September 19, 1999

Continuing Resolution Is More Useful Than a Bamboozle

Pay no attention to that guy behind the curtains who is flicking lights, churning smoke and revving up the loud speakers. It’s just Sen. Arlen Specter trying to bamboozle Bill Clinton with a proposal to make the sun stand still.

Congressional Republicans, with help from moderate Democrats, have sent the president a bill that would cut federal taxes $792 billion over the next 10 years.

That’s $79 million a year, folks, pocket change from the government’s petty cash box. The president promises a fast veto -- perhaps as soon as he comes back from wringing a photo-op from hurricane-damaged North Carolina.

Vice-president Al Gore proclaims, “I want you to know this [tax cut bill] is dead on arrival at the White House.”

This is the same charge he and other Democrats in Congress declared defiantly when President Ronald Reagan sent up his proposed budgets. Reagan’s bottom line always was more than that of the preceding year, but within the inflation rate.

Liberals boosted Reagan’s budgets out of sight by “borrowing” Social Security payroll payments, then cursing him for driving up the national debt. That bamboozle worked with Reagan. He was afraid to veto lest he be accused of shutting down the government (laughter off stage).

The Clintons’ assert they favor a tax cut – maybe $250 billion -- if taxes on tobacco are raised to cover it. And don’t come whimpering for a “compromise” of $500 billion.

Rep. Bill Archer, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, insists the Clintons’emphasize income redistribution rather than tax fairness.

“The White House wants to give tax relief to people who don’t pay any taxes,” Archer says. “We are trying to give a refund to the people who are overpaying what the Government needs.”

Republicans know they can’t out-chutzpah Slick Willie. Therefore, Sen.Specter is trying to out-fox him with political legerdemain – a 13-month annual budget for fiscal year 2000.

By this hocus-pocus, perhaps $16 billion extra will be available to maintain this year’s record $92 billion for labor, health, education and other social programs.

Congress has a cute description for this silliness – “advance funding.” If you or I tried this with the Internal Revenue Service, we would be clapped in prison.

Yet, this dodge has been used by gung-ho Dems in the past when they were in the catbird seat. It is interesting to see how they react now that the shoe is on the other foot.

Under the 1997 balanced budget caps imposed by a Republican Congress – and boasted about by the White House – there is no room for spending above the increases already authorized. Nevertheless, Clinton proposes a tax increase so we can have a tax cut. Only he can do this with a straight face.

At this juncture, the most likely scenario is that both sides will bust the balanced budget agreement. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.

This will give big increases in health, education and welfare in return for a show-and-tell tax cut of $499 billion – a figure below Clinton’s scornful comprise of $500 billion.

Of course, this will mean the federal government will continue replacing Social Security trust fund payments with Treasury Department I.O.Us.

There is a time-honored way of avoiding a shut-down of the government while Congress and the White House vie for the hearts and minds of Americans. It is called a “continuing resolution.”

Under this procedure, Congress continues spending at the existing levels. Heretofore, such resolutions kept the government running until one side or the other chickened out.

Let me suggest we continue at the present record level of spending for the whole year – and maybe the following year as well. Where is it written that we must spend more every year?

We are told that unemployment is at an all time low. Consequently, everyone who wants to work are gainfully employed. There is no pressing need for extra welfare or for government largess we have lived without so far.

Now is the time to hold the line on government – no additional spending, no tax cut – while tax revenue pours in to reduce the national debt, restore the Social Security Trust Fund and save Medicare.

More importantly, a year or two of prudence would give us time to see if estimated budget surpluses are for real. This year’s projected surplus already has evaporated under the heat of reality.

Any government economist who will predict a lasting revenue surplus, will lie about other things too. Who alive today has ever seen an honest to goodness surplus?

PARTING SHOTS

That whooshing sound is presidential candidate Pat Buchanan being sucked into the Reform Party. We will believe it when he puts a half-nelson on Gov. Ventura.

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Presidential candidate Al Gore is hugging trees again to overcome the endorsement of rival Bill Bradley by Friends of The Earth Political Action Committee.

By Lindsey Williams, columnist for Sun Coast Media Group newspapers