Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Better Math Please

On the NRO main page, Vin Weber hails Mitt Romney's so-called plan to control the growth of federal spending:

More than any other candidate, Governor Romney has outlined an aggressive agenda to cut the size of government while transforming it to meet this century’s challenges. The centerpiece of Governor Romney’s proposals to limit the size and scope of government is his pledge to veto any budget — Republican or Democrat — that does not cap non-defense discretionary spending at the rate of inflation minus one percent. This will save taxpayers $300 billion over ten years. Governor Romney will also seek line-item veto power and lead a review of each individual federal program to eliminate bureaucracy and waste.

The line-item veto? Waste, fraud, and abuse? Is disco back too?

This plan to control government spending resembles a plan to lose weight by cutting back on one's consumption of lime-flavored Lifesavers.

For a candidate to say that he wants to cut "non-defense discretionary spending" is to say that he wants to leave 80% of the federal budget off limits - for 80% is the proportion of the budget accounted for by defense and entitlements.

Of course non-defense entitlement spending has been rising too fast in the Bush years. Federal education spending in particular has certainly risen too much. On the other hand, the 50% increase in veterans benefits is an inevitable consequence of the aging of the World War II generation. Nobody is going to complain about the nearly equally steep rise in spending on scientific research. And I think most Republicans want to see the budget for immigration enforcement rise: A fence along the Mexican border will be a pricey item indeed.

Here's the truth that any aggressive budget-cutter has to acknowledge: the single most important driver of the non-defense portion of the budget is the rise in spending on Medicare and Medicaid. And those two programs are driven by the rising cost of healthcare in general. The federal budget problem cannot be fixed unless the American healthcare problem is fixed.

Mitt Romney is ideally placed to be the candidate to address the healthcare problem. That is the reason that I found his candidacy such an appealing one when it began to take form a year ago. But over the past year, Romney has edged away from his own greatest accomplishment, his Massachusetts healthcare plan. His consultants tell him that his Massachusetts healthcare plan will not appeal to Republican primary voters. So instead of talking about the kind of ideas that are actually necessary to get federal spending under control, he offers empty rhetoric about waste, fraud, and abuse and the line-item veto. This stuff ceased to be convincing in 1988. It is incredible that anybody would offer it up as serious public policy for 2008.

I have to believe that Mitt Romney and Vin Weber know better than this. At least I hope they know better. So why don't they do better?

04/24 09:40 AM