Over the past year, Republicans have criticized Barack Obama for out-of-control spending. So they must be glad they forced him to admit it in his State of the Union address by proposing a spending freeze, something Republicans generally don’t like.
Well, not really. After the administration unveiled a plan to cut non-defense and security discretionary spending over the next three years, the opposition party erupted in ridicule.
There were many complaints: it affected only one-eighth of the budget, it involved vast increases, and the savings would be insignificant compared to the projected deficits.
The loudest cry came from a spokesman for House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio: “Given Washington’s unprecedented spending obsession, this is like announcing that after winning a pie-eating contest, you’re going on a diet.”
It so happens that all the criticisms are true. Obama’s claim of strict fiscal discipline – “we are willing to freeze government spending for three years” – became comically irrelevant as soon as he listed all the programs that would not be included: national security, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, which happen to be are the Four Horsemen of the Fiscal Apocalypse.
What’s more: $165 billion in unspent stimulus funds. Other “mandatory” programs such as unemployment and food stamps. Interest on debt that will triple over the next three years. Obama goes on hunger strike, except for meals.
Freezing it was expected to save $250 billion over the next decade. However, during this period, the federal government was expected to run a $9 trillion deficit. The savings would preserve 97 percent of the red ink.
Still, it’s strange to hear complaints of overspending from the people who brought us the bloated budgets of the Bush years. During his term, federal spending did not decline under the relentless attack of fierce conservatives.
In fact, during the Bush administration, total federal spending, adjusted for inflation, increased by 72 percent. What was originally a budget surplus became a deficit, reaching $1.8 trillion in 2009, Bush’s last fiscal year (to which Obama contributed only a miniature amount).
Conservatives can justify this record as the mandatory price of the war on terror. But even if you exclude defense and interest on the debt, reports Chris Edwards of the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, Bush’s White House was the biggest domestic spender since Richard Nixon.
He only vetoed the bill after he had been in office for more than six years because it was too pricey. Bill Clinton may feel your pain, but his successor made him look like Ebenezer Scrooge.
Boehner, not wanting to get in the way of the delivered locomotive, poured coal into the boiler. To him, calling someone a spendthrift is like Tiger Woods calling someone a slut.
Obama’s plan for this part of the budget is woefully modest. However, it is definitely better to reduce them than to raise them, which was the case in the recent past. Since 2001, spending under the proposed cap has increased from $310 billion to $447 billion.
Republicans are mocking Obama for trying to freeze spending they helped raise. They should show remorse on the grounds that if $310 billion was enough for Clinton, it should be enough for Obama.
If the GOP really wants to highlight the administration’s budget surpluses, the appropriate response is not just to ridicule how little it offers in the way of savings, but to offer bigger and better savings of its own. Otherwise, it may turn out that the public’s disgust with uncontrolled spending may affect both incumbent Republicans and Democrats.
There is great precedent for this approach. After Republicans took control of Congress in 1995, they demanded a plan to balance the budget within seven years. President Clinton did not like this, but he was forced to cooperate.
Soon the sides were competing at the Tightwad Olympics. And the budget was balanced – not in seven years, but in three.
Can Republicans come up with a real plan to reduce federal spending? Will this move force Obama to get stern about fiscal discipline? There’s only one way to find out.
Let the bidding begin.
