McCain Lashes Bush and Congress for Overspending-----

I'd have voted for McCain in 2000 (I went Green). He would have won the Republican primaries, too, had Bush not slandered him with all the South Carolina trash. Remember, McCain won New Hampshire.

I hope McCain throws his hat in the ring in 2004, as a Republican, Democrat or otherwise. I'd love to see a Dean/McCain ticket, but his involvement in the 2004 race would only be good for public dialogue.

 

I did the same thing: I was going to vote for McCain, but when Bush II weaseled in, I ended up voting independent.

 

The Bush Betrayal


By David Boaz

Sunday, November 30, 2003; Page B07


In 2000 George W. Bush campaigned across the country telling voters: "My opponent trusts government. I trust you."

Little wonder that some of his supporters are now wondering which candidate won that election.

Federal spending has increased by 23.7 percent since Bush took office. Education has been further federalized in the No Child Left Behind Act. Bush pulled out all the stops to get Republicans in Congress to create the biggest new entitlement program -- prescription drug coverage under Medicare -- in 40 years.

He pushed an energy bill that my colleague Jerry Taylor described as "three parts corporate welfare and one part cynical politics . . . a smorgasbord of handouts and subsidies for virtually every energy lobby in Washington."

It's a far cry from the less-government, "leave us alone" conservatism of Ronald Reagan.

Conservatives used to believe that the U.S. Constitution set up a government of strictly limited powers.

It was supposed to protect us from foreign threats and deliver the mail, leaving other matters to the states or to the private sector -- individuals, families, churches, charities and businesses.

That's what lots of voters assumed they would get with Bush. In his first presidential debate with Al Gore, Bush contrasted his own vision of tax reduction with that of his opponent, who would "increase the size of government dramatically." Gore, Bush declared, would "empower Washington," but "my passion and my vision is to empower Americans to be able to make decisions for themselves in their own lives."

Bush was tapping into popular sentiment.

In fact, you could say that what most voters wanted in 2000 was neither Bush nor Gore but smaller government. A Los Angeles Times poll in September 2000 found that Americans preferred "smaller government with fewer services" to "larger government with many services" by 59 to 26 percent.

But that's not what voters got. Leave aside defense spending and even entitlements spending: In Bush's first three years, nondefense discretionary spending -- which fell by 13.5 percent under Ronald Reagan -- has soared by 20.8 percent. His more libertarian-minded voters are taken aback to discover that "compassionate conservatism" turned out to mean social conservatism -- a stepped-up drug war, restrictions on medical research, antigay policies, federal subsidies for marriage and religion -- and big-spending liberalism justified as "compassion."

When they're given a chance to vote, Americans don't like big government.

Last November 45 percent of the voters in the most liberal state in the Union, Ted Kennedy's Massachusetts, voted to abolish the state income tax.

In January, Oregon's liberal electorate rejected a proposed tax increase, 55 percent to 45 percent.

In September Alabama voters rejected Gov. Bob Riley's $1.2 billion tax hike by 2 to 1.

California voters tossed out big-spending Gov. Gray Davis, and 62 percent of them voted for candidates who promised not to raise taxes to close the state's deficit.

Bush and his aides should be worrying about the possibility that libertarians, economic conservatives and fed-up taxpayers won't be in his corner in 2004 in the same numbers as 2000.

Republican strategists are likely to say that libertarians and economic conservatives have nowhere else to go. Many of the disappointed will indeed sigh a deep sigh and vote for Bush as a lesser evil.

But Karl Rove, who is fascinated by the role Mark Hanna played in building the post-1896 Republican majority, should remember one aspect of that era: In the late 19th century, the Democratic Party of Jefferson, Jackson and Cleveland was known as "the party of personal liberty." More so than the Republicans, it was committed to economic and cultural laissez-faire and opposed to Prohibition, protectionism and inflation.

When the big-government populist William Jennings Bryan claimed the Democratic nomination in 1896, many assumed he would draw industrial workers from the Republicans and bring new voters to the polls. Instead, Bryan lost in a landslide, and turnout declined for the next few elections. As the more libertarian Democrats found less reason to go to the polls, the Republicans dominated national politics for the next 36 years.

It could happen that limited-government voters decide to stay home, or vote for an independent candidate in the mold of Ross Perot or Jesse Ventura or vote Libertarian.

They could even vote for an antiwar, anti-Patriot Act, socially tolerant Democrat.

Given a choice between big-government liberalism and big-government conservatism, the leave-us-alone voters might decide that voting isn't worth the trouble.

The writer is executive vice president of the Cato Institute and author of "Libertarianism: A Primer."

 

It is like Bush is saying here America, we are going to give you one dollar of government, and only charge you .75 cents. The other quarter we will charge to your grandchildren.

Terrible economic policy.

DD

 

re: Boaz
I don't believe libertarians or economic conservatives would abandon Bush because most Americans are too short sighted in general to care about the hypotheticals of how much of the current or near term prosperity will be paid for by their grandchildren.
Look at Social Security, it's the third rail of politics. Based on population estimates, I'm not getting anything from it when I retire, and I'm pretty sure all those current and near term AARP eligible folks don't give a damn about the younger folks who will be saddled with paying for them, the prevailing attitude is they paid in to SSI, now it's time to get theirs.

 

I disagree. If we actually took fiscal action that made sense given our obligations, we would be able to see that you get money when you retire as well. The actions of both parties are at fault but the fiscal crisis has been exacerbated gretly by the policies of this administration and Congress.

 

We can have our cake and eat it, too. But it takes foresight and frugal planning, both of which have been thrown out the window.

Want a war? Fine. Want to cut taxes? Fine. Want to open a Department of Homeland Security? Fine.

But you can't do all three and still balance your checkbook.

 

I know that *you* and most of the posters recognize that we can't pay .75 and get 1.00 worth of services, but the average American either can not or will not connect those two points of data. It's the guy who's President after a few terms have passed that will have to pay for this junk literally and figuratively. We as a nation are extremely short sighted.

SSI is a bit different since it's not from general funds ( but the surplus pays for general items thanks to Gramm IIRC). Last time I looked at the SSI issue, there were 3 or 4 taxpayers per SSI recipient, when I retire there it will be closer to 1 to 1, all trends staying the same. It's the same in that folks don't care about screwing future generations, they have to have their COLA no matter what. Also, the SSI tax screws the middle class and poor. We should just call it what it is, welfare for old folks.

 

I'm OK with welfare for old folks considering the alternative. Before SSI, the elderly were almost universally poverty stricken and comprised the single largest age demographic among the homeless. SSI is a good idea, but this administration has chosen to increase our fiscal irresponsibility that a crisis will occur much more quickly and will last much longer than it would have to if Bush didn't have to pay back his cronies.

 

As several have previously stated there have been rumblings - though not so vocal among many Republicans concerning the intolerably inept fiscal responsibility of this administration. McCain is often the first in the party to come out and openly lambaste what he believes to be foolish politics particularly pork barrel projects and big government nonsense.

I believe his current statements will open a floodgate of Republican criticism of Bush to bring him back under control before the critical phase of the 2004 election. I have the strong impression that many powerful Republicans have little tolerance for Bush, but i’m sure they would rather have him than Dean, Kerry, or any other liberal or moderate (obviously).

 

The Politics of Payoff


By E. J. Dionne Jr.

Tuesday, December 2, 2003; Page A27


President Bush likes to talk about the need for "fiscal sanity in Washington." His decision to run up the national debt is entirely sane -- as long as you understand his real purpose. Bush doesn't care a whit about deficits. That's because he is not a fiscal conservative. He is a political conservative out to buy himself a majority in 2004 and spending the next generation's money to do it.

Some act mystified, as if conservatives are always more responsible with the people's money than liberals. But it's possible to be generous toward social needs and pay as you go. That's what liberals have usually done. Paul Gigot, the Wall Street Journal's conservative editorial page editor, once called this approach "balanced-budget liberalism." It's conservatives, not liberals, who twice over the past quarter-century have created extravagant deficits.

It's also forgotten that redistribution to the poor is not the only way to shift money around. The government's coffers can also be run down by redistribution to the wealthy and to favored interest groups. And when it comes to the politics of payoff, the president and his allies are nothing short of brilliant. Disgorging public money to your friends makes political sense. By recycling a small fraction of the cash back to Bush and his party in the form of campaign contributions, those friends are financing the construction of a mighty political machine. It's a weird form of public financing of campaigns -- confined to one party.

