"President Bush is obstructing the nation's business using sleight of hand and faulty calculations. So where is the public outrage? At some point, citizens of the nation, who sent a clear message last November that they wanted change, need to insist that they get it. The war is not the top priority of the nation, and the nation needs to say so. From NASA contractors to health care providers to agricultural research programs, programs big and small depend on a responsible budget process, which is Congress' most important job. Few people really follow federal budgets, so it's easy for the president to score erroneous points. It's time to insist that congressional Republicans and President Bush stop playing politics and work with Congress to pass the appropriations bills that are so important to the nation's functioning." Journalist Margaret Krome served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cameroon.
Margaret Krome writes: Bush is playing politics with nation's budget
Margaret Krome: Bush is playing politics with nation's budget
Margaret Krome — 11/29/2007 9:08 am
Probably the single most important function that a member of Congress performs is passing budgets and the appropriations bills that follow from them -- on time.
Disappointed as I am in the congressional wipeout on the farm bill, and as disruptive as it is to farmers, ranchers, rural communities, university researchers, school cafeteria planners and others trying to work around Congress' dysfunction, still, passing timely appropriations bills is more important. The appropriations process is where the priorities of the nation get best reflected and updated annually -- in how much scarce money gets spent on what.
Certainly it's frustrating to watch Democrats fail to pass their own spending priorities more than a year after they claimed majorities in both houses of Congress. Last February, Congress adopted a Continuing Resolution for Fiscal Year 2007, which simply maintained the funding status quo and thus the 2006 priorities of the previous Republican-controlled Congress. Worse yet, by not passing its appropriations bills by the mandated Sept. 30 deadline, Congress has forced the nation to default back to those numbers once again as we approach 2008.
What's the reason for this impasse? Principally, it's due to the narrow majorities that Democrats hold in both houses, with not quite enough votes to pass veto-proof appropriations bills, with the striking exception of the bill passed earlier this month loaded with earmarks for water projects in districts of both parties.
But the second reason is that President Bush and Republican leaders in Congress want to score political points by trying to paint Democrats as profligate tax-and-spenders. Yes, that's true even now, after Democrats enacted pay-as-you-go spending requirements in January, creating genuine savings far in excess of the previous three Republican-controlled Congresses. But President Bush has found tax-and-spending to be a useful stereotype, and he has made quite a press event out of threatening to veto and then vetoing domestic appropriations bills.
Note that word domestic. The real budget busters continue to be Bush's endless demands for more funding for military spending. The president has increased spending over five years for defense and international programs by $252 billion. And this doesn't even include the $196 billion he has requested this fall for additional funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
So in mid-November, when he vetoed the first of the domestic bills -- for the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education departments -- he furrowed his brow, steadied his stance and criticized the Democrats as supporting irresponsible increases of $205 billion. But -- whoops -- his numbers were off by $30 billion, largely because he shifted aviation user fees (treated as a tax) to new fees to fund the air traffic control system and then claimed he was making a $30 billion tax cut. Fake cuts of $30 billion in taxes through accounting tricks are a sorry way to lead.
More important, according to the Center for Policy and Budget Priorities, the remaining $173 billion increase that Congress approved in this bill exactly reflects anticipated needs due to population growth over five years. As a presidential candidate justifying his own budgets as Texas governor, Bush argued strenuously that population growth needed to be accounted for, but he now completely ignores that principle to take political potshots.
President Bush is obstructing the nation's business using sleight of hand and faulty calculations. So where is the public outrage? At some point, citizens of the nation, who sent a clear message last November that they wanted change, need to insist that they get it. The war is not the top priority of the nation, and the nation needs to say so.
From NASA contractors to health care providers to agricultural research programs, programs big and small depend on a responsible budget process, which is Congress' most important job. Few people really follow federal budgets, so it's easy for the president to score erroneous points. It's time to insist that congressional Republicans and President Bush stop playing politics and work with Congress to pass the appropriations bills that are so important to the nation's functioning.
Margaret Krome is a Madison resident who writes this column every other week.
