Editorial: President shows his true colors

Friday, Aug. 16, 2002 | 6:05 a.m.

Last week President Bush rejected $5.1 billion in emergency spending approved by Congress. Bush said he denied the request because he wants to restore fiscal restraint and put the United States back on a path toward a balanced budget. Bush also ridiculed the spending bill because it contained $2 million to start work on a new warehouse for the Smithsonian Institution's collection of bugs. But the dramatic impact of the president's anecdote was punctured by the fact that Bush himself had originally requested the $2 million for the Smithsonian in his routine budget request for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1.

More importantly, the president didn't highlight the many important provisions in the $5.1 billion bill, including $419 million for airport security. There also is $90 million for health monitoring of emergency workers at ground zero at the former World Trade Center site and about $250 million for local fire departments to upgrade their equipment, including communications systems. Rescues at the World Trade Center were hampered because emergency workers' radios weren't linked, so they couldn't communicate with each other. Members of the International Association of Fire Fighters are so upset over Bush's rejection that at their Las Vegas convention last week they said they will consider boycotting an Oct. 6 tribute to firefighters who died Sept. 11, a ceremony Bush plans to attend.

The president is using a misdirection play, seeking to divert attention from the reality that it was his Republican administration that is principally responsible for the ballooning deficit. Bush's 10-year, $1.35 trillion tax cut has played havoc with efforts to balance the budget. And if he really was concerned about trimming the federal government budget, why did he eagerly sign the $73.5 billion farm bill, which many critics noted contained generous subsidies for corporate agricultural interests? The answer, of course, is that the president wanted to help the re-election efforts of congressional Republicans from farm states who were big proponents of the farm bill. Despite the rhetoric, the facts so far show that Bush is no budget hawk, which makes his rejection of the worthy $5.1 billion spending bill irresponsible.