At least the Democrats tell everyone they intend to spend more. Republicans are pathetically piling on additional spending after swearing they would practice fiscal restraint...
Friday, June 22, 2001
Spending restraint is eroding
After cutting taxes, Congress is showing little appetite for trimming favorite programs.
By James Kuhnhenn
INQUIRER WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON - Surf's up, and so is government spending.
President Bush wanted the federal government to contribute only 35 percent of the cost of replacing sand on coastal beaches that wash away.
He was trying to cut spending; the federal share has long been 65 cents on the dollar. But Congress likes the old formula. This week, Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R., N.J.) restored the 65-cent standard for beach projects to a spending bill that is moving through Congress. A sigh of relief was heard from Cape Cod down to Cape May and all the way to Miami.
This small change illustrates the tension between every president and Congress over spending. The extra beach money - along with millions in other congressional spending boosts - threatens the federal balance sheet that let Bush and Congress promise 10 years of tax cuts, significant debt reduction, and limited spending increases.
Bush pleaded anew yesterday for spending discipline, but both Democrats and Republicans in Congress are on track to break the $661 billion budget outline they adopted earlier this year for virtually all spending other than Social Security and Medicare.
"We're as close to all hell breaking loose on the budget as is possibly imaginable," said Stan Collender, a budget analyst at Fleishman-Hillard public relations firm in Washington.
Frelinghuysen, of Morris County, sees it differently.
"I make no apologies for fighting for New Jersey's fair share to ensure that our beaches are protected and our state's $30 billion-a-year tourism industry thrives," he said.
When it comes to helping out hometown constituencies, Frelinghuysen has plenty of company. Over the last two weeks, congressional appropriators - the powerful lawmakers who decide how the federal government spends its money - have added many millions of dollars to Bush's spending requests.
They gave more to assist apple farmers primarily in Washington state, Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania; to help families in the Northeast weatherize their homes; to clean up toxic sites across the country; and much, much more.
The money has depleted Bush's proposed emergency reserve fund - money that was supposed to be spent on domestic disasters such as fires, floods and hurricanes during the coming fiscal year.
Today, just more than three months before fiscal 2002 begins Oct. 1, the $5.6 billion Bush set aside for those anticipated emergencies is gone. Appropriators gobbled up the money, assigning it elsewhere to make up what they say were shortages in his spending proposals.
The big breach in this year's budget limit is likely to be forced by any of four spending areas, budget analysts say:
Emergencies. Without Bush's reserve fund, Congress will have to find other sources of money if a disaster strikes. Bush's budget writers wanted to avoid paying for disaster relief this way, because lawmakers tend to add millions to emergency legislation for things other than the emergency.
Defense. Congress is waiting for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to submit his request for additional Pentagon funding - an amount the administration has already said will exceed current budget levels.
Education. The House and Senate both passed legislation that substantially increases spending on schools. The final amount won't be clear until differences between the bills are resolved in negotiations and spending measures to finance them are passed.
Agriculture. Rural lawmakers are pressing for more money to help farmers. House appropriators want to spend $15.7 billion on agriculture - $260 million more than Bush proposed. Senate appropriators want to spend $16.1 billion. And, as Rep. Todd Tiahrt, a Republican appropriator from Kansas, noted this week, "We're not done yet."
Congress raised the stakes in May by passing a $1.3 trillion, 10-year tax cut. That reduced the amount of surplus Treasury revenue available to spend and left Congress to choose between living within its budget or dipping into Social Security and Medicare surpluses that otherwise would pay down the national debt.
Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D., W.Va.), who has served on the Senate Appropriations Committee for more than four decades, summed up the frustration of many Republicans and Democrats when he settled into his seat yesterday as the panel's new chairman.
"The deck has been stacked," he said. "Despite all the talk of fiscal restraint, the appropriation committees will be asked to spend more money than the budget resolution provides for defense programs . . . and on education programs."
In Alabama yesterday, Bush reiterated his vow to veto spending bills that exceed his budget.
"I understand the pressures in Congress," he said. "It's one thing to set a budget, but then people start spending. . . . There's a simple remedy. And that's to put the veto pen on it and send it back to the Congress till we get the budget right."
Budget analyst Collender predicted that the recent change in Senate control would prompt the White House and Republican budget hawks to blame Democrats in general for any extra spending.
But one administration official, speaking on the condition he was not named, conceded that "spending is a bipartisan thing. Our guys do it just as much. We're going to try to keep it in check."
