Trusting Washington Is Becoming More Difficult
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
I find it exceedingly difficult to believe anything I hear from Washington these days.
It has always been difficult to trust the Washington elite, of course, but lately it's become virtually impossible.
At every turn, it seems, they try to deceive us.
This is not specific to any certain party, either. It's both parties.
Some examples:
Back in 1994 when the Republicans took over Congress they voted to eliminate the grip on power held by committee chairmen by imposing committee chair term limits.
That was a wonderful idea. For decades, much of the politics as usual and most of the rampant government spending could be attributed to the fact that the same committee chairmen held those positions for years.
The chairmen wield enormous power with little accountability.
Remember Dan Rostenkowski? He abused his powerful chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee to the point that he thought he could do anything. He routinely wrote big-ticket items for his district into legislation. Eventually, he was indicted and served time in prison for defrauding the taxpayers.
So the newly empowered GOP votes to limit the terms of committee chairmen. How nice.
Enter House Speaker Dennis Hastert.
Earlier this year he completely subverted the intentions of the House and his own party by his interpretation of the new term-limit rule.
He says that he will allow committee chairmen to simply swap committees. That means that the same small, select group of committee chairmen - each averaging about 20 years in Washington - will keep their hold on power. They just will wield it on different committees.
Hastert admitted his decision was made with no input from most representatives. The same representatives that voted to limit committee chairs.
Sad thing is, the Republicans used to deride the Democrats for leaving all those committee chairmen in place for decades. Republicans saw the problems it created when the Demos were doing it. When they took over in 1994, they had the perfect opportunity to do something about it.
They did, theoretically, with a vote to limit terms of committee chairmen. But as it turned out, the vote was virtually meaningless.
This game of governmental musical chairs is a sham. The House leadership should be ashamed.
And when it comes to the budget, the misrepresentations - well, I suppose that's a nice word for lies - are ubiquitous.
Here's a good one.
How many times have you heard the phrase "robbing the Social Security trust fund" lately?
You hear it all the time.
President Bill Clinton criticizes the Republicans who are about to rob the Social Security trust fund on other programs. Then they imply that millions of poor Social Security recipients will suffer, eating cold beans straight from the can.
Fact is, Democrats have done the same thing for years. Fact is, Clinton himself has defended the practice and relied on it.
It's only recently, in this last budget debate, that he's found the practice so abhorrent.
Beyond that, both parties certainly are lying to us about the trust fund itself. Most everyone believes that they are talking about a big pile of money somewhere that is being held in "trust" to pay Social Security later.
Nope. Doesn't exist.
The "trust fund," as they love to call it, is essentially a collection of IOUs, a means of keeping track of money that the government will someday have to recoup to fund Social Security. How will the government do that? Probably by borrowing, raising taxes or cutting other programs.
Scripps Howard New Service reports that a Cato Institute project on Social Security calls the fuss about the trust fund "pure political posturing." The Cato report notes that the administration's own budget document states the trust fund "does not consist of real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits."
And then there's budget spending. Oh, my, are we misled in that regard.
Congress and the president negotiated the current budget caps in 1997 as part of the Balanced Budget Agreement. This agreement was supposed to stretch out to 2002. At the time, lots of people were skeptical about the ability of Congress to limit spending in the out years of that agreement.
They were right to be skeptical.
The administration says that its budget can meet the spending caps with the "right mix" of spending priorities and tax cuts. They don't say that the "right mix" contains increased user fees, new user fees, imposing surcharges and various other revenue-raising methods more commonly known as tax increases.
In fact, Clinton earlier this year delivered a fiscal year 2000 budget that exceeded the spending caps by $30 billion. According to the Heritage Foundation, the Congressional Budget Office rejected the administration's attempt to label revenue increases as "spending offsets." Apparently the CBO knows there is a difference between raising billions of dollars in hidden fees and holding spending in check. Clinton doesn't.
While pledging to control spending, Congress seems poised to subvert the out year spending caps agreed to in 1997. Instead of working to control wasteful spending, they seem ready to open the floodgates. Instead of instituting long overdue reforms or working to eliminate redundant, obsolete or inefficient existing programs, they are content to continue business as usual.
Clinton apparently has forgotten his 1997 commitment to a balanced budget, too. He's proposed a bunch of programs that exceed the 1997 agreement.
Not the least of which are:
Clinton's Land Legacy Initiative. Clinton's New Market Initiative. Clinton's School Construction Program. Housing and Urban Development's Community Builders Program. Vice President Al Gore's Livable Communities Agenda.
Clinton refuses to even consider restricting the growth of government. He thinks it's OK to increase spending as long as he can come up with "spending offsets" (tax increases).
But don't hold your breath waiting for Congress to do the right thing with regard to new spending. It won't.
Lawmakers will say "yes" to President Clinton's spending agenda because they are afraid they will be labeled as partisan.
And if they say no, Clinton will veto the appropriations bills and blame the Republicans for the ensuing government shutdown.
Call me skeptical, but with the current mix in Congress and the White House, I have little hope of any meaningful reforms, budget or otherwise. [[In-content Ad]]
I find it exceedingly difficult to believe anything I hear from Washington these days.
