Growls

The Wall Street Journal editorialized this weekend that Congressional “spenders won 2011.” The editorial began this way:

“Amid this month's payroll tax fracas, few noticed that Congress passed a 1,200-page, $1 trillion omnibus spending bill for fiscal 2012. Maybe no one in Washington boasted because it's a victory for spending as usual. Republicans—in the House and Senate—need a better strategy.

“The news is that after accounting for last-minute unemployment insurance extensions, "emergency" spending and higher Medicare physician payments, total federal outlays are estimated to be $3.65 trillion in fiscal 2012, up slightly from $3.6 trillion in 2011. The last year has seen no major reforms in any of the big entitlement programs—Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. Spending on food stamps alone is scheduled to reach $80 billion in 2012, more than double the amount as recently as 2007.

“Republicans had promised to roll back discretionary spending to 2008 levels, to save $100 billion. But the August debt deal lowered the savings to $7 billion—or a 2012 target for appropriations of $1.043 trillion. Even that target was missed because appropriators tacked on roughly $10 billion in disaster relief—hurricanes this summer—and so the new total is $1.054 trillion. That's $4 billion more than the 2011 baseline of $1.050 trillion, although savings from troop withdrawals in Iraq may reduce that.”

And far too few programs were eliminated -- “only 28 programs out of the thousands of line-items contained in the omnibus budget were terminated. The list includes mostly minor programs such as $12.5 million spent on something called "adolescent family life," $1.2 million for civic education, and $1.4 million for economics education (not for members of Congress)," they wrote.

Yet, the Journal’s editorial staff said that “a flat overall budget is a vast improvement over the years 2007 to 2011, when overall spending increased 32%, or $868 billion. (See the nearby table.) Voters elected a GOP House to pull the Democratic credit card, and Republicans at least stopped the blowout of the Pelosi-Obama years.” Here’s the chart from the Wall Street Journal’s editorial:

Even the Washington Post entered the fray in pointing out the small favors done by Congress in 2011, saying in an editorial today:

"THERE MAY NOT have been a party in Times Square to celebrate, but two of the most wasteful subsidies ever to clutter the Internal Revenue Code went out with the old year. Congress declined to renew either the 45-cent-per-gallon tax credit for corn-based ethanol or the 54-cent-per-gallon tariff on imported ethanol, so both expired Dec. 31.

“Taxpayers will no longer have shell out roughly $6 billion per year for a program that badly distorted the global grain market, artificially raised the cost of agricultural land and did almost nothing to curb greenhouse gas emissions. A federal law requiring the use of 36 billion gallons of ethanol for fuel by 2022 still props up the industry, but the tax credit’s expiration is a victory for common sense just the same.

“Meanwhile, a lesser-known but equally dubious energy tax break also expired when the year ended Saturday: the credit that gave electric-car owners up to $1,000 to defray the cost of installing a 220-volt charging device in their homes — or up to $30,000 to install one in a commercial location. As a means of reducing carbon emissions, electric cars and plug-in hybrid electrics are no more cost-effective than ethanol. What’s more, only upper-income consumers can afford to buy an electric vehicle (EV); so the charger subsidy is a giveaway to the well-to-do.”

With the Washington Post editorial staff at least making sounds like fiscal conservatives, maybe there’s hope that Arlington’s representatives in Congress may be on the road to fiscal conservatism. Signs for a better 2012? I know, I know, hope springs eternal, but kudos to the Washington Post editorial staff for their "Overcharged" editorial.