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The Bush Budget: Many Missed Opportunitites
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19843 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
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5 / 1991 |
2,472 Words |
| Author
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Stuart Butler
Stuart Butler is director of domestic and economic policy
studies at the Heritage Foundation. |
It has been customary in Washington in recent years for congressional leaders to declare the president's budget "dead on arrival" as soon as it is sent up to Capitol Hill each February. But this year was different. Despite congressional grumbling about "not enough" for this or that, the reception has been remarkably warm by the usual standards. Bush administration officials claim the reason for this is that hard negotiations during last year's budget summit, plus some shrewd budget making by Budget Director Richard Darman, are now paying off.
In reality, the reason Bush's budget has not been declared DOA is that it gives away the store. Buried in the fine print and typically Darmanesque creative accounting is a proposed domestic spending buildup that will dwarf the Reagan defense buildup of the 1980s. In fact, the Bush budget does not even try to control domestic spending, nor does it give more than lip service to the notion of decentralization and empowerment outlined in the president's State of the Union speech in January. Little wonder that the budget is such an agreeable starting point for the big spenders on Capitol Hill.
Bush promised in the State of the Union speech that his budget would hold spending below the rate of inflation. On the face of it, the budget does that. But closer inspection reveals some shady bookkeeping and some almost laughable political premises. For one thing, overall spending appears in check only because the administration assumes a 3 percent reduction in next year's defense spending, compared with this year's spending. Of course, with the bills coming due for Desert Storm and with congressmen now almost unanimously praising the performance of America's expensive high-tech weaponry, it is hard to imagine Congress voting such a deep cutback in the Pentagon's programs. But assuming that it will permits the White House to ask for a 7.7 percent annual increase in future domestic spending, far above the rate of inflation.
Even this huge increase masks the underlying trend of domestic spending in the Bush budget. In a crafty sleight of hand, the White House has included the onetime costs of the savings and loan (S&L) bailout in its figures for aggregate spending. This bailout is like a huge spending wave passing through the budget. The S&L price tag is estimated at $111.5 billion in the current 1991 fiscal year. It falls to an estimated $88 billion for 1992, $44 billion in 1993, and less still in later years. Furthermore, proceeds from the sales of S&L assets are included in the budget, offsetting rises in domestic spending. Thus, the Bush budget can rapidly increase domestic programs during
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