Bush's first tax cut distributed just enough to middle-class families to give cover for a plan that largely helped the best-off Americans. Next came the dividends tax cut, an even more naked transfer of cash to the wealthy. At least a fifth of the benefits of this year's tax package went to a mere four-tenths of 1 percent of taxpayers, those making more than $500,000 a year. One-third of Americans got nothing, and half got less than $100 a year.

But it doesn't stop there. Public spending per person is higher under Bush than it was under Bill Clinton. Where is it going? A share of it is for big increases in defense spending. Assume all that spending is justified. It still helps build a Republican majority. The people at Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and the like give the bulk of their campaign contributions to the Republicans.

The Medicare drug bill seeks to expand Bush's reach to senior citizens. But many of its provisions help core Republican constituencies, including private health plans that get billions to compete with Medicare. Another $25 billion goes to rural hospitals. Troubled urban hospitals don't get similar help, but urban areas didn't vote for Bush. Another $6 billion in the bill for health savings accounts also helps Republican contributors.

The pharmaceutical companies are so generous to Republicans that they might start giving out free Viagra and Lipitor at fundraisers. Drug company executives love it that the drug bill forbids Medicare from using its bargaining power to bring down the cost of drugs. Fiscal conservatives might want to contain taxpayer outlays to the drug manufacturers. Political conservatives prefer to protect their industry friends. Then there is that amazing $31 billion energy bill, blocked so far by genuine fiscal conservatives such as Sen. John McCain. Bush and most Republicans had been fighting hard for the bill's extravagant subsidies to all sorts of special interests, beginning with the oil and gas industry.

And why not? As The Post's Tom Edsall reported, the bill provides benefits to at least 22 executives and their spouses who have qualified in Bush's two top categories of fundraisers. At least 15 lobbyists for interests helped by the bill and their spouses achieved similar Bush MVP fundraising status. Back in the Clinton days, self-styled "deficit hawks" decried efforts to pass universal health coverage on the grounds that doing so might deepen the deficit. Now many of the same supposed deficit hawks happily vote for budget-busting giveaways that benefit their party's ideological and business allies. Politicians who can't say 10 words without praising "free markets" back big subsidies that will tilt the market toward their contributors. Few challenge their capitalist credentials.

Building transit, roads and schools, and helping the young and the poor buy health insurance and get a better education -- these might justify deficits to finance investments for the next generation. Sending us into a hole to buy an election and to help well-connected interest groups just doesn't seem worth it.

The New Big Spenders are very different from the old ones. How long will it take us to understand that?

 

BUDGET BATTLES
The Worst Budget Year Ever
By Stan Collender
NationalJournal.com
Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2003

The conclusion is as inescapable as it is unassailable: 2003 will go down as one of the absolute worst years for the federal budget in U.S. history.

With so many misstatements, misleading arguments and outright misdirections, it became harder than ever to separate fact from fiction.

The budget decisions made this year have been so monumentally and uniformly bad that in the years ahead, 2003 is likely to be seen as the demarcation point that led to tough fiscal times for the nation. Even if "the budget" is not a campaign issue in 2004, the seeds definitely were planted in 2003 for it to become a big issue at some point in the near future.

There are four reasons why 2003 should be considered the slum of federal budget years.

First, every part of the budget went in the wrong direction as far as the deficit was concerned. Can you think of another year that saw a tax cut, a significant increase in appropriations, a major new entitlement program, and a substantial appropriation for waging a war and rebuilding the country we fought -- all at the same time?

Moreover, all of this happened in the face of a record-high deficit that was projected to keep getting larger. Any one of these things by themselves would have resulted in a major change in the budget outlook, but all of them occurring at the same time overwhelmed the bottom line.

Even if one fervently agrees with the policies such increased spending and decreased revenues were designed to achieve, that still doesn't mean that the budget impact had to be ignored, that the policies should have been pushed at the same time, or that there was not an obligation to identify at least partially offsetting spending cuts or revenue increases.

Yet none of these things were put in place with offsets. In most cases, there wasn't anyone in authority even talking about mitigating some of the budget impact. That kind of budget free-for-all didn't even occur when a budget surplus was burning a hole in many Washington pockets.

Second, 2003 will go down in the history books as the year when the budget debate approached rock bottom. With so many misstatements, misleading arguments and outright misdirections by those who were budget-be-damned adamant about doing what they wanted to do, it became harder than ever to separate fact from fiction.

