Working with a Republican Congress for six years, the Bush White House has written federal budgets that grew at a rate of 7% per year — double the rate of growth under Clinton. According the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute, both conservative think tanks, even nonmilitary discretionary spending has blossomed under Bush, far more than his recent predecessors. For that matter, Bush took the biggest surpluses in U.S. history and created the biggest deficits.
It was with some irony, therefore, that the president lashed out at congressional Democrats today, asking why they can’t be as fiscally responsible as he is.
“[W]e can meet priorities and we can do so without raising taxes. I think raising taxes would be bad for the economy and bad for the working people.
“Unfortunately, the Democratic majority in Congress has chosen a different path. The plan they have put forward includes an increase in discretionary spending that is nearly $22 billion more than my budget request. Some in Congress will tell you that $22 billion is not a lot of money. As business leaders, you know better. As a matter of fact, $22 billion is larger than the annual revenues of most Fortune 500 companies. […]
“So it’s no surprise that the same members of Congress who are planning the big increase in federal spending are also planning the largest tax increase in American history. At a time when families are working hard to pay their mortgages or pay for their children going to college, now is not the time to be taking money out of their pocket.”
The irony was rich, on a variety of levels. Sure, it’s amusing to see a fiscally irresponsible president lecture Congress on budgetary trustworthiness, but more importantly, it’s even funnier to note Bush list those adverse consequences.
When the president highlights the difficulties Americans face, he’s neglecting to mention that the scandalous $22 billion Congress wants to spend would be invested in health care for veterans, education, medical research, and infrastructure improvements, all of which rank high on the public’s priorities list.
For that matter, Faiz noted the oddity of hearing Bush rail against $22 billion for unmet domestic priorities while, at the same time, demanding an additional $200 billion for an Iraq policy that doesn’t work.
While complaining of modest spending increases on much-needed domestic funding priorities, Bush is far less concerned about the impact of spending $200 billion in the next year alone on a disastrous war in Iraq:
“President Bush plans to ask lawmakers next week to approve another massive spending measure — totaling nearly $200 billion — to fund the war through next year, Pentagon officials said.”
It shouldn’t take a “CEO President” to figure out that $200 billion is greater than $22 billion.
No, but then again, by his own admission, the president has always had some trouble with economics.