We Can’t Cut <i> and</i> Spend

President Bush is caught in a predicament of his own making. Both congressional Republicans and Democrats are pushing to spend more than the $40 billion in emergency funds requested by the administration. At a tense White House meeting with congressional leaders Tuesday, the president promised to veto any increase: He knows it could lead to deficit spending that would make it even harder to carry out tax cuts.

Bush faces the nightmare that he will be tagged the president who returned the country to Reagan-era budget deficits. But his own push for accelerating lavish tax cuts for the rich and corporations is part of the problem. How can the president warn about deficits when he’s the one who exposed the nation to the risk of them in the first place?

Democrats and Republicans on the House and Senate appropriations committees correctly maintain that spending was determined before the anthrax attacks took place and that the money issue needs to be revisited. Specific spending requests will be shaped in the coming weeks. But we already know that Congress wants to increase funding for the Centers for Disease Control, food safety programs, water systems, airport security and law enforcement. Rep. C.W. “Bill” Young (R-Fla.) says that about $2 billion more should be directed to anti-terrorism programs and that billions more will be needed to assist New York.

Is there pork in the requests? Absolutely. Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, is a master at obtaining funds for things like highways in his state. It’s doubtful the entire $20 billion he is demanding is necessary--what do Indian health service clinics have to do with the war on terrorism?

What’s beyond doubt is the need for a full spending debate. The administration, however, refuses to even consider taking another look. Bush’s economic chickens are coming home to roost. Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) has declared that the president is concerned about spending “just spiraling out of control. And I share that concern.” It’s a bit late for such apprehensions.

Spending to assist New York and to aid law enforcement and food safety is not only sensible but inevitable. If the administration wants to have credibility in opposing extra spending, it needs to rethink its own fixation with rushing through tax cuts. In the post-Sept. 11 world, government spending is going to be part of the solution, not the problem.