In an article
entitled: Alarms Sounded On Cost of GOP Bills; Lawmakers Increase
Spending to Win Votes Jonathan Weisman continues his bleat to the
effect that the federal government isnt collecting enough taxes and
this time he tries to shift the focus to out of control spending by
Republicans. As Congress rushes to conclude its 2003 session,
Republican leaders are trying to garner votes for controversial
legislation by loading the bills with billions of dollars in added
costs that analysts said would expand the budget deficit for years
to come. The year-end binge has alarmed analysts in Washington and
on Wall Street, coming as it does after three years of presidential
and congressional initiatives that have both substantially boosted
government spending and shrunk its tax base. That sentiment
resonates from the Washington Post of November 24.
The Posts sudden fiscal conservatism is noteworthy, but we are
skeptical. It appears that the Post's objection is not necessarily
to spending per se, but to the objects of the pork. The Post is not
suddenly in favor of shrinking the federal government, but would
prefer different targeting of the current profligacy. And, finally,
there would be no problem whatever, the Post tells us, if only tax
revenues were continuing their bloated growth.
Witness this astounding comment: When the Congressional Budget
Office concluded that the cost of the Republican [Medicare Reform]
bill would fall $5 billion shy of its $400 billion allotment,
congressional leaders could have not spent that money. Instead, they
sweetened the pot, reducing patient deductibles from $275 to $250,
and raising the drug coverage limit from $2,200 to $2,250. Since
when has the Washington Post opposed increasing entitlements?
All this leaves us to ask, why during the 1990s as annual federal
government spending increased by the staggering sum of $536 billion,
did the Post not object? Or, more to the point, why did the Post
have no problem at all with the fact that yearly federal government
receiptstax collectionsincreased by nearly $994 billion during
that decade? Annualizing those sums for effect over the favored ten
year horizon should have induced panic; instead we can only imagine
how sanguine the Post must have been in the comforting thought that
the cherished federal government would be collecting $10 trillion
more in the decade 2000 through 2010 than it did during the 1990s.
It is hardly surprising that Posts concern for fiscal restraint
began in November 2000 as it realized that a third Clinton
administration was not to be and liberal sacred cows might go
wanting.
The Posts real problem is that
spending is not being targeted in a manner that it approves, and,
seemingly, that Republicans have somehow managed to short circuit
the growth of the federal governments income. Thus, tax cuts, not
spending in Herculean amounts, are the true object of the Posts
wrath.
The sources utilized to
substantiate the Post's argument that tax cuts have induced the
current fiscal crisis are too convenient to be taken seriously.
Framing prescriptions for reforming federal fiscal policy based on
advice from Robert Rubin, "moderates" like Warren Rudman and Robert
D. Reischauer, and the left-dominated Committee for a Responsible
Federal Budget indicates that the Post, rather than suddenly joining
the ranks of fiscal conservatives, remains more interested in
preserving budget growth after all.
There may indeed by a reckoning to come should Congress continue to
spend at its current pace. But is there much doubt that the Posts
solution would be increased taxes, rather than restrained spending?
As evidence we offer the following from a Post editorial printed
November 19:
"Some in the anti-government
camp are betting that choking off tax revenue will eventually choke
off spending too. History suggests that it won't -- and a
malnourished federal government isn't the right goal in any case.
Mr. Bush's tax cuts weren't affordable when passed; they're even
less so now that promised surpluses have given way to record
deficits. The country has pressing needs that can't coexist with
year after year of massive tax cuts. Neither can they coexist with a
spending-as-usual approach to the budget. But if there's any lesson
in the record on taxes and spending of the past few years, it's that
those in charge don't have the willpower to restrain themselves on
either score."
Heaven forefend, the Post
insists, that we "malnourish" the federal government; nor should
anyone think for a moment that we can "afford" tax cuts under any
circumstances. The Post's clear position is that even "promised
surpluses" must be used to "nourish" government and finance spending
on "pressing needs" rather than eliminated by reducing the overly
burdensome taxes that produce surpluses in the first place. For an
explanation of what the Post would like to substitute for "spending
as usual," one needs only refer to its December 7 editorial entitled
"Better Big Ideas," in which the newspaper offers the following game
plan for future budgets:
"Make sure every
child who qualifies gets to attend Head Start; right now, two out of
five are shut out, the Children's Defense Fund reports. Make sure
every low-income family that qualifies receives housing assistance;
right now, 5 million are in need, according to the National Low
Income Housing Coalition. Not Big enough? How about health insurance
and preschool for every American 4-year-old?"
