The meat of last night’s State of the Union address came mostly
at the beginning, when President Bush trumpeted his achievements on
foreign policy and the prospects of the economy. But almost as
important was what wasn’t said. Apart from “an additional $23
million for schools that want to use drug-testing” and “a
four-year, $300 million Prisoner Re-Entry Initiative,” there were
no dollar amounts attached to new spending proposals— quite a
change from the billions the President proposed last year. That
alone made the speech seem a bit more on the “conservative” side
than the “compassionate” side, and reflected a tacit acknowledgment
of the growing disapproval the president is generating on his own
side of the fence. Still, the President offered little of substance
to those who are worried about runaway spending.
Bush promised to “limit the burden of government on this economy
by acting as good stewards of taxpayers’ dollars,” with a budget
“limiting the growth in discretionary spending to less than 4
percent.” But don’t put much stock in that number; at best it
depends on Congress holding the line on spending, and at worst it
refers to budget authority rather than outlays— that is,
substituting the hypothetical spending accounts of government
agencies, which can be shifted from year to year, for the actual
amount spent within the year. Global Crossing went bankrupt after
attempting a similar accounting trick. The Heritage Foundation
estimates that actual outlays in 2004 will grow by 10 percent.
The tension between Bush and Leviathan
Wranglers is nothing new, but the criticism from the right of
Republicans’ fiscal policy has reached a crescendo. The leaders of
six conservative groups — Heritage, Coalitions for America,
Citizens for a Sound Economy, Citizens Against Government Waste,
the Club for Growth, and the National Taxpayers Union — held a
press conference last week denouncing the pork-laden monstrosity of
an Omnibus Appropriations bill currently before the Senate.
Yesterday the Wall Street Journal, citing Heritage and the
Club for Growth, echoed the sentiment in an editorial titled
Drunken GOP Sailors, calling on Bush to veto the bill if it
gets to his desk
This would be the first veto of Bush’s presidency. At a
roundtable in Washington last week held by the
libertarian-conservative America’s Future Foundation, Jim Pinkerton
of Newsday and Gene Healy of the Cato Institute (and,
often, of this website) were harder on the Bush record than Ramesh
Ponnuru of National Review, but all agreed that Bush has
seen plenty on his desk worth vetoing. (Every president since John
Quincy Adams has used the veto at least once.) A representative
from the Republican National Committee (a last-minute substitution
for the RNC’s Communications Director, Jim Dyke) was reduced to
arguing that Bush’s reluctance to fight with the veto pen was due
to a commitment to “change the tone” in Washington. The whole room
burst out laughing.
The word “veto” did show up in Bush’s speech, however. “Any
attempts to limit the choices of our seniors or to take away their
prescription drug coverage under Medicare will meet my veto.” Alas,
that’s not exactly the kind of veto threat that conservatives were
hoping for.
