- Gravediggers have a maxim that every politician should
ponder: Never dig a hole deeper than you can climb out of.
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- Since politicians are usually pretty keen on their own
interests, if not the interests of their country, you'd think that this
maxim would be redundant, not necessary in the slightest.
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- But, given current trends in Republican-controlled Washington,
you'd be wrong.
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- The Republicans are digging themselves in deep, and burying
the country with them. How? By abandoning their stated beliefs in small
government and fiscal responsibility. Or, to get back to my metaphor, they
are up to their neck in debt, and yet they keep digging.
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- A Sorry Record
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- The big political news focuses on other matters right
now: war and the upcoming presidential election. Despite the polls, which
show George Bush vulnerable, most Republicans seem pretty confident--many
even revel at the prospect of Bush trouncing John Kerry next November.
After all, Kerry, a rather wooden, aristocratic Northeastern liberal, and
the favorite of Ted Kennedy, doesn't look all that impressive in the heartland
and in the South. So to lots of Republicans, another four years of Bush
seems almost inevitable.
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- But Republicans have something much bigger to worry about.
Themselves.
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- Kerry may or may not be as big a spender as he (or any
other Democratic candidate) will be portrayed. But the unfortunate truth
is, George W. Bush is a Big Spender, too. The biggest--ever--by the numbers.
With the gracious assistance of the Republican Congress, of course.
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- Now, you will remember that the Republicans blamed the
Democratic majorities in Congress for the massive deficits of the Reagan-Bush
years. But then along came a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, and then
a Republican-controlled Congress, and--voila!--for the first time in decades
the American government showed some fiscal restraint. Well, actually government
spending continued to grow at an alarming pace, but slower than GNP--so
at last we could marvel at something like balanced budgets.
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- The Republicans then promised a conservative Nirvana
were they to regain the Executive Branch. A newer, younger Bush campaigned
as a man who understood that government couldn't do everything for everyone
and that regular citizens could usually do better than government with
the money in their pockets. George W. Bush entered the Oval Office and...all
restraint went out the window.
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- This can be seen by the rise in the sheer size of the
budget: $2.3 trillion, up 23.8 percent from Clinton's final budget year.
No restraint there.
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- This can also be seen in the growth of programs once
considered anathema to Republicans: under George W. Bush, the Education
department is not only massively better funded, its programs are also far
more intrusive, and more centralized at the national level than ever. They
can't even spell restraint.
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- The needless and ridiculous and obnoxious National Endowment
for the Arts, long attacked by Republicans in Congress, has seen its funding
increase 17 percent. Still less restraint--and in dubious taste.
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- And, of course, this can be seen in the pork. The huge,
rolling slabs of fat, juicy pork. No restraint in sight.
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- In the past two years, the most bizarre local projects
imaginable have been funded. Shiitake mushroom research. A swimming pool
clean-up. A rock 'n' roll Hall of Fame. An indoor rain forest to be built
on an Iowa prairie. Millions of dollars for projects that are too numerous
to mention here--though in my <http://cf.townhall.com/linkurl.cfm?http://www.termlimits.org/Press/Common_Sense/>Common
Sense e-letter, I do take pains to point out the worst of them.
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- The indecency of these programs lies not just in their
bizarrerie. The sheer number of funded projects has increased by leaps:
from under 2,000 a half decade ago to over 9,000 last year. And with their
numbers, the dollar figures have leaped up, too: it was over $23 billion
last year. Congress's discretionary spending--where you can find the pork--reached
over $800 billion this year. The president and Tom DeLay insist that the
increases are within the limits they've set for fiscal responsibility,
but it turns out that that is only the case because they've <http://cf.townhall.com/linkurl.cfm?http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/wm385.cfm>fiddled
with the numbers, and hidden some of this year's spending in last's years
figures!
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- Proving, once again, that while you can trust a politician
to spend, you can't expect him to tell the truth about it.
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- Why Why Why?
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- The pork is not the biggest part of the government by
any means. But it is a good indicator of what politicians are up to. They
are trying to keep their jobs.
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- The Republican-controlled House and Senate are equally
to blame. Though President Bush can pretend to be aloof from and even disappointed
in the congressional pork, note that he hasn't vetoed the bills that contain
these indecencies, either. And besides, he has his own versions of pork,
massive spending efforts that belie his alleged ideology and that are thrown
into the political winds to deflect the wrath of his enemies or curry more
favor with his friends. Last year's proposal to throw over a billion dollars
at research into hydrogen automobiles? Last month's proposal to send a
man to Mars? A cool $1.5 billion for the federal government to enter the
marriage-counseling business? These put Bush smack-dab in the same camp
as Congress, as the biggest of the Big Spenders.
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- In normal times, none of this would seem all that shocking,
at least to the jaded observer. But these are not normal times. You might
expect decent politicians facing war both abroad and on home soil to demand
some sacrifices, some restraint. And in the name of balanced budgets, we'd
hear firm talk of priorities. But we have none of that.
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- The Republican commitment to limited government has vanished
into...hot air. All that remains is some rhetoric. There is no reality.
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- Recent announcements from the White House that they'll
get tough on wasteful spending, if we'll just all "wait until next
year," and that the deficit will be cut in half within five years
are less than credible. Worse yet, this putting off till tomorrow the balancing
that should be done today understandably casts suspicions against the administration's
tax cuts. Tax cuts are good; money in the pockets of citizens is better
than that same money flowing in and out of government coffers. But tax
cuts without spending cuts increase debt, deferring taxes to some future
time, perhaps the next generation. And it adds interest to injury. This
cedes to the Democrats the moral high ground, and weakens the case against
tax reduction now. It makes the mere mention of tax cuts seem irresponsible,
a conspiracy against our children. Procrastination is not a matter of principle.
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- Which brings me back to the gravedigger's maxim. Bush
and the congressional Republicans have rediscovered the joys of shoveling
out the rich loam of government largesse to their interests. They've dug
deep in order to continue doing so, to keep themselves in office.
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- But have they dug too deep? If Americans wake up some
time before the next election, rub their eyes and see who's been shoveling
what, and to where, why would they continue to vote for Republicans?
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- As a way to say thanks for making Bill Clinton look more
responsible in retrospect?
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- The Bottom Line
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- So that's where we are. Neither major party has shown
a scintilla of resolve for limited, common-sense government. Citizens who
wish to rein in government effectively had better cease pinning their faith
on one party, and look to more constitutional reforms--like <http://cf.townhall.com/linkurl.cfm?http://www.termlimits.org/index.html>term
limits, <http://www.citizensincharge.org/main/current.php?showcat=news>voter
initiative, balanced budget amendments, and the like.
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- Years ago, a Democratic president said that the days
of Big Government were over. He was lying. But what is President Bush's
excuse? And how shall the congressional Republicans explain? Between now
and November, more Americans may demand an honest accounting.
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- http://www.townhall.com/columnists/pauljacob/pj20040201.shtml
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