Editorial: Bush is no deficit hawk

Friday, Aug. 5, 2005 | 9:02 a.m.

President Bush, speaking before a national group of conservative state lawmakers on Wednesday, said he will be proud to sign what he called a "fiscally responsible" highway bill that Congress recently passed. "We had a little problem getting that bill done over the last couple of years because we had a disagreement about the right number," Bush said, referring to his veto threats if Congress passed a highway bill that was too expensive. "I felt that the number ought to be ... a fiscally responsible number."

Well, as it often turns out in this administration when numbers are involved, Bush is fudging the truth -- and that's a charitable characterization. As The New York Times reported Thursday, while the Bush White House is declaring victory for getting Congress to contain the cost of the highway bill -- whose advertised cost is $286.4 billion, just $2 billion more than the White House's stated limit -- the actual price tag of the bill is more. In fact, accounting gimmickry has enabled an extra $8.5 billion to be added to the bill, a cost not reflected in the official total. Under the accounting trick, this extra $8.5 billion is supposed to be returned to the federal Treasury in 2009, when the bill expires. But no one can argue, at least with a straight face, that this money will ever find its way back into the Treasury.

Groups that advocate fiscal responsibility are upset that the president blinked on his veto threat and is now willing to sign this highway bill into law, but they shouldn't be shocked. He did the same thing with the Medicare prescription drug bill, too, claiming it would cost a lot less than it actually will in practice. And don't forget this president inherited a budget surplus and in his four-plus years in office hasn't shown much fiscal discipline, as he now presides over ballooning deficits.

What's terribly frustrating about the highway bill is that the president held this legislation hostage for two years while important funding for highway projects, including in Nevada, were delayed. It would be an entirely different matter if the president sincerely cared about fiscal responsibility and was seeking to hold the line on federal spending because of principle. But this was all about political posturing by the White House, trying to make Bush look like a deficit hawk when the reality is otherwise. If members of the Bush White House ever wonder why people are so cynical about the federal government, all they have to do is look in the mirror.