Bush’s Erratic Budget Ax

President Bush needs lots of budgetary room to accommodate his whopping tax cut. To help clear the decks he wants to slash government spending. Prudence is commendable, but it would be a mistake for Bush to cut, as he contemplates, vital programs like the management of water and natural resources by the U.S. Geological Survey. Americans instinctively know that much federal spending--especially on infrastructure and science--is investment. With bipartisan agreement on raising spending for defense and education, Bush does not have enough room for a responsible budget unless he scales back his tax cut plan.

Republicans deny it, but Bush’s tax cut is clearly driving the government’s budget policy. It was his tax package, not a big, spendthrift government, that dominated his presidential campaign. It could hardly be otherwise. The Republicans, his own party, are in control of Congress and have been spending as freely as Democrats ever did, increasing spending levels by more than twice the inflation rate in each of the last three years.

Bush’s budget won’t be unveiled until later this month, but the emerging draft is instructive: It provides for a budget cut of as much as $5 billion from projected levels. Defense and education would be spared the ax--their combined budgets are expected to rise by $16 billion--but most other departments would lose money.

The Justice Department’s budget would be cut by $500 million or more. Income security programs, tax collection, environmental protection, national parks maintenance and the science agencies would be slashed as well. Of particular worry to California is the proposed 22% cut in the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, an agency that carries out studies on the supply and quality of water.

Yes, there is room for spending cuts--billions in pork barrel spending, corporate welfare and farm subsidies come to mind. And the rate that government spending has been increasing recently, threatening to consume one-third of the projected surplus, must not continue.

Bush is right in wanting to hold down spending increases, and his criticism of the previous Congress for abandoning fiscal discipline is on target. But he is in danger of writing a budget to fit his large tax cut proposal even if it means shortchanging needed investment in the nation’s future. That’s a mistake too.