from the grassroots up is beneath them?
I have been extremely critical of Bush on this site and the sorry state of political discourse in this country but the Constitution Party? Yeah- I agree with them on an intellectual level- but they are not even trying to win a local election in a state or congressional district that is most receptive to their view point. The libertarians are trying but they as well should not be wasting money on useless runs for the Presidency and be working on the local level.
My mother died recently at a rather young age. The local GOP Pol showed up at her wake because I had worked on local and statewide campaigns some 15 years earlier for him and he rememnbered! That is nitty gritty of politics and what third parties should be doing instead of these vain glorious runs for the Presidency! Since I live in Massachsetts - I might just vote for a third party for the Presidency (unless it looks like Bush has a chance in Mass). But to vote third party in a presidential election in a competitive state? I just don't get that. 18 year olds vote for ideological purity but adults do not.
I call that a terrible event, but the airlines did not stop flying, Wall Street did not shut down, the market didn't do a nose dive, tourism was not stopped for days and crippled for months to come.
While the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma was a tragedy, it had nearly no impact on the economy of the nation as a whole, unlike the attacks on 9/11. The cost to New York ALONE exceeded $90 billion dollars, there were 237,000 jobs lost in the travel industry alone in the aftermath.
And no, I won't vote for a Democrat. However, I may very well vote Constitution Party.
I might as well. But I live in Mass liberal land where 80 percent of the time we vote for the Dem presidential candidate. So my vote is lost anyway. But your state? Is it that secure for Bush?
Instead of these symbolic runs for the Presidency parties like the Constitution Party should be spending their meager funds on local elections - even if dog catcher. These vain glorious runs for the presidency are laughable and not serious.
That's right. Bush and Rove have crunched the numbers and decided the way to get re-elected is to beat the Democrats at their own game: spending.
Bush and Rove have made the conscious decision to give me and other fiscal conservatives a straight-up middle finger. They have made it abundantly clear they don't need our votes. So they certainly won't get mine this time round.
That's the way it goes.
He's done more damage in 3 years than clinton did in 8!
Yes- he has. There is no doubt about it. There is really no sense in arguing it. But if Dean is elected we lose any chance of sane justices being appointed to USSC and can kiss this country goodbye for the next 30 years. Not to mention that Dems have a nasty habit of running wars badly and expanding them (but that would make a lot of "phoneycons" here happy wouldn't it?)
Quite frankly and oddly enough- iff Bush fails to win this election the GOP is all done for me and many other conservatives since they won't have the Supreme Court issue to wave around anymore. This is the GOP's last Hoorah so to speak. It is either put up or shut up.
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