By Ed Frank
7/20/05

Fiscal conservatives on Capitol Hill understandably and justifiably made lots of hay last week about a new report showing that the tax relief they passed in the first few years of President Bush's administration has indeed boosted federal revenues and shrunk the budget deficit -- exactly the opposite impact many liberals had predicted.

To be sure, the fact that federal revenues are up 15 percent over last year and the budget deficit is going to be $100 billion below earlier estimates isn't just sweet vindication for believers in supply-side economics, it's also obviously very good news for our nation's economy and America's taxpayers.

But before the newfound congressional deficit hawks and supporters of limited government trip all over each other on the way to their self-congratulatory news conferences, they should remember that their work isn't nearly complete.

Yes, tax relief is good for the economy, the deficit and for the overall cause of limited government. But you know what else helps shrink budget deficits and the size of government? That's right -- spending restraint. And on that side of the equation, Republican majorities in the House and Senate have performed abysmally.

Even with declared conservative Republicans in control of the White House, Senate and House of Representatives for nearly all of the past four years, federal spending of taxpayer dollars has skyrocketed, going up by a third just since 2001, according to the Cato Institute. Even President Bush's "lean" budget proposal calls for spending 38 percent more taxpayer dollars than were spent when he moved into the Oval Office.

Clearly, Congress is spending money faster than Paris Hilton on a Rodeo Drive shopping spree, except it's not Daddy Hilton who's picking up this credit card tab -- it's the taxpayers. And despite assurances from conservatives on Capitol Hill that now they're finally ready to step back from the trough, their actions continue to speak more loudly than their words.

For months, a massive highway spending bill has been stuck on Capitol Hill, not because Congress is working so hard to pare it back to a responsible level, but because the Senate has tried to add $11 billion extra to the incredibly generous $284 billion that President Bush already has agreed to.

And this is just one transportation bill. Never mind the exploding and ongoing costs of expensive entitlement programs like Medicaid. Capitol Hill conservatives earlier this year failed miserably when they tried to increase Medicaid spending only 39 percent instead of 41 percent over the next few years.

If the conservative members of Congress who applauded last week's improved deficit numbers can't muster the strength to even limit spending to this stratospheric level, any additional revenues the 2003 tax cuts bring in are sure to swallowed by even higher levels of wasteful spending, and the prospects of ever truly shrinking the size of the federal government are dim. In the meantime, enjoy your tax relief -- while it lasts.

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