Slowly but surely, the Senate continues to drift into a spending showdown with the House and the White House. As we reported yesterday, one staffer to Senate Leadership "proposes...a 13-or-so percent across-the-board cut in the supplemental spending to bring the bill's total cost into line with the President's initial request and veto threat."

But this isn't nearly so innocuous as it sounds:

Relative to the President's request for emergency spending, this proposal would cut funding for defense in the supplemental--money for our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq to meet needs that are the very purpose of this legislation--by $9.6 billion. An across-the-board cut would also chop $2.6 billion from funding to respond to the actual emergency of Hurricane Katrina.

So where's the money going if not to our troops and to hurricane victims? There's billions in farm subsidies when the industry is roaring along. The bill has a bit over $1 billion for the fisheries and seafood industries--classic corporate pork. There's highway spending, social program spending, and all other manner of non-emergency spending. None of this stacks up to the needs of U.S. troops abroad and our fellow citizens hit so hard by Hurricane Katrina.

Gail Chaddock of the Christian Science Monitor explains that President Bush will face huge pressure to sign a bill even if it triggers his veto threat on the numbers:

President Bush promises to issue the first veto of his presidency, and 35 Republican senators have already signed a pledge to sustain it. House majority leader John Boehner says the House will not accept a bill that spends "one dollar more than the president asked for. Period."

Tough talk. But troops in Iraq and Afghanistan start running out of money at the end of the month. And members who added the special projects - many for hurricane relief - say time is on their side.

"The president needs that defense money, and he doesn't need it in July," says Sen. Trent Lott (R) of Mississippi, who with top Senate appropriator Thad Cochran (R) of Mississippi, led the drive to keep the member- sponsored projects in the bill. "This president shouldn't have to veto this bill when we are all on his team," he adds.

Of course, the same applies to Congress. With the President's clear line in the sand on the supplemental, do Members of Congress want to leave themselves open to accusations that they're endangering U.S. troops for the sake of corporate pork? That could be risky. John Fund explains how:

The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll offered respondents a menu of legislative action Congress could address before it goes home this year. Asked to choose which should be its top priority, a stunning 39% selected "prohibiting Members of Congress from directing federal funds to specific projects benefiting only certain constituents"--i.e., the pork-barrel spending at the heart of the Congressional earmark process. Immigration reform was in second place with 32%. It would be ironic if the big-spending strategy Tom DeLay thought was a key to shoring up incumbents and keeping GOP control of Congress winds up ending that control.

One local paper is even more pointed:

Senators who backed these projects knew the bill would pass because this is an election year. What senators running for re-election this year or two years from now would open themselves to the charge that they did not support the troops and were indifferent to the plight of hurricane victims? That's why it took a true act of courage for 21 Republican senators to vote against the bill.

Even though Republican leaders in the House promise to strip the Senate bill of its excesses, some will make it through. And the spending spree goes on unabated.

BNA reports that much of the Senate's spending could drop out in conference--or at least face heavy fire from the House:

The funds that aides said will be vulnerable in the upcoming House-Senate conference on the must-pass supplemental include $1.5 billion that the Senate wants for the Transportation Department for highway, transit, and rail reconstruction and almost $650 million in new port security funds. In contrast to the Senate, the House did not include any of the provisions in its version of the bill, which was passed in March....

Of the $1.5 billion in funds that the Senate Appropriations Committee is seeking for DOT, the largest element is for the controversial plan for the Federal Railroad Administration to make a grant to CSX to relocate a railroad along the Gulf Coast in order to make way for a beachfront highway long sought by business interests in Mississippi....

Also vulnerable, aides to lawmakers said, are other transportation funds the Senate wants as part of a plan to help the Gulf Coast recover from the ravages of Hurricane Katrina and other storms. Among these is the $594 million included for the Federal Highway Administration's Emergency Relief program to address the backlog of road repairs in the region. But the amount also includes funds for some other states, notably California, which would receive $309 million of the total....

The Senate also wants $200 million for the Federal Transit Administration for additional capital and operating grants to local transit agencies that were affected by Katrina. Again, the House did not include any FTA funds in its version of the bill, which more closely resembles President Bush's original request.

