The amazing thing is that he is regarded as a fiscal tightwad. In fact, he presided over one of the biggest binges on government spending in history. Josh Claybourn gets it right. As Stephen Moore put it earlier this year,
President Bush’s $2.25 trillion budget released Monday is almost 30 percent larger than the budget he inherited three years ago. Since the Republicans took over Congress in 1995, the budget has grown by 50 percent… [T]he discretionary budget has grown by nearly 15 percent in Mr. Bush’s first two years in office – more than it did in President Clinton’s first four years in office. In fact, Mr. Bush is on a pace to be the biggest spender in the White House since Lyndon Baines Johnson. It’s not just Democrat obstructionism – in fact, discretionary spending has, after an initial decline, been rapidly expanding since Republicans gained control of Congress in 1994. In their first three budgets (fiscal 1996-98), the Republicans increased domestic spending by $183 billion compared to a $155 billion increase in the three years prior to Republican control of Congress.
Daniel Gross puts the boot in at Slate as well:
According to Brian Riedl, federal budget analyst at the Heritage Foundation, overall discretionary spending rose 13 percent in 2002 and will jump 21 percent in fiscal 2003, to $885 billion. Yes, the Pentagon accounts for a lot of that increase. But in Bush’s first two budgets, according to Riedl, even non-defense discretionary spending has risen from $320 billion to $421 billion. Daniels made a particular point of coming down hard on earmarks-the budgetary vehicles that members of Congress use to drive pork to their districts. But earmarks too have soared in the past two years. According to Riedl, in fiscal 2003 there were 9,000 earmarks worth $22 billion, up from 6,500 in 2001.
This is Daniels’ and Bush’s legacy: one of the most recklessly big spending administrations in recent history, higher deficits and mounting debt. I’d be far more sanguine about further big tax cuts if the Bushies had shown even the slightest interest in restraining spending. They haven’t. They need to.
The Dish 