David A. Keene

Need a pen, Mr. President?
January 27, 2004

President Bush didn't have much to say about the deficit in last week's State of the Union speech, but he's been vocal about it since, pledging a 1 percent cap on increases in domestic non-defense and homeland-security spending in the budget the administration will soon send to the Hill.

The deficit is, of course, simply a symptom of an imbalance between revenues and expenditures that cannot be ignored over the long term without severe economic consequences. Few voters rush to the polls to vote based on either the size of the deficit in the short term or in response to political pleas for a balanced budget. But they do expect the president and Congress to be at least sensitive to the dangers of unchecked deficits and to address the underlying problems that cause them.

Part of the short-term problem is that the economy has been -- but is no longer -- in recession. Tax revenues fall in such times, and spending tends to increase to smooth the bumps in the economic road that are an unavoidable consequence of any economic slowdown. To blame everything on the economic situation, however, amounts to little more than political scapegoating and does little real good.

For a while, we were being told that spending was going up because of the war on terror and that it was, therefore, Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein's fault. But non-defense spending is rising even faster, and programs such as the new Medicare expansion are being designed and passed with due dates that will cripple the economy down the road.

Republicans portray themselves as more responsible on the issue because, as they correctly assert, had the Democratic minorities in the House and Senate had their way last year, spending would be far higher and we would be living with even bigger deficits.

The fact that the Democrats would grow the government even faster is hardly a defense, however, with discretionary spending increasing at twice the rate it did while Bill Clinton occupied the Oval Office. Neither the administration nor the Congress is really all that interested in dealing with the real problem. Government spending is simply out of control. It is increasing at a far faster rate than at any time since Lyndon Johnson laid the foundations for his Great Society, and it's happening with Republicans at the helm.

Republicans at least know down deep that in failing to act on spending they are betraying their party's base, ignoring promises, pledges and claims most of them made to convince voters to elect them.

Democrats are different. They actually seem to crave more spending. They argue that Bush's tax cuts are unfair, but what really offends them is the idea of cutting anybody's taxes for any reason. Republicans, for all their faults, do believe that people who work for a living are better able to judge how to spend their money than the folks who wander the corridors of the government agencies that dominate this town. Most Republicans, like druggies who wake up between fixes suspecting that something is wrong, would like to kick the habit, but the average Democrat seems to be a happy addict.

When faced with the problem of the deficit, most Democrats have an easy answer: higher taxes. The revenue thus generated, they assure us, not only will allow us to cut the deficit but will give us the leeway to launch major new government initiatives and give those bureaucrats the resources they need to monitor, plan and direct us all to a better future and more fulfilling life. We are not spending too much, they think, but too little. The question uppermost in their minds is where to get the money to spend more.

And that, after all is one of the major differences between the parties. The Republicans are the party of limited government, though they might not act like it, and the Democrats are the party of bigger, more activist and more expensive government, though some of them tend to obfuscate it.

As a conservative, I am convinced a face-off between a candidate who champions smaller government and lower taxes will break the political deadlock we face today. An honest debate, with neither side running from its own positions, could make 2004 more like 1984 than 2000.

It is for this very simple political reason that the president should demand spending cuts and enforce that demand this year. Somewhere in the White House, he will find a working pen that he might be able to use to veto a spending proposal or two and at least thereby get the attention of his fellow Republicans in Congress. If he can't find one, I know many conservatives who'd be willing to lend him theirs.