Staff columnist has right to own opinion, not own facts
Editor:
One could be forgiven for wondering what, if anything, President Bush could do to please ankle-biting critics like Brandon Holcomb. It takes a rare level of nerve to carp in one section of an editorial about health care programs being on the “chopping block,” then, in the span of two paragraphs, blast the president for funding a “huge new entitlement program” for prescription drugs, which are “health care,” last I checked. But partisan harangues are rarely rational.
Better, Holcomb argues, to employ the sort of “fiscal discipline” we saw under President Clinton, defined as “providing more money to help Americans” (whatever that means), and running budget surpluses. Aside from Clinton’s initial income tax increase in 1993, laissez fair ideas like free trade, reduced regulation, and cuts in capital gains taxes constitute far more of economic policy in the Clinton years than most Bush-bashers would like to admit. But I thought it might be an interesting exercise to compare the actual budgets of the two presidents to see if Holcomb’s case holds up. Readers can follow along themselves at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2006 if they wish.
The math of the federal budget is a complex subject, and is often expressed in ways meant to mislead. But two generally accepted methods are either to make budget comparisons in constant, inflation-adjusted dollars or as a percentage of national gross domestic product, or GDP. When President Clinton took office, federal taxes stood at 17.6% of GDP, federal spending at 21.4%, leaving a deficit of 3.8%. By 1998, taxes had grown to a post World War II record of over 20% of GDP, while spending declined to 19%, bringing in a brief period of surpluses. But to credit Clinton exclusively with that turnaround is to fundamentally misunderstand the budget process and the factors that influence it. Spending is determined by Congress, which had fallen to Republican control just two years into Clinton’s term. And it is far more the case that the strength of the larger economy drives the health of the federal budget, not the other way around. Strong economies are driven by taxable transactions and rising incomes, increasing tax revenue regardless of any actual change in tax rates.
From my perspective on the right, I criticize Bush’s budget record for the very reasons that disprove every one of Holcomb’s major points. Bush put health care on the “chopping block?” Bush’s budgets have, in fact, increased federal spending on health care by an annual average of 8.2% in real (inflation-adjusted) dollars. Under Clinton it rose only 4.4%. Education? No Child Left Behind has pushed education spending up a whopping 11.7% annually. Clinton’s increase was 2.1%. Even if Bush’s proposed spending cuts for the remainder of the decade passed as is, he will have still increased real spending on health care and education over his two terms by 40% and 1.45%, respectively. Clinton’s final budgets increased health care 28.5% and reduced education 3.6%.
What about Bush’s supposed militarism and affinity for the Pentagon? From a historical perspective, Bush’s levels of defense spending are pretty unremarkable, averaging a projected 3.6% of GDP over his two terms, compared to 3.3% under Bill Clinton, and 4.4% over the entire post-Vietnam era.
But where the comparison really stands out is on total taxes and spending as a percent of GDP. Bush’s projected spending levels are actually identical to Bill Clintons, at 19.6% of GDP. His critics will say his greatest sins of “fiscal irresponsibility” are his tax cuts. Bush’s first budget brought taxes down considerably to 17.8% in 2002. With the 2003 tax cuts they fell further, to 16.3% today, a low not seen since the 1950′s, though they are expected to return to 17.5% by the end of his term. I’d argue the cuts were right from both an economic and philosophical standpoint; Holcomb would disagree. But consider this: Bush-era taxes will average 17.4% of GDP; Clinton-era taxes averaged 19.4%. If the question is whether Bush is somehow radical or irresponsible, by historical standards, Bush is much closer to the post-WWII average of 17.8% than is Clinton.
The Colonnade should establish a new rule for its editorial writers: You’re entitled to your own opinion. You are not entitled to your own facts.
Shawn Mercer
MBA Student
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Feb 25 2005. Filed under Opinion.
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