It has always been difficult to trust the Washington elite, of course, but lately it's become virtually impossible.
At every turn, it seems, they try to deceive us.
This is not specific to any certain party, either. It's both parties.
Some examples:
Back in 1994 when the Republicans took over Congress they voted to eliminate the grip on power held by committee chairmen by imposing committee chair term limits.
That was a wonderful idea. For decades, much of the politics as usual and most of the rampant government spending could be attributed to the fact that the same committee chairmen held those positions for years.
The chairmen wield enormous power with little accountability.
Remember Dan Rostenkowski? He abused his powerful chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee to the point that he thought he could do anything. He routinely wrote big-ticket items for his district into legislation. Eventually, he was indicted and served time in prison for defrauding the taxpayers.
So the newly empowered GOP votes to limit the terms of committee chairmen. How nice.
Enter House Speaker Dennis Hastert.
Earlier this year he completely subverted the intentions of the House and his own party by his interpretation of the new term-limit rule.
He says that he will allow committee chairmen to simply swap committees. That means that the same small, select group of committee chairmen - each averaging about 20 years in Washington - will keep their hold on power. They just will wield it on different committees.
Hastert admitted his decision was made with no input from most representatives. The same representatives that voted to limit committee chairs.
Sad thing is, the Republicans used to deride the Democrats for leaving all those committee chairmen in place for decades. Republicans saw the problems it created when the Demos were doing it. When they took over in 1994, they had the perfect opportunity to do something about it.
They did, theoretically, with a vote to limit terms of committee chairmen. But as it turned out, the vote was virtually meaningless.
This game of governmental musical chairs is a sham. The House leadership should be ashamed.
And when it comes to the budget, the misrepresentations - well, I suppose that's a nice word for lies - are ubiquitous.
Here's a good one.
How many times have you heard the phrase "robbing the Social Security trust fund" lately?
You hear it all the time.
President Bill Clinton criticizes the Republicans who are about to rob the Social Security trust fund on other programs. Then they imply that millions of poor Social Security recipients will suffer, eating cold beans straight from the can.
Fact is, Democrats have done the same thing for years. Fact is, Clinton himself has defended the practice and relied on it.
It's only recently, in this last budget debate, that he's found the practice so abhorrent.
Beyond that, both parties certainly are lying to us about the trust fund itself. Most everyone believes that they are talking about a big pile of money somewhere that is being held in "trust" to pay Social Security later.
Nope. Doesn't exist.
The "trust fund," as they love to call it, is essentially a collection of IOUs, a means of keeping track of money that the government will someday have to recoup to fund Social Security. How will the government do that? Probably by borrowing, raising taxes or cutting other programs.
Scripps Howard New Service reports that a Cato Institute project on Social Security calls the fuss about the trust fund "pure political posturing." The Cato report notes that the administration's own budget document states the trust fund "does not consist of real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits."
And then there's budget spending. Oh, my, are we misled in that regard.
Congress and the president negotiated the current budget caps in 1997 as part of the Balanced Budget Agreement. This agreement was supposed to stretch out to 2002. At the time, lots of people were skeptical about the ability of Congress to limit spending in the out years of that agreement.
They were right to be skeptical.
The administration says that its budget can meet the spending caps with the "right mix" of spending priorities and tax cuts. They don't say that the "right mix" contains increased user fees, new user fees, imposing surcharges and various other revenue-raising methods more commonly known as tax increases.
In fact, Clinton earlier this year delivered a fiscal year 2000 budget that exceeded the spending caps by $30 billion. According to the Heritage Foundation, the Congressional Budget Office rejected the administration's attempt to label revenue increases as "spending offsets." Apparently the CBO knows there is a difference between raising billions of dollars in hidden fees and holding spending in check. Clinton doesn't.
While pledging to control spending, Congress seems poised to subvert the out year spending caps agreed to in 1997. Instead of working to control wasteful spending, they seem ready to open the floodgates. Instead of instituting long overdue reforms or working to eliminate redundant, obsolete or inefficient existing programs, they are content to continue business as usual.
Clinton apparently has forgotten his 1997 commitment to a balanced budget, too. He's proposed a bunch of programs that exceed the 1997 agreement.
Not the least of which are:
Clinton's Land Legacy Initiative. Clinton's New Market Initiative. Clinton's School Construction Program. Housing and Urban Development's Community Builders Program. Vice President Al Gore's Livable Communities Agenda.
Clinton refuses to even consider restricting the growth of government. He thinks it's OK to increase spending as long as he can come up with "spending offsets" (tax increases).
But don't hold your breath waiting for Congress to do the right thing with regard to new spending. It won't.
Lawmakers will say "yes" to President Clinton's spending agenda because they are afraid they will be labeled as partisan.
And if they say no, Clinton will veto the appropriations bills and blame the Republicans for the ensuing government shutdown.
Call me skeptical, but with the current mix in Congress and the White House, I have little hope of any meaningful reforms, budget or otherwise. [[In-content Ad]]