Taxpayers for Common Sense's analysis of the FY08 appropriations bills deserves a look, if you're interested in what exactly is being funded through the earmark process. There's a list of the earmarks in all the bills, and a few of the more ridiculous ones are highlighted. Take a look through some of them and you'll forget what exactly the rationale is for allowing this practice to continue.

Lots of good stuff came out today.

• A Congressional Research Service (CRS, aka the super-authoritative researchers who members of Congress ask to do reports for them, but typically the reports aren't available to the public) comparison of the House and Senate SCHIP bills
• The House Budget Committee's breakdown of how some of Bush's proposed budget cuts would impact each state
• A knowledgeable article in the Washington Post about the rise in no-bid contracting
• A good New York Times article about take-up rates in the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP)

A popular topic of discussion among the budget folk here at OMB Watch is the mystery of President Bush's veto threats, which he's made against just about every remotely progressive piece of legislation being considered by Congress. His party just lost an election, and President Nixon was better liked. Where does he get off trying to stymie Congress?

As we sketched out in this article for TomPaine.com, it's critical that Congress stand up to the President, on substantive policy grounds. But another reason to hold firm is that liberals will be demoralized if the President wins too many more of these fights. A loss would reinforce doubts about the competence and courage of progressive leadership, who would not have been able to control the President even at his weakest. It would set the stage for an election year with a progressive base feeling less motivated to turn out to vote.

The President's strategy is quite risky. There's plenty of opportunity for it to backfire. Congressional Republicans should find it very costly to oppose spending for children, students and low-income workers, or to be associated with the unpopular President. Typically, these costs would be enough to ensure the passage of modest program expansions.

But these are desperate times. The President is in a hole, so he's chosen to raise the stakes on a weak hand, so to speak. The stakes being so high, it's critical that liberals call his bluff.

Fiscal policy may not be first on everyone's list of priorities. Making only modest progress, as the raft of fiscal policy proposals now being considered would, probably won't fire up liberals as much as, say, ending the war in Iraq would. But a loss to a reviled and weakened Administration could be far more influential. Perhaps that as much as anything else is what President Bush and other conservatives are trying to achieve, and what liberals need to stop.

Cuts to Head Start, a pre-school and development program for low-income children, are making an impact on the local level. One in upstate New York has had to shut down bus service, forcing busy parents to drive their children to the head start center every day.

Susan Collins is excited for her 3-year-old son, who will begin preschool in September.

But last week, the Queensbury mother of two learned she will have to transport her child to the preschool in Glens Falls because bus transportation has been axed, due to a lack of federal money.

Collins won't be the only parent in that fix.

There will be 119 children enrolled at the Warren County Head Start center on Pearl Street in Glens Falls. Most of them will have to find their own way to school, after Head Start officials terminated the bus routes to Glens Falls.

Stan "The Man" Collender had another good column yesterday. Comments follow:

You've heard the song before, probably on a country station. It sometimes crosses over into the mainstream and seems to get a lot of airtime in Washington just before the Redskins play the Cowboys. With apologies to Willie Nelson, my guess is that the parents of would-be fiscal conservatives are singing their own version of the song these days.

Start with George W. Bush, the self-professed fiscal conservative who has done more to damage the notion of fiscal conservatism than any big-spending liberal has ever done. The Bush administration has proposed and agreed to some of the biggest increases in spending since the Great Society. In the process, some of the largest hikes ever in federal borrowing will have occurred while this president is in the White House and the amount spent on interest by the federal government will be much higher than it would otherwise be for decades to come.

Read More...

Posted by Matt Lewis, 04:52:51 PM



Katrina Recovery Update

The Brooking's Katrina Index released its latest report on the slow-going hurricane recovery. The report explains a few of the policy barriers to a full recovery:

Despite this progress, many other obstacles to recovery remain.

• The Road Home program will stop accepting applications after July 31, largely due to the estimated $5 billion shortfall in the program. Neither Congress nor the Louisiana legislature have committed to providing additional funding for Road Home.
• Funding for the city's plan to redevelop 17 targeted neighborhoods has yet to be secured, stalling recovery czar Ed Blakely's plans to have "cranes up in the skyline" by September.
• Skyrocketing insurance rates continue to place a tremendous burden on residents and small businesses alike, leading to the termination of several plans to develop high rises and multi-family dwellings already approved by the state and city.

