Busting the budget

Americans want Congress to overspend

Last week, Donald Trump signed a massive, $1.3 trillion “omnibus” spending bill, despite hinting that he might veto it. This gravely disappointed conservatives, who want Republicans to reduce the size and scope of government.

What is going on? Why are Republicans bailing on their campaign pledges to shrink government?

To begin, the “omnibus” is actually a collection of appropriations bills that Congress is supposed to pass every year. Because of gridlock, Congress is unable to pass these bills in a timely fashion. So it has begun periodically passing a omnibus bill, a single bill that contains all of the individual appropriations bills. And it has been doing this at the last minute, i.e., right before funding from the previous omnibus runs out.

It should go without saying that this is no way to fund our government. Clearly, the appropriations process has become deeply dysfunctional, and the public should demand Congressfix the mess it has created.

Conservatives are especially aggravated because “discretionary” spending on domestic programs ends up being much more than they would like.

The omnibus process is tilted against conservatives for several reasons. For starters, there are procedural issues. Congressional appropriations require a supermajority of 60 votes in the Senate, which give Democrats leverage. As Senate Republican leaders negotiate a settlement with Democrats, they alienate their right flank, especially in the House of Representatives. That puts more pressure to pick up Democrats to make up the difference.

This effect is compounded by the fact that every appropriations bill can be stopped by the Democratic minority, which enables it to roll the several appropriations bills into one, massive omnibus. This is smart politics — by combining Republican spending priorities in defense spending with Democratic priorities in non-defense spending, Democrats can get hawkish Republicans to vote grudgingly for larger domestic discretionary appropriations.

Moreover, a minority of Republicansin Congress — such as Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and members of the House Freedom Caucus — are indisposed to vote for anything except minimal funding. That requires greater buy-in from Democrats. The result is that Democrats scored a victory on the omnibus, despite the fact that Republicans control the government.

But there are larger forces at work. Above all, congressional Republicans are not all that interested in controlling domestic discretionary spending. The reason is simple: Voters do not want them to!

Polls show that the public supports reducing government spending, but only in the abstract. When people are asked about individual programs, they usually demand increased spending. One of the few exceptions, where people want less spending, is international aid — which is just a tinyfraction of the budget.

More broadly, domestic discretionary spending is really just a small portion of the budget compared to military spending (which Republicans want to increase) and especially entitlements such as Medicare and Social Security. Medicare in particular is a main driver of our long-term structural deficits. And while Republicans have long promised to reform the program, they have made no effort to do so now that they are in power. The big reason, again, is that the public does not want Medicare spending cut.

So, in the end, Republicans’ incompetence on spending restraint is a function of broader public indifference to government extravagance. To put it bluntly, the government is borrowing from future generations to make life more comfortable for those alive right now — because that is what people want.

Sure, fiscal discipline sounds good theoretically, but barely anybody wants to actually cut programs. And nobody wants to raise taxes on the middle class to pay for this munificence (which is what would be required to balance the federal books). Republicans are just doing what people want — talking about fiscal restraint on the campaign trail but busting the budget when they gain power in Washington, D.C.