When Will Spending Ever Take a Holiday?

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Jan 5, 2004

Byline: Jennifer G. Hickey, INSIGHT

When Will Spending Ever Take a Holiday?

As members of Congress readied themselves to travel home to celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Boxing Day, Kwanzaa or other holidays falling in December, they engaged in some last-minute celebratory spending, most of it included in the $328,122 billion omnibus spending bill, which has yet to pass the U.S. Senate. A policy draft produced by the Republican Study Committee (RSC), an informal caucus of Republican House members, shows that the omnibus bill nears the $457,443 billion price tag carried by all other enacted legislation for fiscal 2004. Although the RSC has a number of fiscally conservative members, the committee did not take a position on the omnibus spending measure.

While individual politicians will decry cuts in individual programs that may have resulted from an across-the-board cut of 0.59 percent in discretionary spending included in the omnibus bill, the RSC found that spending on nondefense bills (excluding supplemental bills) increased 4.36 percent above fiscal 2003, while spending on defense and military construction rose but 0.72 percent.

Although the $785,565 billion total equals the budget-resolution target, this was not entirely achieved through spending restraints. The RSC says Congress has employed approximately $7.5 billion in rescissions and accounting shifts to meet the target. For example, included in the omnibus bill was a $1.8 billion rescission of emergency spending appropriated in the aftermath of September 11 and/or from prior defense appropriations. While the Office of Management and Budget will determine the exact division, RSC notes hesitancy by conservatives to make rescissions in one-time-only spending, as opposed to recurring spending measures.

Additionally, the RSC notes, "the fact that it has been over two years and this $1.8 billion has not been spent calls into question whether it ever would have been spent or whether it would have reverted to the Treasury."

The bill included some jaw-dropping, eye-popping and logic-defying earmarks, such as the $210,000 earmarked for the construction of a sidewalk in the town of Thomaston, Maine, or the $150,000 earmarked for a traffic light in New York state's Briarcliff Manor Union Free School District. However, it also created several new government programs. According to the RSC, Americans now can benefit from the International Center for Middle Eastern-Western Dialogue, the Helping Enhance the Livelihood of People Around the Globe Commission and a brand-spanking-new quota system for crab processors and Gulf of Alaska rockfish even though the Union previously had survived without those programs. More omnibus outrages can be found at the Websites of the Heritage Foundation (www.heritage.org) and Citizens Against Government Waste (www.cagw.org).

Facts Don't Interfere With Bush-Bashing

In its latest TV ad railing against George W. Bush, the liberal activist group MoveOn.org asserts: "Christmas is coming early to George Bush's big contributors. Drug companies got high prices in the Medicare bill." The charge is somewhat ironic considering that the group has received a $2.5 million contribution from George Soros, who has pledged to spend more than $15 million to defeat Bush, while Bush's campaign is constrained by campaign-finance laws recently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, including a ban on individual contributions in excess of $2,000.

Yet, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), the assertion by MoveOn.org is a bit too simplistic. CRP notes that the average contribution from pharmaceutical manufacturers to the 204 Republicans who supported the Medicare bill is $28,504, as opposed to an average contribution of $8,112 to the 25 Republicans who opposed it.

On the other side of the aisle, the 16 Democrats who voted in favor of the bill have raised an average of $16,296 from pharmaceutical manufacturers, while the 189 Democrats who voted "no" received an average of $11,791. Among health maintenance organizations, the CRP analysis found a similar trend in average donations to Democrats who supported the bill ($11,654) and Republicans who voted for it ($11,576). Furthermore, says CRP, "Democrats who opposed the bill have raised an average of $6,840, as compared to the average $5,286 raised by Republicans who voted against it."

And what of those "big contributors"? Almost three-quarters of contributors to Bush's re-election campaign have donated $2,000, compared with 11 percent who donated $200 or less. Contrary to perceptions fostered by groups such as MoveOn.org, this is not an uncommon ratio among presidential candidates.

Data on CRP's Website (www.open secrets.org) show that the campaigns of Bush's Democratic opponents have generated funds in similar increments. Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt both have raised 12 percent of their funds in increments of $200 or less. Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut brought in only 9 percent of his donations in similar increments, while North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, the candidate who often rails against "big business" and "big contributors," collected only 3 percent in small donations. Former Vermont governor Howard Dean is somewhat of an exception to the rule among the leading candidates, receiving 56 percent of his donations to date in increments of $200 or less.