Bush's grand vision has big price tag Complaints from conservatives precede the president's budget announcement Monday

Author: Jake Thompson

Published: February 1, 2004

President Bush is set to unveil a $ 2.3 trillion budget plan Monday full of the grand visions that conservatives complained his father lacked as president. But they're no happier today.

The visions include items attractive to conservatives, but they arrive at a time when the current year's federal budget deficit will reach a record $ 521 billion - a shocking figure to many who otherwise like the president's plans.

Members of Bush's own Republican Party are questioning his fiscal stewardship.

And economists have raised alarms that the deficit - a product of tax cuts, federal spending and the economy - could become a big problem when baby boomers begin retiring at decade's end.

Bush seems to want it all. His 2005 budget will seek to make permanent the big tax cuts passed earlier in his term. He also wants to wage war on terrorism, remake the military, overhaul immigration policy, shore up traditional marriage, attack mad cow disease and go to Mars.

"It seems like all restraint has gone out the window," complained Robert Bixby, head of the Concord Coalition, an anti-deficit group. "Here is a Republican proposing $ 1.5 billion for marriage counseling! That's the best indication the administration won't make hard choices."

Only seven years ago, the federal budget deficit, the bane of Republicans since the 1960s, was eliminated with help from a healthy economy and a Democratic president, Bill Clinton. Budget surpluses emerged for four years, then faded in 2002.

Now deficits are back, bigger than ever with Republicans in control of both Congress and the White House.

"Wanton spending" is how Ronald Utt sees it. Utt, an economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, blames Democrats in Congress who haven't sought substantial spending cuts. But he saves greatest blame for Republicans, who control the House and Senate.

"There's no talk of budgetary restraint or fiscal restraint or limited government," he said.

A band of less senior House Republicans are angry about the deficit and have talked about seeking across-the-board cuts in non-defense spending, tough spending caps and other measures to hold down costs.

Bush reportedly will seek to appease them by promising to halve the deficit and proposing spending limits on housing vouchers for the poor, veterans' health care, biomedical research and job training.

Realistically, though, such measures won't affect the big picture much.

The deficit, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said Monday, is projected to total $ 2.4 trillion over the next 10 years.

Why?

In part, it's the piecemeal way Washington puts together the federal budget: the president releases a budget, and Congress takes it apart and passes various elements, often tacking on a couple of emergency spending bills, like the $ 87 billion approved last year for Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sen. Ben Nelson, a Democrat, likens the process to making a pie a piece at a time.

"I'd like to see an honest set of budget numbers all put together at one time," said Nelson, a former Nebraska governor who balanced eight state budgets. "I don't think that's likely, but it would be helpful."

Another reason is the recent fiscal orientation in Washington.

When Bush was elected, budget forecasters predicted surpluses for years. Bush spent much of the surplus on two tax cut packages. Then a recession emerged, followed by the 2001 terrorist attacks that further weakened the economy. A deficit re-emerged in 2002 - and ballooned.

At the same time, spending rose, spurred on in part by the expiration of budget rules in 2002 that had forced spending restraints since 1990.

A curious attitude gripped Washington, said William Gale, an economist at the Brookings Institution. When the budget gap was near zero, there was an incentive to keep it there. But once big deficits reappeared, that belt-tightening vanished.

Now, Gale said, there is an incentive for lawmakers "to take...every spending idea and try to jam it through."

In 1982, when Ronald Reagan was president, non-defense spending for such things as education, housing, environmental protection, energy development, agriculture and scientific research shrank 12.5 percent. It rose in later years but never more than 3.8 percent through 1990, said Veronique de Rugy, a budget analyst at the Cato Institute. Defense spending rose sharply, creating deficits.

During the Clinton presidency, non-defense spending remained fairly steady through the 1990s. Peak growth was in 2000, at 4.9 percent.

Under Bush's watch, non-defense spending grew more than 7 percent annually in the first three years of his administration, putting him on track to be one of the biggest spending presidents, she said. His 2005 budget would boost defense spending by 7 percent while aiming to hold non-defense increases to 1 percent, although Congress could override him as it did last year.

Bush also hasn't used the biggest weapon in his quiver, the veto pen. Presidents usually veto six or more bills a year, said Utt. Bush has vetoed none.

"Where I think Bush has gone wrong is he's unilaterally accepted everything Congress has sent him," Utt said.

The long-term implications of the deficit and federal spending could be serious, particularly when baby boomers retire and begin drawing heavily on the Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid programs, said Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. Already 40 percent of the federal budget, they'll soon rise to more than 50 percent.

"We have been a profligate Congress with a profligate president," said Hagel. "We're on a runaway train here that the only way you can stop it is abruptly stop it. And that's going to be very painful to society."