Bush the Budget Warrior

After six and a half years of spending faster than LBJ, President Bush has decided to proclaim himself the guardian of the taxpayers, accusing Democrats of “working to bring back the failed tax-and-spend policies of the past." The very recent past, perhaps? Today he complained that Congress has not yet completed appropriations bills for the fiscal year that begins Monday, and warned that Democrats shouldn't send him an omnibus bill that would “make it easier for members to sneak in all kinds of special projects, put in wasteful spending or pork barrel that they are not willing to debate in the open.”

Republicans protecting the taxpayers from the tax-and-spend Democrats. It's a golden oldie. But it doesn't have much relevance in the past decade. As the chart below indicates, spending has risen more than twice as much in Bush's first seven budgets as it did in Clinton's eight years.

If President Bush is indeed going to be a fiscal conservative for the last one-sixth of his term, that's good news. But he has already raised annual federal spending by more than one trillion dollars, and he's not planning to reduce spending, just to slow the growth from a massively bloated base. Fiscal conservatism remains an orphan in today's Washington.