Free Republic

<p>Nondefense spending has skyrocketed under Republican control of Congress and the White House, and critics say the outlays will hit the stratosphere with the passage this week of a drug entitlement for seniors. The Congressional Budget Office reported that nondefense spending rose 7 percent in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, nearly double the 4 percent discretionary spending caps that President Bush insisted Congress honor. Since Mr. Bush took office in 2001, nondefense spending has leapt 13 percent — 21 percent if spending on the war on terrorism is included. And he is poised to become the first Republican president to sign into law a new federal entitlement: the $400 billion Medicare expansion to cover prescription drugs. Sean Spicer, spokesman for Rep. Jim Nussle, Iowa Republican and the conservative chairman of the House Budget Committee, said the spending increases appear worse when lumping in the annual late-year "emergency" congressional expenditures that he said are little more than thinly veiled pork projects. "Even without the emergencies, we're looking at [spending] numbers well above inflation, and that's definitely a concern," Mr. Spicer said. Chris Edwards, director of fiscal policy at the libertarian Cato Institute, said the Bush record on spending has been a major disappointment. "My impression of Bush is that I've never seen him give a speech in which he says government is too big and we need to cut costs," Mr. Edwards said, pointing out that President Reagan vetoed 23 bills in his first three years in office, while Mr. Bush has yet to unsheathe his veto pen. Accepting additional spending is the price Mr. Bush pays for getting his agenda through Congress, Mr. Edwards said. "When you have a president who has a bunch of his own spending initiatives like education and the Medicare drug bill, it makes it difficult for him to go out and say that Congress is being wasteful," he said. Prominent conservatives are beginning to chafe about the kind of spending occurring on their watch. Nine Republican senators and 25 House Republicans voted against the Medicare drug bill, citing cost as the major reason. The $31 billion energy bill also has stalled, largely because many in Congress object to the price tag. The president is itching to get the bill to his desk even though it is four times more expensive than what he had proposed. Even radio host Rush Limbaugh, an unwavering booster of the president and his policies, told listeners Tuesday that after passing the Medicare bill Republicans no longer can contend they are the party of smaller government. The White House did not return a call for comment. Brian M. Riedl, a budget analyst for the conservative Heritage Foundation, said mandatory government spending on entitlements such as Medicare will reach 11.1 percent of the nation's gross domestic product, a record high. That number will climb exponentially, he said, once seniors begin getting government-paid drugs in 2006. "Congress often underestimates entitlements by a lot," Mr. Riedl said. "By our calculations, it will cost $2 trillion between now and 2030." That's assuming that the program never is expanded, he said, an unlikely scenario. When Congress created the Medicare program in 1965, the projected cost in 1990 was $9 billion. The true cost, after several expansions that came with low-balled price tags, was $67 billion, 7.4 times higher. "The lawmakers who pushed for the Medicare drug bill never answered the question of how they would pay for it," Mr. Riedl said. "Apparently, they are leaving the $2 trillion tax hike to future congresses to figure out." Tom Schatz, executive director of Citizens Against Government Waste, said he hopes that conservatives can bring the president and Congress "back to earth in terms of spending" if Mr. Bush wins a second term. "We hope that this is not the legacy of the Bush administration," Mr. Schatz said. "We hope these will be aberrations that will be corrected in coming years." A senior Republican congressional aide said many conservatives on Capitol Hill are hoping that is the case. If it isn't, Mr. Bush and the party will have some explaining to do to their political base. "There's only so long we can be told [by the White House], 'Just keep waiting for spending restraint,' " the aide said. "Eventually you develop a credibility problem. There's a point where people say, 'We've heard that for five years and nothing's happened.' "</p>

Citizens for a Sound Economy August 27, 2003 Alabama Will Lead Us In September, voters in Alabama can show the nation that higher taxes aren't the answer to state overspending. Every once in awhile certain voters in our republic have the opportunity to make a profound impact on the country’s future. In 1979, the voters in California approved proposition 13 which dramatically lowered property taxes in that state. Proposition 13 sparked an anti-tax revolt across the entire country and helped elect Ronald Reagan president. Reagan then proposed and Congress approved across-the-board tax cuts that sparked the longest peaceful expansion in...

=============================== NEWS FROM THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY 2600 Virginia Avenue, NW, Suite 100 Washington DC 20037 World Wide Web: http://www.LP.org =============================== For release: February 5, 2003 =============================== For additional information: George Getz, Communications Director Phone: (202) 333-0008 Ext. 222 E-Mail: pressreleases@hq.LP.org =============================== Bush's dirty little budget secret: $10 in new spending for every dollar in tax cuts, Libertarians say WASHINGTON, DC -- If you think President Bush's tax cuts will save you money, guess again, Libertarians say, because the long-term spending increases in his new budget outnumber tax cuts by a ratio of 10 to 1. "Showing gratitude for Bush's tax...

The Dow has been down from its highs above 10,000 for well over a year. It now hovers around 8,000, and any new bull market still seems far off.For that reason, the White House isn't pushing partial privatization of Social Security. Without a growing market, it seems too risky. Even private account fans say expanding IRAs and 401(k)s may be the best they can hope for now.That may be a mistake, according to a new study by pollster John Zogby and the Cato Institute. It found the appeal of private accounts does not rise or fall with the markets. Even...

<p>In his quest for the governorship, Independence Party candidate Tim Penny has said that he would "keep pressure on Washington" to add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare; that the federal government should pay its "fair share" of special education costs, and that light rail is a must-have -- all positions he says reflect his "sensible center" politics. But three years ago, when Penny was employed as a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, he helped write a federal budget proposal that called Medicare a "Cadillac health plan" that was "unjustifiably generous." On education, the proposal recommended eliminating funding for everything from HeadStart and school-to-work programs to college work study grants and the Direct Student Loan Program.</p>

Protecting Private Property Rights from Regulatory Takings Testimony of Roger Pilon Senior Fellow and Director Center for Constitutional Studies Cato Institute Before the Subcommittee on Constitution Committee on Judiciary United States House of Representatives February 10, 1995 Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the subcommittee: My name is Roger Pilon. I am a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the director of Cato's Center for Constitutional Studies. I want to begin by thanking Congressman Hyde for inviting me to speak before this subcommittee on the subject of Protecting Private Property Rights from Regulatory Takings. I want also to thank...

Back in the late 1990s when Hillary Rodham Clinton claimed the existence of a "vast, right-wing conspiracy," she was scoffed at by the Republicans, the press and anyone sore at the Clintons for whatever infraction, real or imagined, they might have committed. The country got a good laugh, and the expression has become almost as much a part of our political lexicon as "What did you know and when did you know it," "I am not a crook" and "Read my lips: No new taxes." However, while Hillary's naysayers were chortling and guffawing, those "thinkers" at the Cato Institute may...

<p>PALO ALTO, California -- It's a sunny summer day and you pull your CDs from your home stereo, toss them in your bag and head out. In the car, you listen to your music, and when you reach the beach, you slip a CD into a portable boom box.</p>

WASHINGTON, July 12 (UPI) -- There is a reason why new government programs seem to proliferate, and why existing programs -- even bad ones -- can be as hard to kill as Count Dracula. It is set up that way on purpose using a very specific technique, according to Charlotte Twight, who spoke at a forum at the Cato Institute in Washington D.C. on July 11. "The reality is that today, the government seems to grow, even when the public doesn't want it to grow, and seldom shrinks, even when the public would prefer it to shrink," said Twight. As...