President Bush calls himself a conservative. Ironic, isn't it? The marks of a true conservative are limiting government growth and fiscal restraint. By contrast, Bush is spending like a drunken sailor; his new budget, according to the Office of Management and Budget, proposes record new government spending of $3.1 trillion for the 2009 fiscal year. This outstrips income by $407 billion, a full 15 percent.
Most of the increase in discretionary spending is, unsurprisingly, in the Defense budget: a 7.5 percent increase over the enacted 2008 fiscal year budget, to be exact. Current Department of Defense spending stands at $479.5 billion; the proposed spending for the 2009 fiscal year is $515.4 billion. The only other departments whose funding is within an order of magnitude of defense spending is the Department of Education, with about $59 billion and the Department of Health and Human Services with $70 billion
And not only is the president requesting a spending increase of $176 billion, he is pushing to maintain his huge tax cuts and an emergency economic stimulus package. When our government spends $407 billion it doesn't have, it will increase our debt by 4 percent, pushing it up over $10 trillion. That's "trillion" with a "T", ladies and gentlemen.
To put the size of our national debt in perspective, the government owes more dollars than there are years in the history of the entire universe. In fact, if it had the entire history of the universe to pay off its debt, the U.S. government would have to pay $2 a day.
Needless to say, such fiscal irresponsibility is simply unacceptable, especially with a president who calls himself "conservative." This deficit spending, especially on the military, is essentially short-term gratification in return for dire long-term consequences. It crimps the ability of the United States to finance itself, tying up hundreds of billions of dollars each year in interest payments and increasing the country's credit risk.
Even democrats - traditionally the tax-and-spend party - are fiscally more responsible than Bush; Bill Clinton managed to balance the budget and start returning surpluses in the late 1990s before Bush barged into the Oval Office. They're looking better by the day to those voters who are interested in fiscal responsibility. The Republican Party, meanwhile, stands accused of betraying its fundamental principles: what happened to the party of Eisenhower, who warned against the burgeoning military-industrial complex? What happened to the party of Roosevelt and Taft, who campaigned against exploitative business?
It's scary when those who support big governments are superior to Bush at spending. Canada, run by liberals who would be considered extreme left-wing here in the U.S., ran a budget surplus for seven straight years. It is better and more responsible to tax and spend than spend and spend and spend and spend with nary a thought for where the money's coming from.
Write to Neal at necoleman@bsu.edu
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