House Armed Services Committee chairman Duncan Hunter is a
hard-headed loyal Republican. But he’s bucking the President,
planting his feet across the tide of intelligence reform and
saying, “Stop.” All the whiny posturing by the Chicken Littles of
the 9/11 Commission is intended to make us believe that if the
gargantuan intelligence “reform” bill isn’t passed immediately, OBL
will soon be sitting in the Oval Office. But Hunter, who has his
eye on the ball, isn’t blinking at that or even at the President’s
personal intervention in the bill’s behalf. What’s going on?
The intel bill is a mess, and Hunter has listened to the
objections of Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Richard Myers and to his
own son, a Marine lieutenant serving in Iraq. Myers, like all the
high-level military chiefs, in order to be confirmed by the Senate,
promised in writing that when asked for his personal opinion on
something, he’d give it regardless of the position of the
administration. Myers’ personal belief that the intel bill would
disrupt the flow of intelligence to battlefield commanders is
enough for Hunter. And it should be for us as well. If that were
all that’s wrong with this bill, it could be fixed. But it’s
not.
No matter how many times Tom Kean, Jamie Gorelick and John
Lehman say it, to say that there is no time to fix this mess before
passing the bill is simply untrue. Whether it passes now or in
March, the changes it makes won’t take effect for months or years.
Whether we delay it a bit will matter not one iota. But — as
politics goes — we’re only going to get one shot at this in the
next several years, so it’s essential to ensure that whatever bill
passes hits the mark.
The bill’s aim — on who bosses whom and who has budget
authority over what — is off target. What matters is how the intel
community has to be reformed and reorganized to improve what comes
out of the pipeline and lands on the President’s desk and on the
laptop that a battlefield commander looks at while his men are
under fire. If the President and national security team — as well
as the trigger-pullers — don’t get better, more reliable intel,
none of the other reforms matter. Hunter has the right idea. But
how dare he oppose the President? Though Hunter’s action is
unrelated, there is a conservative issue the President is going to
have to deal with.
The budget deficit has reached the point that if any more zeros
are added to it, no one will be able to pronounce it. Our President
has done precisely nothing to shrink excess spending. The federal
budget has increased by over $500 billion since Mr. Bush
took office. Non-defense discretionary spending has risen about 36%
since Lil’ Billy left office. Congressional conservatives — both
old and new — are aiming to give Mr. Bush a pretty hard time if he
doesn’t start down the path to reducing federal spending. If this
sounds a bit like the beginning of a new Reagan Revolution, it
should. Because that’s precisely what is going on. The President
should be leading this charge, not trying to withstand it.
WE VOTED FOR MR. BUSH because no thinking person could trust John
Kerry to fight the war against terrorists and the nations that
support them. In doing so, we didn’t vote to fund the
Franco-American Heritage Center, the Greater Syracuse Sports Hall
of Fame, therapeutic horseback riding, and a school mariachi music
curriculum. The Omnibus 2005 spending bill includes them all,
thanks to the porkers. The Heritage Foundation’s list list of about 100 pork projects in that bill
alone is infuriating reading. It’s time for President Bush to use
some of his electoral capital to cut the size of government and
with it federal spending.
It’s essential that the President do this in the first two years
of his second term. After that, his political capital will be
depleted, and the lame duck syndrome will set in. If he tries,
Congress will try to convince him to concentrate his effort on
reforming the budget process. But the budget process can’t be
reformed in a way that sticks. What Congress passes today can (and
probably will) be changed tomorrow. Federal spending cuts should be
focused where they have a better chance of sticking: cutting
agencies, commissions, and the many other pestilences the
government makes us pay for.
Even in the Good Old Days when the Gipper was in town, it proved
impossible to rid ourselves of the largest of the unneeded and
wasteful government departments. Some cabinet-level agencies, such
as the Department of Education, do little more than spend billions
of our tax dollars to benefit their constituencies, not the
taxpayer. But they are too big to do away with entirely, as even
President Reagan learned the hard way. Mr. Bush may be able to
succeed in downsizing the government — even more than Mr. Reagan
did — if he acts quickly. First, to set the stage and then to
prepare for the ‘06 budget battle — where the biggest cuts can be
attempted.
After 9/11, President Bush told us to go about our lives as we
had before. With Iraq still festering and the problems of Iran and
North Korea coming to a head, it’s tempting to say that the
President should reverse course, and insist on non-defense budget
cuts to fund the war and benefit the economy. But that would reduce
— both quickly and substantially — congressional support for
doing what we must to continue the war. There’s a better way to set
the stage for a big round of bureaucracy-slashing.
The President should direct the Office of Management and Budget
to cull the federal budget of all the programs, commissions and
special agencies that are “inside the Beltway” programs. There must
be hundreds of them that could disappear tomorrow without Red State
voters noticing any change in what the government does for them.
Who, except for a few “performance artists,” will bemoan the death
of the National Endowment for the Arts? Who — among those who
don’t traverse Havahd Yahd each day - would miss the National
Endowment for the Humanities if it disappeared? Just what do the
Administration for Children and Families, the Federal Interagency
Council on Statistical Policy, and the Corporation for National and
Community Service even do? If we have to ask, we shouldn’t have to
pay for them to do it. And, while we’re at it, why is the Consumer
Products Safety Commission still in business?
THE LIBS AND THEIR congressional porkpals will shriek at the mere
suggestion that any pet rock they’ve tossed on the budget boat
could be thrown over the side. But the libs have never been more
vulnerable than they are now. How beautiful will it be to see them
throwing themselves on their swords to save agencies that nobody
gives a rat’s behind about? Beautiful enough to pick up a bunch of
Republican congressional seats in ‘06, methinks.
The President can make enormous progress toward reducing the
size of government by hacking away at all the little federal
fiefdoms the porkers have created. If he starts with the “inside
the Beltway” crowd, he — and the conservatives in Congress — can
get a taste for it. Next year, on to bigger game.
To prepare for Round 2, Mr. Bush should order a short-term
analysis of agencies such as Education, HHS, HUD, Interior, Labor,
and the rest. To reduce their budgets substantially, it will be
necessary to cut their authorized activities, which Mr. Bush should
prepare to try. If their programs can be cut — by ten or twenty
percent - billions can be saved, the deficit can be reduced, and
our economic strength guaranteed for the next decade or more. Take
a shot at it, Mr. President. When you take the oath of office some
time before noon on January 20, it could be just another cold
Washington day. But it could be morning in America, all over
again.
TAS Contributing Editor Jed Babbin is the author
of Inside the Asylum: Why the UN and Old Europe Are Worse Than
You Think (Regnery Publishing).