The Hill has an interesting anecdote from last week's debate over $500 million in corporate welfare for defense contractor Northrop Grumman:

It’s not easy to confuse Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) with spending slasher Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) these days.

But that’s just what Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner (R-Va.) did last week during a vote on a Coburn amendment to strike a provision for defense contractor Northrop Grumman from a $109 billion emergency supplemental spending bill.

In looking at a description of the vote, Warner thought he saw the handwritten name Cochran in support and voted with his colleague from Mississippi. But the name he saw was actually Coburn’s.

"I made a mistake," Warner said. But he quickly rectified it, switching his vote in time to help Cochran fend off Coburn.

Money will be on the mind in the weeks ahead, reports U.S. News & World Report:

All the attention in the capital, though, is on spending, and spending more. This week, seniors face a deadline to sign up for the prescription drug plan, the largest expansion in the program's history. And for all the talk from Democrats and Republicans about restraining spending and fixing the entitlement programs with the baby boomers about to retire, most on Capitol Hill are more interested this election year in short-term victories: pet projects in their home districts paid for by Washington, and a bill to continue tax cuts through 2010 so that they expire under the next president.

But some are still focused on the long-term entitlement crisis:

Republicans, for their part, have recently rallied around the prescription drug plan, estimated to cost $724 billion over a decade, with leaders holding press conference after press conference touting it. For some conservatives, however, deep concerns persist. "This prescription drug benefit is going to eat us alive," says Rep. Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican. "It makes you wonder where your party has gone. Thirty million seniors are now more dependent on the government." Adds Sen. Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican: "The Medicare prescription drug bill is a mistake. It's an example of when you let political expediency take over long-term interests."

Sen. Coburn will speak at Heritage's Allison Auditorium this Thursday (May 11) at 1:00 pm. The lecture, which is open to the public, concerns "The Battle to Control Earmarks and Restore Limited Government." Here's the pitch:

Federal spending continues to surge out of control. When it comes to exercising its fiduciary responsibilities, our national government seems paralyzed – unable to set clear priorities, identify and eliminate wasteful spending, or say “no” to a multitude of pet projects hidden in budgetary earmarks. Failure to put our federal finances in order is a fundamental threat to our economy, and a growing and intrusive government endangers our personal freedoms. Join us as Senator Tom Coburn outlines the transformative steps necessary for putting our fiscal house in order.

Care to join us? RSVP here. Or you can watch live from your computer.

The Washington Post reports that the debt limit needs another boost. Guess why...

A surge of tax revenues this spring, sparked by economic growth, prompted the Congressional Budget Office last Thursday to revise its 2006 deficit forecast from around $370 billion to as low as $300 billion.

But the federal debt keeps climbing because of continued deficit spending and the government's insatiable borrowing from the Social Security trust fund.

With passage of the budget, the House will have raised the federal borrowing limit by an additional $653 billion, to $9.62 trillion. It would be the fifth debt-ceiling increase in recent years, after boosts of $450 billion in 2002, a record $984 billion in 2003, $800 billion in 2004 and $653 billion in March. When Bush took office, the statutory borrowing limit stood at $5.95 trillion.

Of course, it's not the debt itself, per se, that's the real problem or the best measure of the problem. Brian Riedl explains:

When measured properly [e.g., as a percentage of GDP], the federal government’s debt burden is actually below the post–World War II average. It is lower than it was at any time during the 1990s. However, unless Social Security and Medicare are reformed, lawmakers risk allowing debt levels to increase until they cause the highest intergenerational tax increase in history....

The obsessive focus on budget deficits is misguided. The debt ratio, a superior measure of government’s debt burden, is as dependent on economic growth as federal borrowing. The past decade has shown that a growing economy can absorb modestly increasing debt levels.

The danger of debt is that it represents a claim on future taxes. Streamlining wasteful spending while pursuing a pro-growth tax policy can simul­taneously reduce debt levels and make debt more affordable. On the flip side, attempts to reduce the debt burden by raising taxes backfire because the declining debt would be accompanied by declining economic growth, likely canceling out any improvement in the debt ratio.

