Politicians are continuing to go down the wrong path...
Big spenders
Elections are supposed to be momentous things. The fate of a nation hangs in the balance. Policies shift, government grows bigger or smaller, more or less expensive depending on which way the numbers tally at the polls. That's why we're supposed to feel so silly when we awake on a Wednesday morning in November and realize that we forgot to vote. Again.
As momentous electoral events go, the big winner in recent years was supposed to be the 1994 "Republican Revolution," which handed control of both houses of Congress to the GOP for the first time since your grandaddy was the one waking-up and realizing he'd forgotten to vote. The newly empowered Republican team took the legislative reins in Washington, D.C. with grand plans to trim back the size and power of government.
Well, so much for momentous changes at the ballot box. According to Stephen Moore and Stephen Slivinski of the Cato Institute, the current Congress, still controlled by Republicans, "is well on its way to becoming the largest-spending Congress on domestic social programs since the late 1970s."
Writing in their recent study, "Return of the Living Dead: Federal Programs That Survived the Republican Revolution," the two add that "[a] major reason for all the new spending is the inability or unwillingness of Republicans to eliminate virtually any government program."
Congress isn't being mugged for those expenditures, either -- it's coughing-up the money gladly. According to Peter Sperry of The Heritage Foundation, "[o]n March 30, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a fiscal year (FY) 2000 supplemental appropriations bill (H.R. 3908) to release an additional $12.7 billion in spending. This supplemental spending bill contains appropriations that are more than double the $5.5 billion requested by President Bill Clinton."
All that generosity might elicit admiration were the money coming from the pols' own pockets. No such luck -- it's you and I footing the bill, as ever, and it's a hefty bill indeed.
In fact, it's the heftiest bill to land on our plate to-date. Drawing from numbers prepped by Americans for Tax Reform, the Mackinac Center's Mark Perry figures that government now costs Americans more than ever. He names June 22 as the date by which we've all labored long enough to pay our shares of federal, state, and local government expenditures, as well as the extra cost of regulations.
And you were thinking of taking next summer off, weren't you?
In fact, Perry says, government is one of the few things that is actually getting more expensive over time. Improved efficiencies reduce the bite that just about everything else takes out of the wallet.
Some folks might grudgingly allow, Robin-Hood-style, that they don't mind surrendering the cash as long as it does good -- we can't be starving the widows and orphans, after all. Whether the rest of us might have our own, even better, ideas of beneficial uses for our money is another matter, of course.
But spending money like a drunken sailor (and how many of those politicians are former swabbies anyway?) seems to be a poor way of making the world a better place.
According to research by Gerald Scully of the NCPA, "social progress" -- that is, such nice things as good health and literacy -- might be boosted by a little government spending, but not too much. Pass a certain point, and you're tossing money around with no measurable effect. Says he, "[a]dvanced countries realize no benefit in terms of social progress from government consumption spending beyond $3,650 per person or 18.6 percent of GDP."
In fact, Americans reach diminishing returns after government spending hits just 3.7 percent of the economy.
The United States government is currently gobbling about double that top limit of 18.6 percent (and forget about that optimal low number). That means that all of that extra check-cutting by Congress is the equivalent of standing on the gas pedal when your car is mired in mud. You spin your wheels impressively fast, but you don't go anywhere.
From the looks of things, you'll want to watch where you're standing for the foreseeable future, since politicians are competing to put the pedal to the metal without leaving those mud flats.
Both the Democratic and Republican contenders for the presidency in 2000 have great plans for the government's bulging coffers -- and those plans don't involve shifting the cash back to your pockets, from whence it was lifted.
The National Taxpayers Union says that George W. Bush and Al Gore "are campaigning on who can spend the surplus quicker -- and one of them has pulled far ahead."
Which one plans to spread his generosity with your money extra-thick? Who do you think?
In fact, Gore's announced spending plans would actually consume not just the next ten years' projected surplus of $2.334 trillion, but another $161 billion on credit.
You're good for it, right?
So it's as good a time as any to reintroduce former Sen. William Proxmire's Golden Fleece awards. The one-time senator from Wisconsin made a name for himself for exposing especially dumb and abusive raids on the public till. These days, he's honorary chairman of a group called Taxpayers for Common Sense, which plans to grant Golden Fleece awards on a quarterly schedule to unworthy recipients.
Of course, four awards a year aren't going to trim the government's 36 percent take of the nation's purse down to something reasonable. For that, you're going to need a more holistic approach.
The Heritage Foundation has its own ideas -- and it's willing to get a wee bit radical. "Usually, it is more effective to use a scalpel than a meat ax. However, given the current budget cycle, time and political pressure do not permit such subtlety."
Congress might even look to its own neglected plans. As Cato's Moore and Slivinski remind the legislators, "ltimately the legislative branch is responsible for discretionary spending levels and allocations." The more than 200 programs and three cabinet agencies the Republicans promised to abolish back in 1994 would be a handy place to start. |
