Editorial: Budget buster is unmasked

Monday, Sept. 20, 2004 | 9:06 a.m.

President Bush, as he runs for re-election, loves telling campaign crowds that they shouldn't vote for John Kerry because the Democrat is a tax-and-spender. A Bush-Cheney rally at Lee's Summit, Mo., on Sept. 7 offers an excellent illustration of Bush's approach. "I'm running against a fellow who has already promised $2 trillion of new money, see. And we haven't even gotten to the stretch run yet," Bush said. "It's awfully tempting, coming down the pike, to tell people what they want to hear. It's awfully easy to spend your money."

Bush's characterization of Kerry as a profligate spender isn't just a caricature, though, it's a false depiction. Kerry actually has said that he would return us to a pay-as-you-go government, so that discretionary spending (excluding education and national security) couldn't grow faster than inflation. If anything, Bush's portrayal of Kerry as a champion of big government is a more fitting description of the president himself, whose first three years in office have been marked by increased spending and large tax cuts, all of which have pushed the national government further into debt.

An analysis published last week in The Washington Post noted that while Bush is hammering Kerry for his spending proposals, the Bush agenda laid out at the Republican National Convention could carry a $3 trillion price tag over the next 10 years. Making Bush's tax cuts permanent, as he proposes, would cost $1 trillion over a decade. And Bush's plan to change Social Security, allowing workers to invest some of their payroll taxes, could cost $2 trillion. Stephen Moore, president of the conservative group Club for Growth, told the Post that Bush has staked his presidency on the belief that Americans "don't really care about the deficit, and he may be right. ... He's a big-government Republican, and there's no longer even the pretense that he's for smaller government."

The reality is that Bush is mortgaging away our futures by pushing through more government spending, coupled with irresponsibly large tax cuts that benefit the wealthy more than most people. Americans looking for a straight-shooting, fiscally responsible candidate certainly won't find him in George Bush; John Kerry more aptly fills the bill.