Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
About eight months ago, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, a Republican from Illinois, assured us that the House of Representatives would have all 13 spending bills for the 2000 budget passed by Oct. 1.
That's not going to happen.
On Thursday, President Bill Clinton signed a continuing resolution to keep the government going while Congress hammers out budget deals.
What we have is gridlock. It's not as bad as in 1995 but it's gridlock nonetheless.
You may remember 1995. That's when the government was shut down twice right before Christmas. In that budget year, it took 14 continuing resolutions to end the budget fight, and the final appropriations bill was seven months late.
This year, one resolution already has been passed and four more are awaiting the president's signature.
So the gridlock isn't as extreme as it has been in the past. But it's still gridlock, and, as is always the case, each side holds the other responsible.
Republicans have always been pretty dumb about taking the blame for these things. Historically, the Democrats have been able to make Republicans look like the culprits in budget gridlock.
I have no doubt that this year's budget battle will end up the same way.
The big roadblock seems to be over, well, money.
Republican leaders say that this year they have an historic opportunity. The opportunity is to end the government practice of siphoning funds from Social Security to pay for new federal spending.
The practice began way back in 1967, when Lyndon Johnson tapped into those funds to help pay for the Vietnam War.
That would seem to be a laudable goal, but on the Democrat side, leaders are saying that there can be no budget agreement until the Republicans come up with a compromise to include spending programs Clinton wants.
They aren't even close.
One big fight that looms has to do with the largest spending bill, the one that covers education, labor and health programs. Republicans killed new federal programs Clinton wants for education, including funding for his "100,000 new teachers" idea.
Republicans, as always, are adamant that education programs - including funding for new buildings, teachers and curriculum - should be controlled by state and local governments.
I tend to agree with them.
They also point out that lots of states already have budget surpluses that they could use to fund those programs if they wanted them.
Republicans are sticking to their story that they will do it without dipping into Social Security.
But to do that, spending must be cut. And when spending cuts are proposed, the fur flies.
Along with the education cuts, the GOP also is proposing delaying earned-income credit payments to low-income families, consolidating federal adoption programs, eliminating cash payments to people whose companies fail because of foreign competition, and freezing the administrative costs of federal direct student loans.
This is where the Republicans start taking the hit.
Take a look at what White House economic adviser Gene Sperling said about the GOP's plan in a recent Associated Press story. "What does it say about their priorities and their values that they tax the poorest families as their preferred solution to escape the budgetary mess they created for themselves."
But this is nothing new. Republicans are always being accused of something like that. I remember the big Medicare scare back in 1996,
Back then, Medicare cost about $160 billion per year. The Republicans proposed that amount to increase to $234 billion by the year 2002.
The Democrats characterized that as a drastic cut. They told senior citizens to call their congressmen and vote for Democrats. The president accused Republicans of "gutting" and "eviscerating" Medicare.
It was quite a show. And it worked. And it will work again.
The Republicans will cave in and fund the spending programs because they know that Clinton will veto the budget if they don't. And if Clinton vetoes the budget, the Republicans will get blamed for shutting down the government. They won't want to risk that.
So this budget year, I believe, will be remarkably similar to other budget years.
Revenue to the treasury will rise and Congress will spend it all and then some. Well, maybe the "and them some" part of the equation might get a little better.
Maybe - and I do mean maybe - Congress has learned its lesson and lost its lust for deficit spending.
But some members of Congress haven't lost their lust for enacting a plethora of new programs every year.
And some members haven't lost their lust for deriding anyone who proposes a reduction in spending.
I would like just once for a president or a Congress to declare a moratorium on federal spending programs.
Remember George Bush's failed "No New Taxes" pledge.
I would like to hear a politician pledge "No New Government Programs" just for one year.
No 100,000 cops. No 100,000 teachers. No new programs.
Just fund all the ones we currently have and not add any new ones. For just one year.
Think of the money we'd save. And you know what?
I bet nobody would even notice the latest, greatest federal spending program from Washington was missing.