For example:

Many defended the record deficit by saying it was needed to spur economic growth. But the complaints were about the long-term deficits, when the economy was supposed to be growing and no longer in need of a fiscal stimulus.

Many said the deficit was overstated and would be lower than projected because of higher economic growth. That growth, however, was already built in to the forecasts. So unless the growth was going to surpass the official estimates, the deficit would not be lower. Equally important, if the White House was saying growth would be faster than expected, why didn't it change its estimates to reflect that?

The president kept saying his policies would cut the deficit in half by the end of 2008, even though that calculation was based on spending and revenue assumptions that were not being followed when the statements were made. For example, appropriations grew from fiscal 2002 to 2003 by more than 12 percent -- three times faster than the 4 percent limit the president said he would insist on and the one included in the deficit-in-half-by-2008 promise. Revenues were based on the assumption that expiring provisions would be allowed to expire, even though the White House was saying it did not want that to happen and would propose they be extended.

Taking credit for cutting the deficit in half to about $250 billion by the end of fiscal 2008 indicates that it will be $500 billion before then. That is 33 percent above the new record of $374 billion set in 2003. Even if is achieved, a $250 billion deficit is nothing to be proud of, especially because there was a surplus when this administration and Congress began.

The $374 billion deficit in 2003 was defended because it was not as high as a percentage of GDP as the record deficits from the 1980s. Not only does that ignore the question of whether that deficit was appropriate to begin with, but it also assumes that we have to wait until we reach the old record to be concerned about it.

The argument that the 2003 deficit is not as large as the 1983 deficit is incorrect in any case because it uses two numbers that should not be compared with each other. There was virtually no Social Security surplus in 1983 so that year’s $208 billion deficit represented only the operating costs of the federal government. In 2003, however, there was a substantial Social Security surplus that masked the size of the operating deficit. Remove it from the calculation and the deficit was about 5 percent of GDP. In other words, the 2003 deficit that should have been used for comparison purposes was on a par with the record deficit from 1983 that was used to defend what was done this year.
Third, there was no budget discipline of any kind in 2003. The budget process did not include caps on appropriations or pay-as-you-go rules for taxes and entitlements, so no one was prevented from doing anything they wanted to do. In addition, no consideration was given to reimposing any of the restrictions. This time around, Congress didn't even need to adopt waivers of the rules or concoct exotic strategies to get around them.
There was also little or no effort made by either the White House or Hill leaders to include offsetting spending cuts or revenue increases when the budget-busters were considered. Many representatives and senators who wanted to vote against them for budget reasons faced significant pressure not to do so. Some were even threatened with political retaliation.

Fourth, 2003 will go down in the budget history books because of the long-term fiscal damage that was done. Almost all the policies that were put in place are permanent tax and spending changes that will have an impact for years to come. Even the appropriations increases, which technically are only for one year, substantially increase the baseline and, therefore, will have a negative effect on the bottom line of every year in the future.

Is there any thing good that can be said about 2003?

Yes -- it's almost over.

 

I may change my vote strictly on this issue, if someone else of character runs.

DD

 

I don't think it matters that much. Those who vote based on one issue still will vote for the Bushies, anti-abortion, anti-tax folks and the Bushies have too much money for any one to overcome in an American style election with the way the electoral votes are stacked right now. The infamy from the combination of spending and cutting taxes will only be felt by whoever follows him in office.

 

I know people who are absolutely, positively disgusted with Bush's presidency, but they will vote for him in 2004 because he's anti-abortion.

I admire their principles, but it's hard for me to rationalize voting on one issue.

 

It is for me too, however, think about those who are anti-abortion for a minute. They genuinely believe that abortion is murder. How could you vote for someone who you believe supports murder, despite all the arguments to the contrary. Abortion is the only issue where I understand how someone could or could not vote for a candidate depending on their views.

 

I'm betting a lot of these people who are voting based solely on Bush's anti-abortion politicking won't be too concerned with other people's abortions when they have to declare bankruptcy and try to get on food stamps.

 

On further reflection, I take that back - even if Bush's economic policies send everyone who isn't a millionare to the poorhouse, the anti-abortionists will probably still support him fanatically - they'll just consider themselves martyrs in suffering.

Not that any of this matters - crusaders don't read much.