There's Tax And Spend...
And then there's spend and spend and spend some more. In the spending department, George Bush makes drunken sailors look like the lead grannies in the "live simple" movement. Fareed Zakaria writes that today's Republicans believe in pork, but they don't believe in government -- which means we have the largest, weakest, most dysfunctional U.S. government in history:
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.
Time to cite directly from the Constitution: "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States…" (Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 – Source: US House web site)
There’s a great summary of the US Budget Process on the House’s web site, too.
To reiterate, the President does not spend the money – Congress does. That this fact does nothing to assuage your fixations on one person says more about you than anything else.
I wonder how many who post here know your Congressmen, and their records?
Radwaste at September 19, 2005 7:34 AM
It's been a few decades since Civics class, but IIRC the President still has veto power on bills, including spending bills, does he not?
deja pseu at September 19, 2005 2:00 PM
Yes, he does - but he does not have line-item authority. That was ruled un-Constitutional. Take a look at the House budget Web page to get the full story.
Don't be disappointed if the Federal numbers don't back your favorite pundit; there are several "spoilers" there, such as "GDP up", "economy good", etc., that won't help you if you want to hate Mr. Bush some more - for not doing Congress's Constitutional duties. That seems to be a recurring trend here for some (un)reason.
Radwaste at September 19, 2005 4:38 PM
Rad, I'm getting tired of that same old song. The President ALONE proposes the budget for the executive branch (by far and away the branch that spends our money). Congress does not appropriate money for the executive branch sui sponte that the President doesn't either propose or approve. The President also proposes or refrains from vetoing legislation that requires spending (often those popular "unfunded mandates"). The Republican party, which controls both houses of Congress currently, won't pass a tax bill that the President doesn't like, and the White house is intimately involved in negotiating virtually every item in any budget passed by Congress. And there is always the veto if what Congress passes is too awful to live with(lack of line item veto not withstanding).
In short, the President is every bit as involved in the appropriations process as either the House or Senate, collectively, and far more involved than any given Representative or Senator, or even any Congressional committee.
So stop saying the President doesn't spend tax money - he's the main elected official who does spend money, and yes, incidentally, he needs cooperation from the Hill to do so.
Melissa at September 19, 2005 6:49 PM
Read the link, Melissa. Just read the link. It doesn't matter who is President - the budget process exists by act of Congress.
People just want to yap about the biggest name in government, because it makes them think they're more important.
Radwaste at September 20, 2005 6:45 PM
Raddy, not only is the president the biggest name, he's the cheapest in terms of time, resources, and reflection invested. It's easier for the press to cover what's going on with the oval office than to figure out what's going on in the 535 seats on the hill. Then you can throw in the nine Justices and every other appointee, then all the hired help in the government. Eventually, with the blame spread so wide, a person might eventually want to hold THEMSELF partially responsible for what goes wrong... In forthright, grown-up way (ie, not just smirking with "I didn't campaign hard enough for Kerry!"). And we can't have that, can we? Because all the evil in the world is in OTHER people's hearts.
I think you've put your finger on something important. Couple this overfocus on the White House with a liberal and youthful fondness for personalizing relationships ("The personal is political!") and you begin to see why the dislike some people feel for this president is so petulent... They think it's about Dad or similar family figures toward who they've felt disappointment. So this cycle of leftist infantilization is commercially, technologically, and psychologically sustained.
When people who don't think clearly about politics try to sell their views through the hatred of this one guy, they're surprised when it doesn't work out.
Crid at September 21, 2005 4:57 PM
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