| | President Bush promised fiscal responsibility, but instead has delivered a budget rife with profligate spending
By David Tancabel | Staff Writer | 30 July 2003
The Republican Party took control of Congress with the 1994 Republican Contract with America on the idea that government "is too big, too intrusive, and too easy with the public's money." Almost a decade later, with control of the White House, the Republicans in power have turned around and created the largest budget and deficits this county has ever seen. At a time when this country needs a sound fiscal policy, President Bush has led the path away from fiscal conservatism, and Republicans in Congress and across the country have followed. Conservatives have blindly followed Bush away from what used to be one of their pillars, low government spending and a balanced budget.
During the Clinton years, federal spending as a percentage of the nation's total economic output dropped from 22% at the start of his first term to below 19% at the end of his second. Huge deficits were replaced with record surpluses while the Republican Congress kept his spending in check. Regulatory costs also declined steadily throughout Clinton's presidency, according to a study released by Americans for Tax Reform, a group that favors lower taxes.
Under Bush, government spending is up 12.4% over the past three years, record deficits have returned and regulatory costs are up 8.4%. The $2.2 trillion budget is the most of any budget in United States' history. This number does not include the $74 billion spending bill already past to pay for the war in Iraq, nor does it include the further supplemental appropriations that will be needed for the increasingly expensive occupation of Iraq.
It used to be the Republicans who would start an outcry on spending increases, but for now, they are content spending away, creating the big government they supposedly abhor. If the Federal Government needs to increase its spending this much, a tax cut to boost the economy is not prudent. Making sure the war and the government can be paid for is a more pertinent issue.
There was also little opposition from Republicans on Bush's tax plan. A large $330 billion tax cut that, if Bush got his way, would have been closer to $750 billion. Bush now faces the largest deficits in the history of the Federal Government, estimated at $455 billion. Republicans and fiscal conservatives had believed for quite some time that a balanced budget was a good policy, but now that they have control, they believe they can do whatever they want with the public's money. Some economists agree that the tax cut will give the economy a boost, but the economic conditions are not bad enough that such a boost is needed when expensive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are being fought.
Blaming the higher budgets on the "war on terror" stretches credulity too. As The Economist put it, "Federal spending has increased by 18% in Mr Bush's first two years--far more than the forecasts allow for in the future. The non-military component has been rising by more than 6% a year, which makes blaming it all on the war on terror seem strange. And the forecasts do not include the costs of war in Iraq, which are unpredictable."
President Bush and the self-proclaimed "conservatives" in Congress are showing they have no discipline when they are in control of the money. Bush and many of the Republicans have turned on their roots that won them control of Congress and are now blazing a trail back to the big government and big money that they were suppose to destroy.
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