The frequently-critical Bruce Bartlett is critical (surprise!) of President Bush's lax stance on pork spending:

Bush refuses to ask Congress for any budget rescissions -- requests to cancel previously enacted spending. Nor does he use his constitutional authority to impound pork barrel spending that is not authorized by law.

The fact is that some 95 percent of so-called earmarks in the budget appear only in report language and not as line items in appropriations bills, according to a recent Congressional Research Service report. The president could simply order his Cabinet secretaries to ignore them if he chose to. Instead, Bush insists that he needs line-tem veto authority to cancel earmarks, even though it would apply to just 5 percent of the total.

Americans for Prosperity will soon launch the second leg of its bus tour to spotlight particularly egregious earmarks. Among the stops:

* Hartford, Conn. — $2.4 million for the Mark Twain House and Museum
* Westerly, R.I. — $200,000 for an animal shelter and dog obedience school
* Hyannis, Mass. — $382,000 for the Cape Cod / Hyannis Gateway and $100,000 for a life-size bronze statue of JFK

Of great interest to those who follow spending issues, the Hill reports that Rep. Mike Pence may extend his term as chairman of the House Republican Study Committee, which has led the charge against irresponsible spending and put forward the only credible long-term budget proposal this year. The Hill's overview of Pence's and the RSC's accomplishments, most recently "when House appropriators agreed to include earmark reform in the lobbying reform bill the House passed last week," was a pleasure to read.

Speaking of earmark reform, the accusations against Rep. Alan Mollohan continue to fly. Roll Call reports on the latest accusations of shady dealings:

Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.), his wife and two top aides took a five-day trip to Spain in June 2004 that was paid for by a group of government contractors for whom Mollohan steered tens of millions of dollars in earmarked funds, according to travel records and other documents.

The trip sponsor listed on travel disclosure forms is the “West Virginia (WV)-01 Trade Delegation,” which Mollohan’s office described as an “ad hoc group” of 19 government contractors and West Virginia-based nonprofits that came together to pay for the trip. The total cost of the trip for Mollohan, his wife and aides was $7,874.

Mollohan’s trip to Spain was arranged by the West Virginia High Technology Consortium Foundation, a nonprofit organization Mollohan created back in 1990. Mollohan has helped steer more than $30 million in federal funds to the foundation as part of his overall effort to revitalize West Virginia’s economy....

Just a month before the trip, TMC Technologies announced that it had received a $5 million contract from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration thanks to a Mollohan earmark. In 2003, TMC Technologies received a $2 million NOAA contact, also via a Mollohan earmark.

TMC, which had a $50,000 contract in 2003 with a nonprofit run by one of Mollohan’s former aides and current business partners, has contributed heavily to his political committees. TMC officials and its employees donated more than $39,000 to Mollohan’s re-election campaign and leadership PAC during the 2003-04 election cycle.

This article gave Nanman at The Influence Peddler a great idea:

This all suggests a new slogan for Porkbusters: "Earmarks: Look What They're Doing for Alan Mollohan!" The Appropriators could wind up the biggest backers of reform!

The House's lobbying reform bill continues to draw criticism, this time from the Charleston Post and Courier:

Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash., offered this apt assessment of the House's halfway measures on ethics reform: "We are cleaning up Congress the way teenagers clean up their bedrooms. And the result will be the same mess."

The House-Senate conference committee should straighten up that mess by retaining--and even toughening--the most stringent elements of the two chambers' ethics bills. Otherwise, the "drive" to reduce corruption on Capitol Hill won't get far.

The Spartanburg Herald-Journal is also hoping for more in reform legislation:

Congress needs to ban these earmarks altogether. All federal spending should be allocated based on national needs and priorities or on general funding formulas that distribute money to the states. But members of Congress won't pass such a law because they aren't willing to give up that power. They'd rather try to fool you into thinking that they are cleaning up their House.

