In the Wilderness
By Louis Boltik, Domestic Affairs Staff Writer
Until January of this year, the Republican Party had controlled Congress and the White House for 6 years. In the same six years, there has been a massive increase in federal spending and the federal deficit. In 1994, the Republican Party unveiled its “Contract with America,” outlining Republican principles of small government. It included proposals for tax reform, budget cuts, and welfare reform. Following the Republican victories in 1994, many of the proposals became policies, and between 1995 and 1997 nearly 200 programs were eliminated and discretionary spending actually decreased from $259 billion to $250 billion. [i] But in the past six years, President George Bush has led the Republican Party into the wilderness and away from the principles of small government that drove the Party into power in the first place.
When George W. Bush first began his campaign for the White House, conservatives had concerns about his commitment to conservative principles of limited government. During the campaign he did not help to calm these fears by campaigning under the slogan of “compassionate conservative.” The underlying message Bush seemed to be sending the American public was that he, unlike the Congressional Republicans of the 1990s, cared about the poor and the needy and wouldn’t stop government from helping them. Bush only reinforced his message of big-government conservatism in his speech at the Manhattan Institute on October 5, 1999, stating that, “too often, my Party has confused the need for limited government with a disdain for government itself.” [ii] The problem that the conservatives saw with this big government conservatism is that it is devoid of principle and that “it too easily becomes an excuse to lavish gifts on those with Republican connections.” [iii] But Governor Bush managed to amass a huge campaign war-chest, became the darling of social conservatives and secure the front spot in the Republican field before a single vote was cast in the primary. The Republican Party traditionally picks its nominee early in the process, and Bush’s early lead proved to be too much for Senator John McCain, or anyone else, to overcome. Conservatives’ fears about Bush were somewhat alleviated by his selection of Dick Cheney as his running mate. Conservatives were also forced into Bush’s arms by the Democrats during the 2000 election, when strictly partisan battle-lines were drawn over vote counting in Florida. Conservatives, and even Democrats, also rallied around the President following September 11th, 2001, giving him political capital to implement his policies.
Government spending since Bush has come to office has increased dramatically. Much of this is in defense spending, which is understandable considering that the CBO figures show that the cost of the War and Terror (including Iraq) has cost $432 billion between 2001 and 2006; this does not include the budget of the new department of Homeland Security, whose budget, according to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in FY 2005 reached a staggering $40.2 billion. [iv] However, this massive increase in spending has not been contained to those areas that are related to defense or counter terrorism funding, but has crept into other areas of the budget. In Bush’s first term, non-defense discretionary spending rose 36 percent. [v] The President should not receive all of the blame for the increase as the Republican Congress bears much responsibility for loading spending bills with pet projects; however, ultimately, responsibility rests with the President because only he has the power to veto spending bills and demand that Congress keep spending in check. In addition to discretionary spending, Bush pushed for and received increases in entitlement funding. Among these was the 2003 Medicare Act; the initial cost was listed as $395 billion over 10 years, but “the cost in the second ten years was expected to be closer to $1 trillion.” [vi] After all the expenses are tallied up, the 2003 Medicare Act adds up to “the biggest expansion in Medicare since its inception.” [vii] This is but one example of a systematic problem; the current President and Congress have even increased the budget for the Departments of Education, Energy and Commerce, departments that congressional Republicans had marked for elimination in 1995. [viii]
While the Republican Congress and President Bush may have wavered on the principles contained in the “Contract with America” when it came to government spending, they remained firm on Republican principles of cutting taxes. While this is an example of sound policy rooted in conservative principles, the combination of conservative tax policy and liberal spending contributed to the ballooning of the federal deficit. Clearly much of the blame lies in the economic downturn that followed September 11th, 2001 and quickly destroyed government surpluses. The dramatic impact of 9/11 came to light in the Congressional Budget Office projections for FY 2003, which were reduced by almost $450 billion dollars, a revenue drop “extraordinary by any stretch of the imagination.” [ix] Yet the new tax laws were only partially responsible and “accounted for only about one-third of the initial fall-off.” [x] Still, the government debt for FY 2004 was the largest dollar amount in U.S. history, although the Office of Management and Budget is quick to point out that it was only 3.6 percent of the GDP and, therefore, “only the 10th largest deficit in the last 25 years.” [xi] The idea of a balanced budget was a core principle in the Republican takeover in 1994 and the catalyst for the budget showdown between Speaker Newt Gingrich and President Clinton. Gingrich forced the President’s hand, leading to a government shutdown because Clinton proposed a budget that would be balanced in ten years instead of seven. It is hard to imagine that Gingrich would have accepted a budget that boasted “only the 10th largest deficit in the last 25 years.” [xii] Today, President Bush’s own 2007 budget only sets the goal of cutting the budget to $521 billion. [xiii] Had Clinton dreamed of proposing such a budget, there is little doubt that Newt Gingrich would have declared it dead on arrival to Congress.
The proposals in the Contract with America led to a Republican Congress for the first time in 40 years. More remarkably, on November 8th, 1994 these proposals had a real chance of becoming law after a sweeping Republican victory that took the House away from the Democrats for the first time in forty years. It was not just in Congress, however; “incredibly, not a single Republican congressman, senator, or governor was defeated.” [xiv] This massive electoral victory was in stark contrast with the electoral reality this past November; the Republicans lost both chambers of Congress and the majority of Governor mansions. Still, this may be only a relative victory if the Republican Party does not rediscover the principles of fiscal conservatism before November of 2008. While the recent electoral loss is largely attributed to dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq, the Republican Party must rediscover the principles that swept it in to power in the first place if it has any hopes of taking back Capitol Hill or retaining the White House.
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[i] Major Garret, The Enduring Revolution: How the Contract with America Continues to Shape the Nation (New York: Random House, 2005), 101.
[ii] Bruce Bartlett, Imposter: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy (New York: Doubleday, 2005), 8.
[iii] Ibid., 17.
[iv] Office of Management and Budget, The President’s 2007 Budget (Washington, DC: Office of Budget Management, 2006), 1.
[v] Veronique De Rugy, “The Republican Spending Explosion,” Cato Institute Briefing Papers, no. 87, (August 2003), 1.
[vi] Eugene Steuerle, Contemporary U.S. Tax Policy (Washington: The Urban Institute Press, 2004), 228.
[vii] Office of Management and Budget, The President’s 2007 Budget (Washington, DC: Office of Budget Management, 2006), 6.
[viii] Veronique De Rugy, “The Republican Spending Explosion,” Cato Institute Briefing Papers, no. 87, (August 2003), 9.
[ix] Eugene Steuerle, Contemporary U.S. Tax Policy (Washington: The Urban Institute Press, 2004), 212.
[x] Eugene Steuerle, Contemporary U.S. Tax Policy (Washington: The Urban Institute Press, 2004), 222.
[xi] Office of Management and Budget, The President’s 2007 Budget (Washington, DC: Office of Management and Budget, 2006).
[xii] Office of Management and Budget, The President’s 2007 Budget (Washington, DC: Office of Management and Budget, 2006).
[xiii] Office of Management and Budget, The President’s 2007 Budget (Washington, DC: Office of Management and Budget, 2006).
[xiv] Ed Gillespie and Bob Schellhas, ed., Contract with America (New York: Random House, 1994), 3.