New Orleans probably has many problems it has to work out for itself, but a lack of funding should not be one of them.

Posted by Matt Lewis, 11:17:10 AM

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

CBO Estimates Cost of Infrastructure Commission

CBO has released a cost estimate for an eight-member commission that would be established to "complete three studies and issue recommendations regarding the infrastructure needs of the United States." A day after the I-35W bridge collapsed in Minneapolis, the Senate approved, by unanimous consent, a measure that would create the National Commission on the Infrastructure of the United States, which CBO projects would cost $4 million over its three-year lifespan.

Posted by Craig Jennings, 04:47:14 PM



NPP: Half of Those Eligible Receive Food Stamps

A report by the National Priorities Project finds that of all people that are income-eligible to receive food stamps, only half actually receive them.

• Half of all low-income people did not receive Food Stamp Program benefits.
• Counties with lower poverty rates and higher median household incomes had lower percentages of low-income people that were Food Stamp recipients.
• A significant number of counties, 13.2 percent, had below-average percentages of Food Stamps, yet had above-average poverty rates.
• The rural South had the highest percentage of enrollment in the Food Stamp program and more than half of all children were eligible for lunches through the National School Lunch Program.

Report (pdf): Half of Low-Income People Not Receiving Food Stamps

Posted by Craig Jennings, 01:39:56 PM

Friday, August 10, 2007

Fiscal Liberals, Be Not Afraid: The Power To Defeat The Right Is Within You

National Journal's Clive Crook deftly devalues "starving the beast" as a political tactic, which asserts that tax cuts can put pressure on lawmakers to reduce the size of the government.

"Starve the beast" exponents are not demanding packages of lower taxes and lower spending. They are saying that lower taxes will sooner or later wear spending down anyway. When you look at those cases -- instances where taxes have been cut independently, with no connection to new spending plans -- spending does not fall, say the Romers. In fact, it rises a bit. "Starve the beast" does not work.

I hope they are right. The idea that a kind of political extortion is needed to contain the growth of government may possibly be correct -- but it is certainly unappealing. The case for low taxes can be made perfectly well on the merits: Arguments one (pro-growth) and two (pro-liberty), as mentioned at the start, ought to be enough. Then, if you can convince people that persistent large budget deficits are bad for the economy (which they are), the case for limited government is made as well.

A couple comments: "starve the beast" is another product of the rightist mind, which puts all faith in the individual when it comes to economic matters, but no faith in the individual when it comes to political matters. This thought has been formalized by George Mason economist Bryan Caplan, who suggested limiting the franchise to libertarian economists. Who's the elitist now?

Crook, who is both a libertarian and a believer in democracy, thinks a convincing case can be made for small-government economics.

Well, here's a thought experiment. Let's say you're a bridge engineer, or an Army hospital administrator, or a levee builder. And let's say you think you need more funding to do your job. Who do you think will give you a fair hearing- an honest, good-faith conservative like Crook, or a liberal who's less skeptical of government?

I'd venture it's the liberal who doesn't think government is always the problem that'll give the fair hearing and make the right call. After all, it's been conservatives of Crook's stripes that were in power while all these problems were festering.

So by all means, let's finally have a discussion on the merits. In fact, it seems like President Bush wants to have this discussion, and has taken up Crook's view. I believe liberals can make a convincing contrary case, but will they? Instead of just yammering on about the debt?

Posted by Matt Lewis, 04:30:39 PM



From Compassionate to Cruel Conservatism

President Bush, once a wily "compassionate" conservative who passed the largest recent expansion in government health insurance and radically broadened the authority of the federal Department of Education, which Ronald Reagan threatened to destroy, has become predictable.

Why? He's gotten religion on the principles of the hard right, whose blind pessimism about government makes them propose the same anti-government solutions for every problem. Wednesday's press conference on the economy was only the latest example. Economy in trouble? Can't do anything about that! Infrastructure failing? Cut programs!

