Bush will go down in history as the most
fiscally irresponsible chief executive in American history
Newsweek
By Fareed Zakaria
Newsweek
Sept. 26, 2005 Issue
Sept. 26, 2005 issue - Adversity builds character," goes the old adage.
Except that in America today we seem to be following the opposite principle.
The worse things get, the more frivolous our response. President Bush explains
that he will spend hundreds of billions of dollars rebuilding the Gulf Coast
without raising any new revenues. Republican leader Tom DeLay declines any
spending cuts because "there is no fat left to cut in the federal budget."
This would be funny if it weren't so depressing. What is happening in
Washington today is business as usual in the face of a national catastrophe.
The scariest part is that we've been here before. After 9/11 we have created a
new government agency, massively increased domestic spending and fought two
wars. And the president did all this without rolling back any of his tax
cuts—in fact, he expanded them—and refused to veto a single
congressional spending bill. This was possible because Bush inherited a huge
budget surplus in 2000. But that's all gone. The cupboard is now bare.
Whatever his other accomplishments, Bush will go down in history as the most
fiscally irresponsible chief executive in American history. Since 2001,
government spending has gone up from $1.86 trillion to $2.48 trillion, a 33
percent rise in four years! Defense and Homeland Security are not the only
culprits. Domestic spending is actually up 36 percent in the same period. These
figures come from the libertarian Cato Institute's excellent report "The Grand
Old Spending Party," which explains that "throughout the past 40 years, most
presidents have cut or restrained lower-priority spending to make room for
higher-priority spending. What is driving George W. Bush's budget bloat is a
reversal of that trend." To govern is to choose. And Bush has decided not to
choose. He wants guns and butter and tax cuts.
People wonder whether we can afford Iraq and Katrina. The answer is, easily.
What we can't afford simultaneously is $1.4 trillion in tax cuts and more than
$1 trillion in new entitlement spending over the next 10 years. To take one
example, if Congress did not make permanent just one of its tax cuts, the
repeal of estate taxes, it would generate $290 billion over the next decade.
That itself pays for most of Katrina and Iraq.
Robert Hormats of Goldman Sachs has pointed out that previous presidents
acted differently. During World War II, Franklin Roosevelt cut nonwar spending
by more than 20 percent, in addition to raising taxes to finance the war
effort. During the Korean War, President Truman cut non-defense spending 28
percent and raised taxes to pay the bills. In both cases these presidents were
often slashing cherished New Deal programs that they had created. The only
period—other than the current one—when the United States avoided
hard choices was Vietnam: spending increased on all fronts. The results
eventually were deficits, high interest rates and low
growth—stagflation.
Bush is not the only one to blame. Congressional spending is now completely
out of control. The federal coffers are being looted for congressional
patronage, and it is being done openly and without any guilt. The highway bill
of 1982 had 10 "earmarked" projects—the code word for pork. The 2005 one
has 6,371. The bill, written by the House transportation committee, is called
the Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users, or TEA-LU (in honor of
chairman Don Young's wife, Lu). This use of public office for private whims
would seem more appropriate in Saudi Arabia than America. Perhaps next year's
bill will include a necklace for Mrs. Young.
The U.S. Congress is a national embarrasment, except that no one is
embarrassed. There are a few men of conscience left, like John McCain, but
McCain's pleas against pork seem to have absolutely no effect. They are
beginning to have the feel of a quaint hobby, like collecting exotic
stamps.
Today's Republicans believe in pork, but they don't believe in government.
So we have the largest government in history but one that is weak and
dysfunctional. Public spending is a cynical game of buying votes or campaign
contributions, an utterly corrupt process run by lobbyists and special
interests with no concern for the national interest. So we shovel out billions
on "Homeland Security" to stave off nonexistent threats to Wisconsin, Wyoming
and Montana while New York and Los Angeles remain unprotected. We mismanage
crises with a crazy-quilt patchwork of federal, local and state
authorities—and sing paeans to federalism to explain our incompetence. We
denounce sensible leadership and pragmatism because they mean compromise and
loss of ideological purity. Better to be right than to get Iraq right.
Hurricane Katrina is a wake-up call. It is time to get serious. We need to
secure the homeland, fight terrorism and have an effective foreign policy to
advance our interests and our ideals. We also need a world-class education
system, a great infrastructure and advancement in science and technology.
For all its virtues, the private sector cannot accomplish all this. Wal-Mart
and Federal Express cannot devise a national energy policy for the United
States. For that and for much else, we need government. We already pay for it.
Can somebody help us get our money's worth?
Write to the author at comments @fareedzakaria.com.
© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.
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