Some candidates for office are now calling for an end to earmarks. John Ginty, candidate in a New Jersey Republican primary,

encouraged President Bush to veto the latest example of frenzied federal spending coming from the Congress: an "emergency" supplemental spending bill approved on Friday by the U.S. Senate. The bill includes over $14.4 billion in irrelevant pork and earmark spending in a bill that was originally intended to fund the War Against Terror and additional relief and recovery efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Ginty made his comments at a meeting of supporters in Verona on Saturday.

And Rhode Island Senate candidate Stephen Laffey, writing at Human Events Online, criticizes Sen. Robert Byrd and the earmark process:

Pork has become an addiction. What is so shameful about the senator's pork problem is that he demonstrates no shame at all, relishing his title of "Pork King" and stubbornly refusing to apologize to American taxpayers. You know there is a problem when our congressmen start putting their selfish political interests above the interests of the American people.

The New York Times editorializes on the Republican abandonment of fiscal conservatives:

There was a time that the Republican Party stood for fiscal restraint, but that boat has long since left the dock. Now, as its leaders prepare to inflate the deficit even more, the least they could do is refrain from pretending they care....

Senator Judd Gregg, the chairman of the Budget Committee, has warned that the nation "simply cannot continue on the path to higher deficits." But there's no indication that he's willing to block the path by refusing to bless the gimmicks that allow his party to pretend the pending tax cut package doesn't affect the bottom line.


And Senator Charles Grassley, the chairman of the Finance Committee, describes himself as a dyed-in-the-wool fiscal conservative. But right now Mr. Grassley is maneuvering to add a second tax cut package to the mix, enlarging the deficit by a further $20 billion, or more.

OK, no one ever accused the Times's editorialists of knowing any fiscal conservatives. To make it easy for the board on the next go around, we've prepared this handy reference (clip 'n save!):

OK, yes, it's a bit more complicated than that, but you have to start somewhere...

The Times also runs an op-ed by John Kasich, who proposes cutting the federal gas tax, along with federal highway expenditures, to reduce the price of gas at the pump and cut out some fairly egregious pork-barrel spending:

Instead of sending our gas tax money to Washington, where the government scrapes a little bit off the top, deals a couple of cards off the bottom and sends just part of our money back to us, we should simply end the program. Congress should scale back the current 18.4 cent-per-gallon federal gas tax to a few cents per gallon, enough money for the government to maintain the Interstate System and oversee other safety concerns.

With the federal gas tax mostly eliminated, states would be responsible for levying their own gas taxes to pay for building and maintaining their own roads and public transportation systems, without interference from the federal government.

Under this proposal, prices at the pump should go down. States wouldn't lose money to Washington politicians and bureaucracy. They also wouldn't be forced to comply with expensive and burdensome federal regulations.

For an idea of what we think about this, in general, consult the New York Times editorial board reference guide above. Or see what Heritage's Ron Utt has to say about it:

[T]he existing federal highway program should be terminated or dramatically revised. One promising solution is to turn the program back to where it once belonged--the states.

Under a "turnback" plan, states would be permitted to collect and retain the federal excise tax of 18.4 cents per gallon and spend it on their own transportation priorities, not Washington's. States would also be freed from the costly and counterproductive federal regulations, mandates, and set-asides, and donor states would no longer be compelled to subsidize the motorists and transit riders in recipient states. To facilitate the move from one system to the other, a transition period of several years duration would be established, and the responsibilities and money would be transferred in increments.

However, for this to work, Utt adds that the federal government needs to "[s]top wasting money"--in other words, cut back on highway spending rather than shifting current highway spending to general revenues.

Larry Hicks of the York Dispatch (York, Pennsylvania) has the same concern:

The only problem is that what the feds give, they also take away. Same goes for the state government, by the way. So if they give us 18.4 cents per gallon -- as a gift to reduce gas prices -- you can be darned sure that doesn't mean they'll cut federal spending by that amount of money.

If past practice is any gauge, what'll happen is the feds will figure out a way to recoup that 18.4 cents somewhere else. A federal tax on milk or tires or the air we breathe or something. Because the federal machine needs to be fed, and when Peter is robbed to pay Paul, Fred will then be gouged to reimburse Peter.