Proposals push spending beyond budget

President Bush last night proposed an ambitious package of domestic spending that will drive up discretionary expenditures far more rapidly than his recent predecessors.

The State of the Union initiatives that he wants passed this year include more spending for the Department of Education, a new assistance fund to help manufacturers recover from their recession and funding for a major, long-term expansion of NASA’s space budget.

Early projections indicate passage of Mr. Bush’s proposals will increase non-defense spending well beyond the 4 percent to 5 percent the administration has budgeted for the current fiscal year, nearly double the average annual increases of about 2.5 percent by President Clinton during his two terms.

“One thing that Bush tends to do in these State of the Union speeches, which tends to be counterproductive, is that he has adopted the Clinton style of presenting this shopping list of these programs that will solve every problem that afflicts America,” said Stephen Moore, who heads the Club for Growth which has cheered Mr. Bush’s tax cuts while denouncing his spending increases.

“That only reinforces the concern that he is a big government Republican,” Mr. Moore said last night.

Mr. Bush’s latest proposals might not, in and of themselves, be that egregious, but critics, including conservatives concerned about spending levels, say they follow three years of big spending bills he has signed into law.

They cite Mr. Bush’s failure to ever veto a single appropriations measure — including an expansive farm subsidy bill and last year’s $400 billion Medicare prescription drugs measure, which made him the first Republican president to sign into law a new federal entitlement, as examples of dangerous precedents.

“Thus far, the president has had a lot of specific proposals of where to increase spending, but he has been vague on where to cut spending,” said budget analyst Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation. “He has specified increases for education, job training, Medicare, homeland security and corporate welfare, but we’ve only heard vague statements about fiscal responsibility on the spending-cut side.”

“A year ago at this time, the president talked about 4 percent spending growth and we’re about to finish this fiscal year with 9 percent spending growth once the omnibus spending bill passes,” Mr. Riedl said.

The political impact of Mr. Bush’s spending increases remains unclear at this point. His job approval polls going into 2004 range from 53 percent to 58 percent, according to the latest voter surveys. But conservative strategists here say that if he does not show some toughness on spending soon, his core conservative support is going to erode.

The White House is betting that is not going to happen because Mr. Bush has shored up his base support by delivering on several key issues of importance to conservatives. Economic conservatives got a big tax-cut bill they wanted and are cheering the president’s call for letting workers invest part of their Social Security payroll taxes in stocks and bonds and expanding free trade agreements in Latin America.

Social and cultural conservatives saw Mr. Bush sign the partial-birth-abortion bill and support his efforts to enact his faith-based grant proposal and reauthorization of a tougher welfare-reform plan.

“Our support in our conservative base remains strong because we have delivered on their issues,” said a Bush campaign adviser.

Mr. Bush last night also called for making his tax cuts permanent, which Democratic presidential challengers have largely blamed for the growing budget deficit that could total nearly $500 billion before this fiscal year ends in September. The tax cuts will total $1.7 trillion by the end of this decade.

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