Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal ran a dry but challenging piece by Martin Feldstein. It’s behind a subscriber firewall, alas. It’s a piece that essentially argues that the spending increases we have seen under Bush are, in fact, Clinton’s fault. Here’s the critical paragraph:
The appropriations for discretionary spending outside defense and homeland security rose 16% in the final Clinton budget, propelling future spending on these programs. The Bush administration reduced the growth of these appropriations to 9.2% in 2002 and then to 2.7% in 2003 and 2004. As a result, such appropriations fell from 3.5% of GDP in the first Bush budget to 3.3% in 2004 (including all supplemental appropriations.) The president’s latest budget proposes to keep the 2004 dollar amount unchanged in 2005, implying a decline to less than 3.2% of GDP. Despite these tight controls on appropriations, the earlier appropriations caused actual outlays to rise 12.3% in 2002 and kept their growth at 5.8% in 2004. This long-term effect of past appropriations shows that bringing spending under control requires the passage of time as well as tough budget choices.
I’m afraid I don’t know what this means. Does he mean that the Republican Congress under Clinton increased proposed spending so much that it took a few years for the government to actually spend the money? And that therefore the Bush administration doesn’t deserve the blame for the money it actually spent? Is that a good analysis or the weakest excuse you ever heard? And that 16 percent figure is a new one to me. Should it be 15 percent? Nevertheless, Feldstein ignores the new Medicare entitlement, and warns that “tight spending controls” are needed now, as well as “reforms” of Social Security and Medicare. But the reform of Social Security will cost a huge amount; and the latest Medicare “reform” will cost trillions. I was hoping to be reassured by this piece. Alas, I’m mainly puzzled.
EMAIL OF THE DAY: “I really enjoyed listening to you on Boston’s NPR tonight. After listening to the Christian Coalition spokesman tonight, I write in what I suppose is a defense of Evangelicals — we’re not all like that. I’m 20 years old, a senior at a large (liberal) public university, straight, female, an evangelical christian, a conservative, and a vehement supporter of civil gay marriage. I’ve been involved in theatre and the arts for most of my life, and have known and loved a number of gays, and seen the war waged on them by the religious right, which is what brings me to this fight anyway…
I was once walking across campus and found myself trying to navigate between a group of LGBT folks and the Fred Phelps psychos, and I thought “If I have to pick sides here, whose side do I stand on?” and it was without question with the LGBT folks. I’m willing to cede gay marriage because it’s practical, and because I dream of the day that gay people don’t automatically assume that Christians are out to get them. What Jesus has to offer is for everyone, not just heteros, and in any case, he never sought to change the laws of his culture, he set out to change people. And he hung out with the beautiful people that made the Pharisees uncomfortable. I still have issues with gay marriage in the church (if I thought I could rationalize it with the Bible, I’d support it in a heartbeat, but as much as it kills me, I can’t) but as far as I’m concerned, if you want to marry the man you love at the courthouse (or wherever, really), that’s fine by me. The amazing thing is that most of my conservative Christian friends agree with me on civil marriage for various reasons. We’re not all the Christian Coalition.” – more feedback on the Letters Page.
The Dish 