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Supplemental sellout plagues nation’s budget
By U.S. Sens. Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint
During a 1972 speech, then-California Gov. Ronald Reagan said, “Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.”
Nearly 35 years later, in the face of record budget deficits, these words have never rung more true.
The U.S. Senate debated a supplemental appropriations bill at President George W. Bush’s request to provide our military with additional resources needed to fight the global war on terror and to pay for continued rebuilding along the Gulf Coast.
While President Bush’s request totaled $94.5 billion, the Senate—primarily Democrats who offered the majority of these amendments and a few Republicans who chose to go along—threw caution to the wind and passed a bill containing more than $109.5 billion.
Incredibly, that’s the Senate version of fiscal “restraint.” There were even more proposed amendments that, if passed, would have increased the price tag by tens of billions.
Numerous non-emergency pet projects were irresponsibly included in this bill.
As passed, it includes $6 million for
sugarcane growers in Hawaii, $200 million to replace damaged fishing gear and more than $20 million to accelerate Army Corps projects in California.
This is in addition to the millions for NASA and the rebuilding of private historic residences.
Among the most egregious and widely covered of these projects are $750 million to relocate a newly built railroad track and $500 million for so-called business interruption expenses for a Northrop Grumman shipbuilding facility damaged by Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi.
The railroad, damaged by Katrina, has already been rebuilt. If Mississippi determines it is in their best economic interest to move the rebuilt rail line, they are free to do so. However, Congress should not ask America’s taxpayers to foot the bill.
Proponents of the $500 million for Northrop Grumman claim this funding is necessary since insurance payments have been delayed while Northrop Grumman and its insurer fight in court. The official White House Statement of Administration Policy argues this funding would be unprecedented and could cause other insurers to deny payments for similar events in the future, essentially creating a federal backstop for losses insured by the private sector.
None of these projects were requested by the president, and unfortunately, most of our efforts to remove this extraneous spending failed.
Arguing about the relative merit of these projects misses the point: They simply do not belong in a spending bill designed to help fund the war and essential Katrina rebuilding efforts.
By placing them in an “emergency” supplemental, our colleagues have done an end-run around a budget process designed to enforce spending discipline. Unfortunately, the Senate seems to have lost sight of the fact that if everything is a spending emergency, nothing is.
With the supplemental to the first appropriations bill of the year, Congress is setting a tone for federal spending for the rest of this session. If we can’t exercise self-discipline on spending $90 billion of supposed emergency funds, what happens when we write laws to spend $900 billion in the normal appropriations process?
That is why we have joined with Sens. John McCain of Arizona, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, John Sununu of New Hampshire, John Ensign of Nevada and other Republicans to put a stop to the bloated supplemental spending process.
In fact, our Fiscal Watch Group offered an amendment to cut the spending over the president’s request. Sadly, this amendment only garnered 28 votes.
There were a few glimmers of hope, however. Sen. Coburn’s amendment to cut $15 million in seafood marketing programs passed the Senate. President Bush has already threatened a veto should the costs go above $94.5 billion, and we have pledged our votes to sustain his veto.
Instead of looking the other way, it’s time for Congress to show some courage to confront the real emergencies confronting our nation.
We face a fiscal crisis, the size and scope of which we have never seen before.
Recent Government Accountability Office projections show we are on a collision course with financial disaster. By 2040, we will barely have the revenue to pay the interest on our national debt while keeping even some of the Social Security promises made to seniors, much less pay for Medicare or any discretionary spending.
Yet, we continue to spend as if there is no tomorrow.
It is deeply disappointing to see our Democratic colleagues decry this spending crisis then turn and block our efforts to restore fiscal sanity.
Just as disheartening is the thought that too many Republicans seem to have lost their stomach to fight and have become all-too-willing participants in this supplemental sellout.
It’s time we took Reagan’s words to heart and stopped subsidizing the problem. American families must live within their means, and it’s Congress’ turn to do the same.
Sens. Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham represent South Carolina in the U.S. Senate. DeMint is a Republican from Greenville and Graham is a Republican from Seneca.
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