November 28, 1999

Federal Budget Illustrates Need for State Government

Hocus-pocus holy-smokus. Congress and the White House have labored mightily and brought forth a mouse they call Budget FY2000.

It’s cute. But deceptive.

The 106th Congress started with impeachment of the president by Republicans. Many Democrats expressed outrage over Clinton’s “perjury, obstruction of justice, suborning of witnesses and abuses of power.” However, they voted en-bloc to absolve him – determined to poison the well for the Republican majority.

Thereafter, Democrats blocked the Republican agenda to create a perception of a do-nothing veto-proof Congress. Angry Republicans retaliated in kind. Result – gridlock.

Only in the final month of Fiscal Year 1999 – did Congress and White House get down to the job they were elected to do.

Finally there was the illusion of a balanced budget dear to the hearts of Republicans, and of more spending critical to reelection of Democrats. The bottom line is a budget of $1.75 trillion – 30 billion more than last year.

Both sides claim victory. Nonetheless, they resorted to creative bookkeeping to make the numbers reassuring:

• The $7 billion cost of conducting the census next year was declared an “emergency” not subject to the balanced budget law enacted by Republicans two years ago.
• Up to $3.5 billion was transferred from the Federal Reserve’s portfolio of U.S. Treasury bonds.
• Approximately $20 billion worth of government paychecks are to be delayed from Sept. 30, 2000 to Oct. l when the FY2001 budget takes over.

Clinton was able to get money for first-time costs of more teachers but had to agree to let local school boards decide how to spend one-third of it.

He got $1 billion to pay back dues to the United Nation but had to agree to mild restrictions on use of the money for abortion programs in foreign countries.

The president got permission to cancel debts owed by developing countries to the United States. In return he had to accept a one-third of one-percent across-the-board cut in cabinet departments expenses.

Unsaid was the tacit transfer of $15 billion from the Social Security Trust Fund – an act both Congress and the White House promised not to do. The fiscal smoke won’t clear until the first year of a new president and a new Congress. There will be Hell to pay then, but on someone else’s watch.

Theoretically the maneuvering shifted a budget “surplus” to paying off some national debt. Unfortunately the IOUs held by the Social Security Trust Fund are still outstanding.

Some money was paid into Medicare and Medicaid to keep them functioning a few more years. Employer and employee payments into Social Security are still more than present claims, but baby-boomer claims are coming up fast.

The great scandal of the federal government is that the president and Congress – and citizens – are loath to sacrifice now for future crises they know are inevitable.

Reform of Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid is more important than a few more teachers, or prescription drugs, or job-stress relief, or saving dusky sparrows, or midnight basketball, or gun locks – just to mention a few of the minimal feel-good projects offered daily by politicians who want to be loved.

We need representatives in Washington, D.C., who will run the country year to year, not our lives day to day.

A good start to stabilize Congress/presidential feuding would be to adopt two-year budgets as do most states. The U.S. government is so large and complex, the representatives we send to Washington are in a constant negotiating mode. The country is so populous and diverse, bureaucrats in Washington can not fine tune society to fit a single, theoretical model.

State government – being closer to the grass roots -- is better able to serve real and important social problems. All- powerful central governments have tried for centuries to cram large populations into one pattern. It has never worked. People are too “human” to be herded.

Writers of our Constitution understood this and created a “Republic” of differing states. They distrusted “nationhood” with good reason.

The only important jobs for the federal government are to fight wars, coin money, set standard weights and measures, build interstate highways, conduct censuses and enforce the Constitution. All else could be left advantageously to governors and legislators.

PARTING SHOTS

Hillary Clinton knocks New York Mayor Giuliani for proposing that homeless people work to help pay the cost of operating shelters for them. She could help. She has a house there with five bedrooms she is not using.

* * *

Greek communists rioted when Bill Clinton visited Athens. They objected to U.S. support of Kosovo in the war there. Beware Greeks barring gifts.

By Lindsey Williams, columnist for Sun Coast Media Group newspapers