Monday, February 14, 2005

Fiscal Irresponsibility

The Republican Party for years prided itself as being the party of fiscal responsibility, compared with the "Tax-and-Spend" Democrats. But the Bush Administration has demonstrated no regard for a rational spending plan. What it has done is repeatedly misrepresent how much something costs by making its proposals not take full effect until years down the road. His tax cuts were the first policy of his that did this, by not eliminating the estate tax until 2009. Then came Bush's Medicare plan -- the misrepresentation of the full cost wasn't revealed until shortly after the vote, and subsequently it's turned out that even that figure was an understatement. And of course, for the past couple of years, including this one, Bush has presented a "budget" that ignores the billions of costs for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq -- it took less than a week for him to submit a supplemental request for $82 billion to pay for those expenses.

And now comes Bush's proposal for private Social Security accounts, where Bush claims it will only cost $750 billion over the next few years, ignoring the trillions that will follow when the plan is fully implemented (2011). Bush has proposed cutting a number of social programs, which, regardless my opposition to some of his choices of cuts, would at least go a small way toward paying for all his bold plans. It's common wisdom that only a handful of these programs have a chance of being eliminated. Shouldn't he say to his fellow Republicans, who hold majorities in both the Senate and House "Either/or" -- either cut spending on other things, or I can't implement my policy goals? Where is the outrage among conservatives to insist, cut first before you spend? Bush claims he doesn't want to leave younger Americans without Social Security -- why doesn't he care if younger Americans inherit a national debt that can't be paid off?

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