A clean fiscal slate

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Jan 8, 2007

THEY didn't quite trash the place on their way out, but congressional Republicans -- specifically, the Senate leadership under outgoing Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. -- engaged in the legislative equivalent of vandalism when it came to getting spending bills passed: they didn't. Of the measures needed to fund the government during fiscal 2007, now three months gone, the 109th Congress managed to approve only bills to pay for defense and homeland security spending. The rest of the government -- $463 billion in discretionary spending -- was left to run on autopilot.

Confronted with this abdication of responsibility, the incoming Democratic management faced an unpleasant choice. It could take the time to clean up this fiscal year's mess, a time-consuming process that would inevitably have led to fights over earmarks and spending levels, along with filibuster threats from Senate Republicans and possible vetoes from President Bush. Or it could essentially write off the 2007 budget process and move on with a clean slate to 2008 - - a process that will begin in February, when Mr. Bush is to present his budget along with a whopper of an emergency spending bill to pay for operations in Iraq.

Democrats chose the latter course, and under the circumstances, it's hard to fault them. The new appropriations committee chairmen, Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., and Rep. David R. Obey, D-Wis., announced they would move to fund the remainder of the fiscal year under a continuing resolution, limiting domestic appropriations to 2006 levels.

The boldest part of the Democrats' plan is to strip earmarks out of the spending measures -- although, as their statement noted, such projects will be eligible for reconsideration in 2008 and those earmarks that were included in previous spending bills and are slated for renewal this year won't be affected. Still, this earmark shock therapy could prove valuable, like quitting smoking by going cold turkey; the 2008 process, the chairmen promised, will be conducted under "new standards for transparency and accountability.''

The Democrats have given themselves the clean slate they deserved. Their real test will come as they work to craft a 2008 budget that is both frugal and fair, not to mention finished on time.Washington PostEditorial