Of course, it's hard to trust someone whose ideas have undergone an about-face. But it's even harder to trust someone who revises his ideas completely, and then says the exact same thing over and over. They don't understand what the problem is.

How ironic and absurd it is that just as the problems of "starving the beast" are becoming obvious to everyone, President Bush and much of the Republican party have taken a hard turn towards the right and advocated even less funding regardless of circumstance.

Government failures -like at the FDA, Walter Reed, the Minnesota bridge collapse, even the slow Katrina recovery- have shown that too many federal programs do not have enough funding to perform effectively. As this op-ed in the Buffalo News shows, Bush's proposed program cuts would harm real people. But Bush and the anti-government types in Congress just doesn't get it. Or maybe they just don't care- call it Cruel Conservatism.

Perhaps Bush should get some credit for standing up for principle, but any principle that would prevent us from fixing bridges that collapse and kill people is a strange one indeed.

Posted by Matt Lewis, 12:01:40 PM

Thursday, August 09, 2007

New Challenge? Get In Line

Bush ($):

My suggestion would be that they revisit the process by which they spend gasoline money in the first place...From my perspective, the way it seems to have worked is that each member on that committee gets to set his or her own priority first, and then what's ever left over is spent to a funding formula.

That's not the right way to prioritize the people's money...And, if bridges are a priority, let's make sure we set that priority first and foremost, before we raise taxes.

To Bush, the nation can have only a fixed number priorities, a number to remain unchanged even in the face of new challenges. And with each massive tax cut for the rich, that number has to be revised downward. It's either we fix bridges or we secure our ports; we either prepare for an avian flu epidemic or we educate children; we either give veterans health care or we rebuild New Orleans. Heaven forbid we, as a nation, deem all of these things worthy of accomplishing, and heaven forbid we believe they should be paid for.

Posted by Craig Jennings, 05:57:21 PM



Wild Mood Swings

In his post about the president's call for a corporate tax cut, Matt asks:

And what if an unhinged market was the root cause of all this trouble [a potential economic downturn]?

I submit that the market is in fact completely hinged. That is: rapid expansion in financial markets (i.e. bubbles) is always followed by rapid contraction (i.e. bubble bursting). Oscillations between growth and contraction is the nature of the market.

And it is precisely because markets behave this way that some government policies are necessary. They provide a buffer between the humans that depend on constant sources of food, shelter, and security and the rough-and-tumble, unpredictable cruelness of The Market.

I'm going to go out on limb and suggest that of all the programs on which the government could spend money to mitigate the human misery caused by the housing bubble bust, corporate tax breaks would be the least effective.

Photo by Flickr user Jay Khemani used under a Creative Commons license

Posted by Craig Jennings, 03:36:45 PM

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

President Bush Is A Total Drag, Man

President Bush's position on the FY08 budget is that we must cut spending and avoid tax increases to balance the budget. Looking past the the rhetoric justifying all this nonsense, I'd call his position a pretty pessimistic way of thinking about government. It implies that we can't spend new money, even when solving problems requires new money.

The Minnesota bridge disaster is a case in point. Notably absent from the President's response has been any pledge to increase funding for the country's roads and bridges. Instead, he promised the people of Minnesota "a better life," whatever that means. And he has maintained his veto threat of the transportation appropriations bill, which makes an all-too-modest increase in funding for roads programs.

Bush is essentially admitting that, well, his hands are tied, and government just can't solve people's problems. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the bridge failure is a symptom of larger, systemic deterioration of the nation's infrastructure, and there might be more infrastructure failures to come soon. Even if those problems are pretty much plain for everyone to see, and are the government's responsibility, Bush says we just can't do anything about them because they require spending money.

This is a profoundly pessimistic vision. It posits that we can't solve our problems. Or perhaps if we try to, we must accept massive cuts to other programs, or attendant tax increases that will ruin the economy, or a government that's weighed down by unsustainable deficits. That is, if you believe his rhetoric, which you are free not to.

Same goes for the FDA crisis, homeland security, education, veteran's health care, and probably health care for kids. Bush and the conservative members ready to sustain his vetoes just don't think it's worth doing anything about those things.