In the same editorial, the Post derisively challenges President
George W. Bush to "Finish what you started." After a long litany of
criticisms, most of which are specious, regarding the
administration's efforts to "[make] Americans safer" after 9/11,
challenges President Bush to "Clean up your mess. Mr. Bush not only
has failed to confront the serious budgetary problems that he
inherited; he's made a frightening situation far worse." The Post
once more calls the tax cuts "unaffordable" and chides the president
for "allow[ing] federal spending to soar..." resulting in "no end to
the record deficits in sight." The Post then states that: "The
selfishness and irresponsibility are breathtaking. So here's one
more Big Idea: level with the American people about what it will
take to get the fiscal house back in order, and begin the
process...."
Well, well, well; righteous
indignation the likes of which we never saw the Post express from
January 1, 1993 through January 1, 2001. Well, to be totally
accurate, Republicans were "irresponsible" on numerous occasions.
Even the North Koreans were guilty of irresponsibility. And, to be
honest, President Bill Clinton was called "irresponsible" for
allowing his personal peccadilloes to impede those parts of his
political agenda the Post favored.
However, this (somewhat long) excerpt from an editorial from August
8, 1993, entitled "The Budget: What Happened..." contains an
assessment that is instructive as to the Post's current tone:
"The Republicans get a special prize. They steadily denounced as
fiscally irresponsible a bill to reverse their own 12 years of
fiscal irresponsibility, and then, having said that they would not
vote aye, complained that they had been shut out of the process; no
dirt on those clean hands. The Democrats -- a persistent,
substantive president, House and Senate majorities held together by
sticking plaster -- had to produce the necessary legislation on
their own. No one regards it as a perfect product, but they did
pretty well.
The likely deficit five
years hence will be about 40 percent below the level it had been
projected to reach without the bill. That will still be too high,
but it may also be about as much restraint as a weak economy should
be asked to withstand. About half the reduction will be achieved
through tax increases, mainly through raising the income tax rates
of the top few percent of taxpayers. The big winners in the last two
administrations will be called upon to give some of it back. The net
cost of Social Security, by itself a fifth of the budget and the
largest entitlement, will be modestly reduced by applying what
amounts to an income test to benefits; a larger share of these will
be subject to the income tax. That's the right way to do it. New
strictures are also to be imposed in the form of tight caps for the
next five years on the third of the budget, including defense, that
is subject to the annual appropriations process.
Not all the bill is spinach. The president -- wisely, in our
judgment -- sought to use some of the savings to advance his social
agenda as well. The measure includes a large increase in aid to the
working poor particularly. A kind of negative income tax would be
used to supplement their wages. The tax credit takes the president
partway to welfare reform. The idea is to make work pay; the goal is
that no child of a parent who works full-time year-round in this
country should live in poverty. Together with national service
legislation, on which Congress is expected to complete action when
it returns next month, the budget bill would also substantially
restructure college student aid.
But the
service legislation is an emblem of how the president's goals of
reducing the budget deficit and social deficit at the same time are
in conflict. The bill was much reduced and, is an authorization
only, subject to the appropriations process -- on which, for a
combination of fiscal and political reasons, the president has just
agreed to tight constraints. He lacks the means to carry out his
agenda. Nor is he done with spinach. If there is not a second
plateful, the deficit will head up again toward the end of the
decade. The driving force will be health care costs in the form of
Medicare and Medicaid; these are the great budget-busters.
The health care reform plan the president is scheduled to present
next month is meant in part to contain those costs. But the plan
will also seek to increase access to care -- a seventh of the
population lacks health insurance at any one time -- and the
president has to find a way to finance that increase. Round Two will
likely be the same as Round One, only much more complicated: more
cost-cutting and tax increases (or the equivalent by another name)
to finance another burst of deficit reduction and increased aid,
mostly to have-nots. Who says this is a president who picks the easy
ones?"
Thus the Post proves its
consistency. Tax increases on the wealthy, negative income taxes for
the poor; deficit reduction is OK, but only so long as it doesn't
get in the way of increased spending to reduce the nation's "social
deficit." Thus the Post's clamor for President Bush to "level with
the American people about what it will take to get the fiscal house
back in order, and begin the process...." is both hollow and
hypocritical.
Where Was The Washington Posts Fiscal Conservatism During The 1990s?
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