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Friday, June 22, 2001
Spending restraint is eroding
After cutting taxes, Congress is showing little appetite for trimming favorite programs.
By James Kuhnhenn
INQUIRER WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON - Surf's up, and so is government spending.
President Bush wanted the federal government to contribute only 35 percent of the cost of replacing sand on coastal beaches that wash away.
He was trying to cut spending; the federal share has long been 65 cents on the dollar. But Congress likes the old formula. This week, Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R., N.J.) restored the 65-cent standard for beach projects to a spending bill that is moving through Congress. A sigh of relief was heard from Cape Cod down to Cape May and all the way to Miami.
This small change illustrates the tension between every president and Congress over spending. The extra beach money - along with millions in other congressional spending boosts - threatens the federal balance sheet that let Bush and Congress promise 10 years of tax cuts, significant debt reduction, and limited spending increases.
Bush pleaded anew yesterday for spending discipline, but both Democrats and Republicans in Congress are on track to break the $661 billion budget outline they adopted earlier this year for virtually all spending other than Social Security and Medicare.
"We're as close to all hell breaking loose on the budget as is possibly imaginable," said Stan Collender, a budget analyst at Fleishman-Hillard public relations firm in Washington.
Frelinghuysen, of Morris County, sees it differently.
"I make no apologies for fighting for New Jersey's fair share to ensure that our beaches are protected and our state's $30 billion-a-year tourism industry thrives," he said.
When it comes to helping out hometown constituencies, Frelinghuysen has plenty of company. Over the last two weeks, congressional appropriators - the powerful lawmakers who decide how the federal government spends its money - have added many millions of dollars to Bush's spending requests.
They gave more to assist apple farmers primarily in Washington state, Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania; to help families in the Northeast weatherize their homes; to clean up toxic sites across the country; and much, much more.
The money has depleted Bush's proposed emergency reserve fund - money that was supposed to be spent on domestic disasters such as fires, floods and hurricanes during the coming fiscal year.
Today, just more than three months before fiscal 2002 begins Oct. 1, the $5.6 billion Bush set aside for those anticipated emergencies is gone. Appropriators gobbled up the money, assigning it elsewhere to make up what they say were shortages in his spending proposals.
The big breach in this year's budget limit is likely to be forced by any of four spending areas, budget analysts say:
Emergencies. Without Bush's reserve fund, Congress will have to find other sources of money if a disaster strikes. Bush's budget writers wanted to avoid paying for disaster relief this way, because lawmakers tend to add millions to emergency legislation for things other than the emergency.
Defense. Congress is waiting for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to submit his request for additional Pentagon funding - an amount the administration has already said will exceed current budget levels.
Education. The House and Senate both passed legislation that substantially increases spending on schools. The final amount won't be clear until differences between the bills are resolved in negotiations and spending measures to finance them are passed.
Agriculture. Rural lawmakers are pressing for more money to help farmers. House appropriators want to spend $15.7 billion on agriculture - $260 million more than Bush proposed. Senate appropriators want to spend $16.1 billion. And, as Rep. Todd Tiahrt, a Republican appropriator from Kansas, noted this week, "We're not done yet."
Congress raised the stakes in May by passing a $1.3 trillion, 10-year tax cut. That reduced the amount of surplus Treasury revenue available to spend and left Congress to choose between living within its budget or dipping into Social Security and Medicare surpluses that otherwise would pay down the national debt.
Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D., W.Va.), who has served on the Senate Appropriations Committee for more than four decades, summed up the frustration of many Republicans and Democrats when he settled into his seat yesterday as the panel's new chairman.
"The deck has been stacked," he said. "Despite all the talk of fiscal restraint, the appropriation committees will be asked to spend more money than the budget resolution provides for defense programs . . . and on education programs."
In Alabama yesterday, Bush reiterated his vow to veto spending bills that exceed his budget.
"I understand the pressures in Congress," he said. "It's one thing to set a budget, but then people start spending. . . . There's a simple remedy. And that's to put the veto pen on it and send it back to the Congress till we get the budget right."
Budget analyst Collender predicted that the recent change in Senate control would prompt the White House and Republican budget hawks to blame Democrats in general for any extra spending.
But one administration official, speaking on the condition he was not named, conceded that "spending is a bipartisan thing. Our guys do it just as much. We're going to try to keep it in check."
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