http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119802495240238121.html?mod=googlenews_ws
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As we at the Journal debated Wa****ngton's latest spending deal
yesterday, one of our tribe noted that it is the best budget of the Bush
Presidency. To which someone else quipped that that was "the soft
bigotry of low expectations."
As we write this, the political deal seems set, with Democrats passing a
3,400-page, $516 billion "omnibus" budget bill, and President Bush
prepared to sign it. Both sides are claiming victory, which usually
means that taxpayers are the losers. That's less true this year because
Mr. Bush has used his veto power to back Congress down from its typical
excesses. But Mr. Bush could have pressed for an even harder taxpayer
bargain, especially on earmarks. So we'd give it a single budget cheer.
The good news is that Democrats conceded to Mr. Bush's spending cap of
$933 billion in domestic discretionary spending for 2008 -- or $22
billion less than Democrats proposed in their spring budget resolution.
Over five years, that $22 billion will save about $205 billion because
it won't become part of the annual "baseline" that the pols use as a
starting point for next year's automatic budget increases. This is a
modest but real victory.
Democrats also agreed to strip the bill of numerous policy changes that
Mr. Bush had threatened to veto but they had hoped to slip past him in
the giant package. Gone are limits on union disclosure re****ts. Gone,
too, is an expansion of Davis-Bacon demands to pay prevailing union
wages even on non-union work sites; as well as an easing of the Cuban
trade embargo, and elimination of the language limiting American aid to
promote abortions abroad.
Oh, and Congress is also funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the
tune of $70 billion -- something Democratic leaders had vowed not to do.
White House sources add all of this up and say that sooner or later a
President has to take yes for an answer -- or else he looks
unreasonable. The howls of frustration coming from liberal interest
groups suggest they have a point.
And yet this is hardly a lean or mean budget. When combined with the
Defense spending bill that has already been signed, Congress will still
exceed Mr. Bush's $933 billion "top-line" thanks to about $11 billion in
budget gimmicks and "emergency" spending. (Such spending isn't added to
the "baseline" budget.) This includes $2.9 billion for "border
security," $100 million for security for the Democratic and Republican
conventions next year, $500 million for California wildfires, plus more
for home heating oil and other political favorites. Had Mr. Bush wanted
to take a harder line, he could easily have argued that Congress should
finance these priorities by cutting somewhere else.
Even worse is the President's abdication on earmarks, or
Member-requested ****k. Mr. Bush had publicly insisted that Congress
should cut the number of earmarks by 50% this year, from 13,492 in
fiscal 2007. Ah, not quite. The "omnibus" includes 8,983 earmarks, and
counting, which brings the total so far to 11,144 including those passed
as part of the Defense bill. As a percentage decline that is only 17%.
The ****k barrel includes $700 million for a Minnesota bike trail,
$113,000 for rodent control in Alaska, and $1 million for an energy
project in the district of Lousiana Democrat William Jefferson, who
faces trial for bribery next year. Dozens of these earmarks were
"air-dropped" into the bill at the last minute, meaning that fiscal
conservative Members lacked the time to find and fight them on the House
or Senate floor.
Mr. Bush could have had a PR field day by using these projects as his
reason for vetoing the bill. Congress would then have had little choice
but to pass a "continuing resolution" that maintained spending for 2008
at levels similar to this year. That would have been a true taxpayer
triumph, and would have done far more to rehabilitate Mr. Bush's record
on fiscal issues than this omnibus will.
House Republicans voted against the omnibus bill en masse, but the truth
is that many of them and their Senate brethren privately wanted it to
pass as much as Democrats did. They want their earmarks too. Ray LaHood
of Illinois is typical of those GOP appropriators who helped to drive
their party into the minority by spending like Democrats. They look good
only in comparison to Democrats, who have shown this year that their
claims of "fiscal discipline" are entirely phony, except when they refer
to raising taxes.
The larger lesson of this year is that divided government has its uses.
By using his veto pen, and with the help of House Republicans in
particular, Mr. Bush has been able to reduce the rate of spending growth
and continue to shape policy. The Schip health care vetoes were
especially im****tant in showing Democrats that the GOP couldn't be
easily rolled, despite a media assault and GOP Senate surrender. That's
more than we expected, even if it's not as much as Mr. Bush might have
achieved. May we have even more virtuous gridlock next year.
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