The headline
was enough to make any American taxpayer stand up and cheer – “Bush
Threatens Veto of Runaway Congressional Spending.”
But wait a
minute...who is this “Bush” who’s making such a promise? If it’s our
president, we need to recall that during the past ten years, while
the Republican Party has controlled Congress, he didn’t veto even
one appropriations bill. Even the most expensive public works
legislation in history, the $286.4 BILLION highway appropriations
bill of 2005, which contained over $24 BILLION in earmarks – i.e.,
pet projects selected by virtually every senator and representative
to gain favor with voters by providing federal funds in the form of
construction projects and jobs, and added just prior to the final
votes so nobody has the opportunity to question or oppose these
expenditures.
Not that they
would, of course. The Senate voted 91 to 4 and the House voted 412
to 8 in favor, so it’s not like there are many crusaders in Congress
trying to save your tax dollars. The fact that almost 10% of the
most expensive bill in history was for purely self-serving
boondoggles like the $223 “Bridge to Nowhere” in Alaska, to connect
an island inhabited by 50 people with a town of 8,000...or the
National Packard Museum in Ohio ($2.75 million)...or horse riding
facilities in Virginia ($600,000)...a snowmobile trail in Vermont
($5.9 million)... a bicycle and pedestrian trail in Tennessee
($532,000)...parking for New York’s Harlem Hospital ($8 million),
etc., wasn’t enough to trigger President Bush’s sensibilities about
how our taxes are spent, nor to prompt an “anti-excessive spending”
veto. He signed the 1,752-page legislation, although he never read
it, nor did any of the Representatives and Senators who voted for
it, even including its authors!
In 1985,
President Reagan vetoed a highway bill because it contained 121 of
these earmarks, but in 2005 President Bush didn’t hesitate to sign
the highway bill with 6, 376 such earmarks. While Republicans
controlled both houses of Congress these earmarks rose from 1,439 in
1995 to a total of 13,999 in 2005...none of which President Bush
vetoed, or even threatened to veto.
Now, however,
we’re to believe he’s so concerned about how our taxes are wasted by
Congress year after year, regardless of which party is in charge,
that he’s going to “get tough” on excessive spending? If all that
pork didn’t prompt a veto, it’s fair to ask what has finally moved
him to veto “excessive spending” by our elected representatives.
Well, here’s how the process works: the administration asks for a
certain amount of funding for various programs, and the Congress
debates on the value of that legislation, and on the funding amounts
they will authorize. Seems that the Democrats are authorizing more
money this year than the president asked for. How much more?
For the
Homeland Security Bill, for example, Congress authorized $37.4
billion, six percent more than the president requested. The Bush
administration is trying to “restrict” discretionary spending to
$933 billion, but Democrats are seeking to expand spending for
domestic programs by adding to the requested administration levels
in the dozen appropriations bills Congress votes on each year by a
total of $23 billion. Two billion more on a highway bill, four
billion more on a transportation bill, and so on.
But our
“Conservative” president will have none of it! Suddenly a fiscal
watchdog (and surely it has nothing to do with the fact that it’s
now Democrats, rather than Republicans, who are in charge of the
money tree in Congress), President Bush is going to prohibit
“excessive spending” of our tax dollars.
Pardon me
while I vomit.
In the first
place, if “discretionary spending” (i.e., federal tax expenditures
above and beyond those required to pay interest on national debt,
borrowed money, etc., or to fund programs that are absolutely
necessary for the functioning of society, such as printing money,
funding the military, etc.) is almost a TRILLION dollars, then
cutting a mere $23 BILLION isn’t exactly fiscal responsibility! But
the way it’s presented by the administration, and echoed by the
media, why...you’d think Bush just galloped in on a white horse to
save us.
The majority
of Americans despise politics for precisely this sneaky, lying and
deceitful way that government business is conducted. Let’s not
forget that these politicians, many of who have been in power for
decades, are spending OUR tax dollars. It’s safe to say that most
would be at least a little more circumspect in their deliberations
and voting if that money came out of their personal pockets, as it
comes out of ours. But they have set the rules up so that they can
always claim they were voting in our interests. How?
In the first
place, they are allowed to add amendments concerning, for example,
military expenditures to a bill about highway transportation, or
amendments concerning health care to a bill about agriculture, etc.
That enables them to vote as they please, then claim they “had to”
vote for/against certain bills in order to support some “much
needed” legislation or prevent some “wasteful” item. So where’s the
accountability to the voters? That’s right...it doesn’t exist. But
the House and Senate can set up their own rules...and this is how
they choose to do business.
Is this open
and honest? Are they being responsible and transparent in their
conduct of our business, in the expenditure of our tax money? I
believe we can all see through this farce. Yet we allow it to
continue, year after year, regardless of which party is in control.
Both parties,
and the president, continue to play us for the suckers we are, all
the while braying about how they’re being fiscally responsible,
looking out for the taxpayer and the interests of the American
citizen. It’s a great deal for politicians, who control what we know
about their actions on our behalf and never have to worry about us
rising up and throwing them out of office. And for a lame-duck
president (who isn’t facing any more elections)? Why, he has
everything to gain for his “legacy” (remember Clinton’s desperate
search for one that wasn’t covered with slime?) and for the benefit
of his party, and nothing to lose?
That, my
fellow citizens, is exactly how this nation is becoming a
quasi-socialist cesspool, ruled by wealthy, elite, career
politicians, rather than by “we, the people” who were entrusted with
self-government. So, continue to wallow in your ignorance, or your
petty party affiliation that says the opposing party is evil and
yours is noble and full of integrity. But what I’ve just described
is how politics is actually carried out...in our name...and at our
expense. And this is just about the money side of it. Our liberties,
our traditional moral values, the economic foundations that led to
our great prosperity...every single thing that made this nation
great is handled in exactly the same way, with no regard for what
you and I think, or for how their political deceit affects our
day-to-day lives. It’s all about what benefits them...their
positions, their power. And you continue to re-elect them...
Formerly a liberal and an atheist, Paul E. Scates served as a Marine
in Vietnam and is a lifelong student of American history, politics and
culture. A former contributor to national website TooGoodReports.com, he
writes his staunchly independent Conservative and informed Christian
commentary for his fellow ordinary, working Americans, the “we, the
people” who are ultimately responsible for preserving our Constitutional
liberties. He welcomes your , pro or con.
