Way back in April, during the first round of debate on war funding, Bush excoriated lawmakers for “spend[ing] billions of dollars on pork barrel projects and spending that are [sic] completely unrelated to this war.” It was one of his more disingenuous complaints — the president’s own war funding proposal included funds for federal prisons, Kosovo debt relief, flood control on the Mississippi, and nutrition programs in Africa, among other things.
Similarly, just a couple of weeks ago, Bush devoted his radio address to complaining about federal spending. “Earmarks are spending provisions that are slipped into bills by individual members of Congress, often at the last hour and without discussion or debate,” the president said. “It’s not surprising that this leads to unnecessary Federal spending.”
It’s why the White House should probably find this embarrassing.
Just a few months after blasting the congressional practice of diverting millions in taxpayer dollars to pet projects, President Bush has slipped into current legislation more than 100 so-called “earmarks” worth over $1 billion — including nearly $6 million for work on the White House. […]
The president’s earmarks, for projects including national park improvements, land purchases and new government facilities, have drawn unusual on-the-record criticism from Republican lawmakers, who typically eschew public displays of disaffection with the White House.
“It would appear the administration likes earmarks from their perspective,” Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., told the Hill newspaper, which first reported the White House earmarks. Aderholt is a member of the House Appropriations Committee. He termed the White House stance as “inconsistent,” though another Republican, Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho, told the paper it was “duplicity.”
The Bush White House? Duplicitous? Never.
Indeed, as long as we’re talking about President Big Spender, Bush’s earmarks aren’t the only problem.
When George W. Bush reclaimed the White House for the Republicans in 2000, he asserted that his party would use tightfisted management techniques to get federal spending under control. Instead, spending has spiraled to records annually, growing by nearly half in the six years since he took office.
And the Democrats, who regained control of Congress in January, reported Wednesday that contracts with businesses to provide government services — everything from cafeteria management to weapons systems — were heavily responsible. Contracts let by the government with limited or no competition are growing fastest of all, the Democrats said.
Contracting out services to the private sector has always been controversial with the unions representing federal employees, whose jobs are on the line every time the government looks outside its own bureaucracy for workers.
Advocates of the practice reply that the profit motive gives the private sector — but not the public workforce — an incentive to provide services more efficiently, and therefore more cheaply.
That’s not what was found by the staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. In a report to Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), the panel’s chairman, the staff said government auditors had found “significant waste, fraud, abuse or mismanagement” last year in 187 contracts valued at $1.1 trillion.
That’s trillion with a “t.”
Something to keep in mind in the coming months when the White House whines bitterly about congressional Democrats not meeting GOP standards on fiscal responsibility.