Staff Column

Bush Budget Battle ’05 has begun. Having come under fire from fiscal conservatives for allowing the deficit to balloon out of control, Bush is using the 2006 budget to show that he is true to his conservative roots. The President proposes cutting or scaling back 150 federal domestic spending programs, even as the budgets of the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security grow. Bush has stated that this is a budget built on priorities-the priorities of defense and security.

The programs that Bush plans to eliminate include federal contributions to Medicaid, grants for local law enforcement and funds for education. Nearly one-third of the programs to be cut or scaled back are education-related. Educational programs to be cut include high school vocational programs, early childhood literacy programs, grants for technology, and programs for inner city youths. Also on the budgetary chopping block are healthcare programs, environmental programs and business development programs.

But the money cut from these initiatives will not substantially reduce the federal deficit in 2006 because of increases in military and homeland security spending. And these increases do not reflect the inevitable supplemental requests for the war in Iraq. True to his conservative roots, the President wants to cut discretionary domestic spending programs in favor of increased defense spending. Moreover, these cuts reflect the criticisms of conservative Republicans unhappy with the huge deficits that marked Bush’s first four years. Mr. Bush is attempting to have his cake and eat it too. He is showing fiscal discipline by cutting relatively small domestic programs while indiscriminately spending on defense and security. That’s not discipline.

We saw real fiscal discipline under President Clinton. Clinton managed, by the end of his term, to provide more money for programs to help Americans at home while paying down the debt, reducing the deficit, and building a surplus. For Mr. Bush, however, fiscal discipline has meant busting the budget with an expensive, ill-founded war in Iraq, tax cuts for the wealthy, and a huge new entitlement program and then cutting other domestic spending to keep the appearance of fiscal restraint.

It’s time that Democrats attacked Republicans on the issue of fiscal discipline. Democrats, armed with the family values of providing families a basic standard of living, should claim that they are better able to control federal spending by avoiding expensive, ill-advised wars that expand the deficit faster than a starving elephant at an all-you-can-eat buffet. Democrats should promote the values of bread and butter as an alternative to war and fear.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Feb 11 2005. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry