When his personal approval ratings were far higher than now, President Bush might have reduced the size and cost of government. Instead, he chose “compassionate conservatism” as his doctrine and big-government conservatism (which is a contradiction) as his calling.
Now the president, who has not vetoed a single bill in more than five years in office, wants Congress to give him line-item veto power. Lawmakers are unlikely to do so for the same reason a drunk might question the commitment of Alcoholics Anonymous if that organization were handing out free samples of liquor at its sobriety meetings.
“Too many bills passed by Congress include unnecessary spending,” said the president in his message to Congress that accompanied his line-item veto request. But that unnecessary spending didn’t begin this year. It’s been going on a long time.
A long time indeed. And considering that Bush himself has been complicit in much of the unnecessary spending that he now condemns, its somewhat hard to take his new-found fiscal conservatism seriously. The numbers do not lie:
According to Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), “The number of pork-barrel projects in the federal budget has skyrocketed from 1,439 in fiscal 1995 to 13,997 in fiscal 2005, an increase of 873 percent. Among the $27.3 billion of pork identified in the 2005 Congressional Pig Book were $6.3 million for wood utilization research and $2 million to buy back the USS Sequoia Presidential Yacht.” If the president did not find this sort of outrageous misspending unnecessary, why should anyone believe he will veto other pork projects, known as earmarks, contained in future legislation?
Excellent question. Fortunately, there are some in Congress with more credibility on this issue than either Bush or the GOP leadership:
There are some with more credibility on this issue than President Bush. They include Rep. Mike Pence, Indiana Republican, who is chairman of the House Republican Study Committee, and Rep. Jeb Hensarling, Texas Republican, who chairs the RSC’s Budget and Spending Task Force. They announced Wednesday their intention to introduce a balanced budget consistent with promises of the 1994 Contract with America, which helped Republicans gain their first House majority in four decades.The conservatives’ budget would go far beyond anything President Bush intends. They estimate it would save $350 billion on Medicare, Medicaid and other skyrocketing social programs. Another $300 billion in savings would come from a complete restructuring of the departments of Education, Commerce and Energy.
The ultimate restructuring would get rid of all three, especially Education and Energy. But since that is unlikely, a restructuring that reduces unnecessary personnel and eliminates waste, fraud and abuse would at least show Republicans are returning to their ideological roots of smaller government, less spending and lower taxes.
Nothing that the Bush Administration or the Congressional leadership has proposed in the past 5 years has come even close to challenging the spend-spend-spend orthodoxy of Washington, D.C. As a result, the federal budget has increased, the deficit has increased, and the size and scope of government have increased. And this is after 5 years of Republican control of all three branches of government:
If Republicans don’t stop the unnecessary spending now, when they control all three branches of government, how will they contrast themselves from Democrats and appeal to voters to elect Republicans instead of members of the other party?
Darn good question, and an important one as we head into the 2006 elections. Of course, as Thomas points out, the ultimate fault, dear voters, lies not in the politicans, but in ourselves:
There is another problem. Too many people want too much from government and are unwilling to do more for themselves. Politicians from both parties know this. Unless people demand less, they will get more spending and eventually higher taxes, or greater debt to foreign powers to pay for it all.
Where have you gone Ronald Reagan ? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
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