Swapping principle for power

I’ve long suspected that when people look back at George W. Bush’s presidency a generation from now, they’ll view as his greatest failure not the Iraq war, but his inability – or refusal – to rein in spending and slow the federal government’s expansion. Comments this week by former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan (right) simply have helped confirm my suspicions. In his just-released book, “The Age of Turbulence,” Greenspan rails against “the president’s unwillingness to wield his veto against out-of-control spending. … Most troubling to me was the readiness of both Congress and the administration to abandon fiscal discipline.” He elaborated on that theme in news interviews: “(Bush had) better start vetoing certain stuff because we are going to go into the demographic issues" (namely, millions of baby boomers about to retire) "wholly unprepared.”

In response, Bush pointed to this year’s budget deficit, which is now – finally – smaller than the 30-year average. But that’s small potatoes. Overall, spending has exploded upward during Bush’s watch, with Republicans in full control of Congress most of that time. By 2004, federal spending had gone up 23.7 percent from 2001, including 31.5 percent growth in discretionary spending. Federal spending now is at 20 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), up from 18.5 percent of GDP at the time Bill Clinton left office. The use of earmarks – pork spending items – became an epidemic. And trillions have been added to Washington’s long-term obligations. The GOP-engineered Medicare drug benefit alone is projected to cost $18 trillion long-term. Please don’t try to tell me Bush’s tax cuts are responsible for the deficits. It’s Congress “spending like drunken sailors,” to quote Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio – and Bush letting Congress get away with it.

Then there’s the political fallout. Free-spending Republicans have managed to obliterate many of the key qualities that, in most Americans’ minds at least, have traditionally differentiated them from Democrats – limited government, fiscal discipline, reluctance to expand federal power. The result? Poll after poll shows that Americans don’t trust Republicans to control spending. The effects of this shift in perception may last for decades. And when Republican leaders, as they did this week, rise up to bash Hillary Clinton’s health care proposal with its $110 billion-a-year price tag, their objections now sound hollow and hypocritical. Only $110 billion? That seems like pocket change after years of GOProfligacy.

Nearing the last year of his presidency, Bush finally is threatening to use his veto for fiscal reasons – he’s reportedly targeting 10 of 12 pending appropriations bills – but it may be too late. “The Republicans in Congress lost their way,” Greenspan wrote. “They swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither. They deserved to lose.” Or as Bill Clinton might say, “It’s the spending, stupid.”