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BOY WHORES. CRANK. AND THE BUDGET
The president's proposed $2.9 trillion budget
is his first step toward eliminating the federal
deficit by the year 2012: four years after he
leaves office. He announced this goal in his State
of the Union address, and it went over well... if
only as a combination of platitude and whistling
past the mass grave.
"First," he said, "we must balance the federal
budget. We can do so without raising taxes."
Certainly, that's a jaw dropper, especially consid
ering that the president has had six years with
a Republican Congress and has yet to submit a
balanced budget. That reality aside, he contin
ued: "What we need is spending discipline in
Washington, DC. We set a goal of cutting the
deficit in half by 2009—and met that goal three
years ahead of schedule. Now let us take the next
step. In the coming weeks, I will submit a bud
get that eliminates the federal deficit within the
next five years. I ask you to make the same com
mitment. Together, we can restrain the spending
appetite of the federal government, and we can
balance the federal budget."
.FactCheck.org, part of the Annenberg Public
Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania,
assessed the president's new-found commitment
to fiscal responsibility: "Actually, Bush inherited
a budget with a comfortable surplus, and then
ran up enormous deficits that continue to the
present. Under Bush, the national debt (debt
held by the public) has increased by more than
$1.5 trillion. The annual deficits [sic] peaked
at $413 billion in fiscal year 2004, and has de
clined since then. But in fiscal year 2006 (which
ended last Oct. 31) the deficit was still $248 bil
lion. The latest estimates from the nonpartisan
Congressional Budget Office project a further re
duction in the current fiscal year, to $172 billion.
That would indeed be less than half the worst of
Bush's deficits, but it would be only two years
prior to fiscal 2009, not three.
"As for spending restraint. Bush has shown
little if any to date. He allowed spending to soar
42 percent during his presidency, and didn't veto
a single spending bill. (His only veto was of a
bill to loosen restrictions on federally funded
stem-cell research.) He did sign massive tax cuts,
and revenues increased only 21 percent during
the same period."
FISCAL DISCIPLINE?
From the outset of our collective, brutish
slogging toward the president's 2012 goal, then,
we're hobbled by an incredulity that fiscal disci
pline can have anything to do with any goal this
president sets. Bush's record as a steward of the
people's money is the inverse of exemplary. The
war in Iraq alone, according to a Jan. 19 article
in the Wall Street Journal, will cost an estimated
' $8.4 billion a month in 2007. That money will be
borrowed, of course, and it's probably fair to say
that the Pentagon low-balled the figure. A more
recent analysis by David S. Cloud in the Feb. 3
edition of the New York Times updates the pres
ident's plans for funding the war: "The Bush ad
ministration is seeking a record military budget
of $622 billion for the 2008 fiscal year, Pentagon
officials have said. The sum includes more than
$140 billion for war-related costs."
That sounds grim—in terms of both blood
and treasure—but the costs of the war in Iraq
metely underscore the president's fiscal in
eptitude. In a June 4, 2006, discussion of the
president's economic policies, Tim Russert, host
of "Meet the Press," observed that Bush's record
of fiscal stewardship gives little hope that any
of his comments on fiscal discipline can be con
sidered as any kind of predictor of his behaviors
or policies.
Russert said, "I went back and looked at
federal spending on a variety of categories from
2001 when the president became president,
Republicans controlled the House and the Senate
and the White House. And look at this. The bud
get went from a $281 billion surplus to a $336
billion deficit. A swing of $617 billion. Federal
spending went up 37 percent. The debt went up
46 percent."
This is not the record of someone who stub
bornly claims to be a fiscal conservative, yet in
his stumping to support his budget proposals,
Bush speaks as though the past were absolutely
irrelevant to his current propositions. In a Nov.
7, 2006, White House press release, the president
returned to using the language he employed
when he first ran for president. He isn't the prob
lem. Government is the problem.
Here's what he said: "... And my fundamental
question to the American people is, who do you
want making the decisions with your money? Do
you want to make it yourself, or do you want the
government making those decisions? The budget
I've submitted says we can meet our priorities
and let you make the decisions... with the money
you've earned through your hard work."
The interesting corollary to this is the im
plication that he isn't the government. This, in
spite of occupying the White House for six years
and having a Republican Congress for most of
that time. The spending has nothing to do with
him. It's all those bad guys that we elected.
ENTER PASTOR TED
So it's our fault, not his. Try as I might, I
can't decide whether he makes comments like
this because he's absolutely ingenuous or knuck
le-dragging stupid.
However, I found a possible answer in the
weird case of Reverend Ted Haggard, former pres
ident of the National Association of Evangelicals,
a group representing more than 45,000 churches
with 30 million members. Haggard was ratted out
by a male prostitute he hired off and on more
than a three-year period. This same male prosti
tute, Mike Jones, was responsible for procuring
methamphetamine for Rev. Haggard. As a result
of the ensuing scandal, Haggard lost his position
as pastor of the 14,000-member New Life Church,
which he founded 20 years ago in his basement.
But that's all in the past. According to a
Nov. 7 article in the New York Times by Neela
Banerjee, Haggard is now "cured." After undergo
ing an intensive three-week regimen of counsel
ing, Haggard has announced in an email to his
former parishioners that "Jesus is starting to put
me back together."
Three weeks' worth of Jesus trumps three
years' worth of boy whores and crank. Okay...
good to know. Haggard himself was not available
for comment, but his spokesperson, Rev. Tim
Ralph, told the Denver Post that Haggard was
"completely heterosexual"—does anyone have
any clues what this means?—and that his homo
sexuality was not a "constant thing." As for the
drugs, Haggard has dismissed his possession by
claiming that he just bought them; he didn't use
them. As for the future, Haggard and his wife will
seek online master's degrees in psychology. The
oversight board of New Life Church has recom
mended that Haggard look at a secular career.
Okay, what does a boy-whore-diddling, crank-
fondling (Ha! A two-fer!), ex-evangelical slick
have in common with the most powerful man in
the world? Well... first. I'd point out that I'm
less concerned with the answer than the fact
that the question itself just tickles the hell out
of me. But apart from that, I'd suggest that how
ever much they want it, both Bush and Haggard
are mired in their own tendencies. And however
much they claim otherwise, no one should expect
anything different from them than their past
behaviors would lead us to anticipate. They are
who they are; "who they are" is pretty definite,
so based on accumulated evidence, we ought to
know what to expect from them.
If we're surprised, it's our own damned fault.
Sam Prestridge
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