Bush Signs War Supplemental, Cements Fiscal Legacy

Contrary to his assertion that he would "not accept a supplemental over $108 billion," President Bush signed a $257 billion war supplemental spending package on June 30. The bill will fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for the remainder of the fiscal year (ending Sept. 30) and through the first several months of the next president's term. In addition to war appropriations, the quarter-trillion dollar measure includes funds for a 13-week extension of unemployment insurance benefits; expansion of the GI bill; aid for Midwest flooding victims; and a collection of various domestic, non-defense discretionary programs. (For a more detailed breakdown of the various components of the bill, read our June 24 Watcher article on the war supplemental). The supplemental package also blocks a set of new administration Medicaid rules that would cut funding to states for the low-income health care program.

Bush did not merely accept additional funding in this legislation in order to get approval for war funds. He advocated for increases in spending for some of the domestic items as well. In fact, at the president's insistence, Congress added a provision to the enhanced GI bill that would allow unused benefits to be transferred to a service member's spouse and children. With this provision, the cost to enhance the GI bill climbs by $10 billion (from $52 billion to $62 billion over ten years). Unfortunately, Bush demanded that Congress expand the education funding program without increasing revenue to pay for it.

The president approved some $67 billion in unrequested expenditures in the bill, which stands in stark contrast to his statements earlier this year about the bill and his obdurate refusal last year to approve $22 billion in spending in excess of his FY 2008 budget request.

But his trenchant position at that time was a transparent attempt to signal to his political supporters that his profligate ways had come to an end — coincidentally just as the Democrats took control of Congress. His reversal of that promise in the recently signed supplemental bill is emblematic of the disastrous fiscal policies of his two terms as president. Claims that tax cuts and the Iraq war would pay for themselves remain empty, while the cost of the new unpaid-for Medicare drug benefit will surpass Social Security's unfunded liabilities. As the forty-third presidency winds down, this latest bill will stand as a succinct recapitulation of Bush's fiscal policy — a deluge of spending lacking any meaningful attempt to confront the tradeoffs that must be made to safeguard the nation's finances beyond January 2009.