I came to Washington this summer from the University of Illinois, and I was surprised to see that the largest two celebrations in town this summer were the Fourth of July and the day, just before the August recess, when the transportation and energy bills passed. The Fourth of July should be an extraordinary celebration, of course. But why would anyone celebrate the latter?
Well, as Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said, “If you look at fiscal conservatism these days, it’s in a sorry state.”
Consider: The federal government will spend about $2.5 trillion in 2005. That’s slightly more than $22,000 per household, the highest inflation-adjusted amount since World War II and $4,000 more than was spent in 2001. The federal government is a third larger now than it was four years ago. Think about that — a third larger in just four years. Education spending has doubled in that time, international affairs (non-defense) spending is up 94 percent, and housing and commerce have climbed 86 percent. And the list goes on.
The new transportation and energy bills, along with a few other pork-filled measures, will add $35 billion to the federal budget deficit in the next year and $115 billion through 2010, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a bipartisan Washington-based watchdog group.
Many attribute the spending increases to security and defense expenditures necessitated by 9/11. Yet, defense and homeland security account for less than half the increase. At this rate, to keep pace with current spending, your average American household will have to fork over an additional $1,000 per year just to maintain our current out-of-control situation.
Why does this persist with Republicans, the party of fiscal discipline, in charge of both houses of Congress and the White House? Because, aside from a few lonely voices, such as Flake and Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., Congress has acted more like pawns of the special interests than guardians of the voters’ money. The free-spending Washington culture has corrupted both parties.
This Beltway bureaucracy can’t get rid of even the most wasteful spending. For that matter, the federal government can’t even keep proper books. It simply misplaced $24.5 billion in 2003 and made more than $20 billion in overpayments in 2001. That’s on top of the $23 billion per year on what budget experts consider pork projects and another $60 billion annually on corporate welfare. Compare that to only $43 billion on homeland security, our “national priority.”
Waste abounds. Congressional investigators secured a $55,000 federal student loan for a fictional college they created to test the Department of Education. The Defense Department failed to collect refunds on $100 million worth of reimbursable unused airline tickets. And $73,950 worth of charges on government credit cards went to pay for exotic dancers and prostitutes.
The horror stories go on and on. Not only is the National Endowment for the Arts still around — despite campaign promises by a number of conservative candidates that it would be eliminated — but its budget just increased to $121 million.
Many in Washington see this gigantic problem, but they continue to avoid it. They say, “Why should I sacrifice myself for the good of the country 20 years from now, when I will be out of office?”
Good thing our leaders haven’t always thought this way. The signers of the Declaration of Independence literally risked, and some even lost, their lives, liberty and property on behalf of this nation. Yet today, we have politicians who won’t even stop taxpayer payment on a $50 million domed rainforest in the middle of Iowa or on funding to combat teenage “goth” culture in Blue Springs, Mo.
“You have to be courageous to not spend money, and we don’t have that many people who have that courage,” says Coburn.
And he’s right. Until there are true repercussions against politicians who fail to back up their rhetoric with legislative backbone, wasteful spending will continue.
As more and more of my friends graduate from college and begin experiencing their personal FICA moments — that instant, on their first payday, when they discover how much Uncle Sam takes out of their checks each week to fund this nonsense — they tell me they are shocked.
I tell them they shouldn’t be, that this problem has been growing, unabated, for some time. And that it’s not going to get better until they take it upon themselves to insist on the low taxes and smaller government these career politicians promised us when they asked for our votes.
Jason Plummer, a recent graduate of the University of Illinois, was recently an intern at The Heritage Foundation. Readers may e-mail Plummer at [email protected].