Just how lame is our government? Are Americans really willing to put up with Debbie Downer conservatism?

Posted by Matt Lewis, 04:05:53 PM

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Senate Schedules Floor Vote for Nussle

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has announced that the Senate will vote on the nomination of Jim Nussle to be the new Director of the Office of Management and Budget on Monday, September 4 - the first day back from the August recess. Reid announced there will be three hours of debate on the nomination beginning at 2:30 pm. One hour each for the chairman and ranking member of the budget committee, and one hour controlled by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

Sanders has announced a hold on Nussle's nomination because he has serious concerns about the nominee and his philosophical differences with the administration's fiscal policies. Sanders said:

President Bush is completely out of touch with the economic realities facing working families in America. Bush needs to hear the truth, not an echo. He needs a budget director who will make him face the facts, not fan his fantasies.

Posted by Adam Hughes, 05:49:06 PM



Highway and Bridge Repairs Cost Money

The difference in priorities between Congress and the president became quite stark last week the I-35W bridge collapsed in Minneapolis. Although the president was quick to sign a bill authorizing $250 million in emergency spending to rebuild the bridge, he is far less concerned with the infrastructure in the rest of the nation. And this lack of concern is manifest in the budget fight between him and Congress.

On the eve of passage of Transportation-HUD funding bill by House, the president issued a veto threat decrying increased funding for the interstate highway system:

H.R. 3074 exceeds the President's request for programs funded in this bill by $3.4 billion...if H.R. 3074 were presented to the President, he would veto the bill....withholding RABA [the interstate highway funding mechanism] is an important first step to avoid the threat of gas tax increases or a raid on the general fund.

The bill as passed by the House would fund highway infrastructure projects at $40.2 billion - $631 million more than the president's request.

The bridge collapse is an extreme illustration of the potential consequences of the differences of opinion about how much and on what the federal government should spend money, but nonetheless, it's a reminder that these differences matter to all Americans.

Posted by Craig Jennings, 03:53:50 PM



Approps Update

With the passage of the FY 2008 Defense spending bill (395-13), the House has cleared its plate of appropriations for the year.

Posted by Craig Jennings, 12:30:03 PM

Friday, August 03, 2007

Senate Passes SCHIP

By a veto-proof margin (68-31), the Senate passed a $35 billion expansion of SCHIP.

Earlier this week, the House passed its version - a $50 billion expansion, partially offset by changes to Medicare. The president has threatened to veto both.

Posted by Craig Jennings, 10:14:33 AM

Thursday, August 02, 2007

Bush: Big on Vetoes, But Why?

In an op-ed published today at TomPaine.com, our colleague Matt takes the president's veto rhetoric to proverbial woodshed.

But the president's position is misleading and out of touch with the American public. First, there is no substance to his attacks on the size of the congressional spending proposals. Congress's fiscal 2008 spending plan exceeds the president's budget slightly regarding social spending—a mere $23 billion—or less than one percent of the entire budget. This difference between their budget and the president's will not open the spending floodgates.

Posted by Craig Jennings, 03:25:34 PM



Odds and Ends

Rick Perlstein at the Campaign for America's Future explains the political significance of the Minnesota bridge collapse.

Posted by Matt Lewis, 03:10:13 PM



American Medical Association Supports House SCHIP Bill

In statement released yesterday, AMA stated its strong support for the House version of SCHIP expansion:

The American Medical Association applauds the members of the U.S. House of Representatives who voted to pass legislation that preserves access to health care for children and seniors.

...

By increasing the tobacco tax and eliminating overpayments to insurance companies offering private Medicare plans, Congress has found two appropriate ways to pay for these important national health care priorities.

Posted by Craig Jennings, 12:24:42 PM



Approps Update

The White House has issued a veto threat over the FY 2008 Agriculture appropriations.

I'm beginning to see a pattern here.

Posted by Craig Jennings, 09:48:57 AM



House Passes SCHIP

By a 225-204 vote, the House of Representatives yesterday approved the renewal and a $50 billion expansion of SCHIP.

Also on Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) filed a cloture motion on the Senate version of SCHIP renewal/expansion.

Posted by Craig Jennings, 09:34:39 AM