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Democrats' Spending Scam

Texan

Well-known member
Pork Projects Thrive in Democrats' Spending Scam: Kevin Hassett

Commentary by Kevin Hassett

May 27 (Bloomberg) -- Politicians have two ways of responding when they are caught doing something that outrages voters: They can stop the behavior or they can find a way to continue it in a manner that's difficult for voters to observe.

On wasteful spending, the Democrats have chosen the latter course, and in so doing, have revealed indefensible and fundamental biases in the methods Congress asks the Congressional Budget Office to employ.

In 2006, Democrats rode the ``Bridge to Nowhere'' to a congressional majority. The Republican Congress attempted to connect Ketchikan, Alaska, to Gravina Island -- a small island with a population of 50 -- with a bridge that would have been one of America's longest.

The $398 million project rightly became a public-relations disaster for Republicans, and may well have been the primary cause of the Republican defeat in 2006. Voters were furious that elected officials would show such little respect for public money.

Playing on those feelings, Democrats promised to end wasteful spending and enacted strict ``paygo,'' or pay as you go, rules that would prohibit policy changes that increase the deficit relative to the baseline.

Even with the enactment of those rules, Democrats have hardly delivered on their promises. The ``Congressional Pig Book'' is one compilation of the pork-barrel projects in the federal budget. The 2008 Pig Book identified 11,610 projects that cost a total of $17.2 billion in the 12 Appropriations Acts for fiscal 2008.

Rules Don't Apply

How could they continue to behave so badly in spite of their aggressive paygo measures?

There are two big reasons.

The first is a key feature of the new rules that has gone mostly unnoticed. I hope you are sitting down, because you may find the next sentence startling: The paygo formula doesn't apply to discretionary appropriations like the infamous bridge.

When the Democrats told you they would enact a paygo rule, you thought they meant they would enact a policy that made it tougher to engage in wasteful spending. But if you propose a Woodstock Museum (as Hillary Clinton did), or a Carp Barrier (as Barack Obama did), then it can be approved without having to pass a procedural paygo hurdle.

Paygo only applies to changes in taxes, continuation of expiring tax provisions and mandatory spending, things like veterans' compensation and food stamps.

Profligate Spenders

So Congress can and does add new spending whenever it wants.

The profligate spenders have another advantage that is even bigger come budget time. The CBO baseline, the ultimate metric of fiscal virtue, is a pork spender's best friend.

If an idiotic appropriation is made just for this year, the CBO assumes that the appropriation will be made forever, and even kindly adjusts for inflation so that we stay real, not just nominal, idiots. It does this even if Congress explicitly appropriates the money on a one-time basis.

If we spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a project this year, then we will, as the Alaska delegation did in 2005, have to take some heat to get it passed. But next year, and the year after, that money will be in the baseline. We can waste it again and again, and do it without any notice.

Notice how sharply the treatment of spending differs from the treatment of tax cuts. President George W. Bush's tax cuts are set to expire, and any attempt to renew them looks like it will cost hundreds of billions of dollars relative to the baseline. Because of that appearance, Democrats regularly wail about the horrible deficit effects of extending the cuts.

Mandatory Spending

But according to the CBO, there is approximately $1.3 trillion worth of mandatory spending that is also set to expire. If you add the discretionary spending that is also built into the CBO baseline, then there are spending extensions that cost about as much as the tax-cut extensions. But since the spending is in the baseline, Democrats get to pretend that its extension costs nothing extra.

Here's how bad it is: Even the Bridge to Nowhere is now in the baseline. At the close of that sorry episode, Congress decided to give Alaska the same amount of money, but didn't specify that it be spent on the bridge. Subsequently, the state of Alaska decided to spend the money elsewhere.

Same Waste

Yet since the money was appropriated, the CBO built it into the spending baseline for all future years. Congress will waste exactly the same amount of money this year, and more, and will do so without the slightest bit of controversy.

As we enter the election cycle, Democrats will constantly appeal to the CBO baseline as they attempt to frame the policy debate. They shouldn't be allowed to do so. The baseline is a contrivance without any economic merit that was clearly conceived by politicians who despise tax cuts and love spending, a contrivance that sanctifies the Bridge to Nowhere.

(Kevin Hassett, director of economic-policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, is a Bloomberg News columnist. He is an adviser to Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona in his bid for the 2008 presidential nomination. The opinions expressed are his own.)



http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_hassett&sid=aRvCYI4iGAA8
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Yep we now have the Big Government, Big Spender Democrats- and the Big Government, Big Spender Republicans.....One wants to give it all to the poor people- the other wants to give it all to the rich people...
What a Choice!!! :(
 

Texan

Well-known member
Oldtimer said:
Yep we now have the Big Government, Big Spender Democrats- and the Big Government, Big Spender Republicans.....One wants to give it all to the poor people- the other wants to give it all to the rich people...
What a Choice!!! :(
You'd better grab a chair and pour you a big drink, Oldboy - because I agree with you. I guess that makes you a neocon cultist. :wink:
 

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