The Grand Old Spending Party
What are Republicans good for?

Mr. Moore is president of the Club for Growth
May 4, 2001 1:45 p.m.

on't look now, but with the budget agreement reached this week, it now appears that federal spending is going to end up growing at about seven percent this year — or about twice the spending rate under Bill Clinton. Good thing we've got Republicans in charge to keep government as small and confined as possible.

George W. Bush started the budget process with a reasonable, but slightly overweight budget. He called for four percent growth in spending. (Inflation, correctly measured, is running at about maybe one percent.)

The budget deal struck this week between the Congress and the White House ratchets that spending number up to near five percent. Some of this extra spending, of course, was due to demands by those dirty-rotten-Democratic spendaholics up on Capitol Hill. But a lot of it was a result of demands by those no-good-spendaholic Republicans that seem to be dominating the GOP agenda these days in Congress. Many Hill Republicans, who pontificate against big government, were quietly breathing a sigh of relief over the new inflated baseline in federal spending.

Now a five percent growth rate of the federal budget may not seem like the end of the world — and it isn't. But here's the problem. We're not even going to end up within spitting distance of five percent expenditure growth. History teaches us that the spending levels set by the budget resolution in the spring become floors on allowable expenditures. Once the congressional appropriators start mending together the actual budget bills, in the summer and fall spending inevitably gets ratcheted up.

My prediction of seven percent spending growth this year is based on several fiscal reality checks. First, expect to see about $5 to $10 billion in "emergency spending" for victims of drought, floods, hurricanes, meteors, and the like. My estimate for emergency spending is conservative and falls somewhat below than the average for the past four years.

The budget will grow faster this summer and fall than currently advertised for two other reasons. First, Republicans will surely cave in to Democratic demands for Medicare coverage of prescription drugs. Figure that will add at the very least another $10 to $15 billion a year to spending. Second, the Rumsfeld Commission on military restructuring will almost certainly call for more dollars into the defense budget. I'll sidestep the issue of whether the $300-billion-a-year Pentagon actually needs more money, because that's beside the point. The point is there will be more money for defense that isn't now accounted for in the current budget estimates.

Finally, there is our friend (or do I mean enemy?) the budget surplus. This year's surplus is on tap to exceed $200 billion, depending on whether Congress passes a $100 billion tax rebate. Regardless, we now know the kind of pro-spending impulse that surpluses now elicit from members of Congress in both parties. Put a fat budget surplus estimate in front of appropriators and they start drooling uncontrollably like Pavlov's dog.

Now some in Washington are already making excuses for the coming shopping spree. They say that some extra spending this year is justified to make up for some years of excessively tight budgets. We need to start making some "investments" in federal programs to make up for the years of neglect. What neglect? Federal spending hasn't been held under tight reigns in recent years. In fact, just the opposite is true. The federal budget for discretionary spending has risen from $534 billion in 1996 to $646 billion this year. Nondefense discretionary spending has risen by 25 percent over this five-year period.

The bottom line here is that someone has to start holding the line on spending. If Republicans allow the budget to grow at twice the rate it did under Clinton, many conservatives are going to start asking the legitimate question: what are Republicans good for? Of course, if the GOP can deliver the crown jewel of their economic program, the trillion-and-a-half-dollar tax cut, this could excuse some excessive celebratory spending this year. But a seven percent increase?

I've said it before, but it bears repeating: Washington already has one party of big government. We surely don't need two.