Your Tax Dollars at Play

New at Reason: Alaskan skating rinks? An indoor rain forest? Ralph R. Reiland introduces the new big-spending GOP.

Comments

[Pavel]

by that rationale, Bush could appeal to swing voters by cutting the budgets of the most deplored federal agencies... I think that most moderate swing voters would celebrate cuts at the EPA or IRS.

Sure everyone "celebrates" cuts, it doesn't mean they're going to vote. There's no targetted interest group fighting for a narrow interest here.

A hundred million people effected slightly by something like a few dollars extra in their pocket will not rile the amount of votes that a motivated self-interested minority will if they are specifically targetted to recieve, or lose, thousands of dollars.

Bush knows exactly what he's doing. Whether his crazy spending will destroy his image among the swing voting block remains to be seen.

[Shadow Hunter]

Is the rain forest in Iowa part of an University of Iowa expansion? Coralville is essentially a suburb of Iowa City where the University is located. A lot of students have off campus housing there. And the part about no places open after 9:PM sounds like they are showcasing a few of the restaurants there in the Convention & Visitors Bureau guide to class up the joint. Trust me no college student is going without at 2 am in the morning. I can personally attest to the Perkins and Taco Bell.

Before someone takes away my Libertarian credentials, let me say I don't support the federal funding. But, as an UI alum I felt that the hatchet job by Ralph Reiland needed some context.

[aj.]

the dig against Coralville is unfounded, the town is one mile from Iowa City and the University of Iowa. I think there are nightspots open past 9 there.

anyway, why the hell does the Univ of Iowa/Coralville need its own rainforest???? Lunacy

[JayD]

I'll make bush a deal...he can spend all he wants so long as he dismantles the DEA, the IRS, and the ATF. Oh...and the DHS, the EPA, the ONDCP...

c'mon guys, keep it going...

[Fattie]

Our obese government is going to fight obesity? Huzzah?

[shane]

This shows it's easier to pass sepnding increases than spending cuts.

As Pavel noted, there are thousands of narrow, focused, passionate interest groups fighting for a small relative share of the budget, while there are few fighting against those small pieces.

You have to take on the whole enchilada to reduce spending, yet only have to target a small portion of outlays to benefit greatly from lobbying for more money.

[Mark Anderson]

I'm not sure a federal obesity program is worth the money, but I don't understand the logic here. A federal program won't help, but telling fat people to stop eating will? Hey, why don't we cut the FBI budget and just tell criminals to stop robbing banks. It's that simple right? No, and neither is obesity.

[JSM]

It's that simple right?

RIGHT!

Now America, quit getting divorced. Welp, that saved an extra $1.5 bill that could otherwise go to Plan Columbia.

[SPUR]

The quotes from Moore of Club for Growth are ridiculous -- heres a group that sends tens of thousands of dollars to support authoritarian republicans in safe seats like Mark Souder (R-IN) and then claims they are helping reclaim the fiscal conservativism of the republican party because they voted for W's tax cut and the occasional managed trade agreement.

[Jean Bart]

Don't feel too horrible; look what we Europeans have to pay for (of course this is likely more useful than say Alaskan skating rinks):

Europe joins the race to put a man on Mars: http://www.reuters.com/locales/newsArticle.jsp?type=worldNews&locale=en_IN&storyID=4273047

[mojo jojo]

It's all just a bunch of payoffs to political cronies at the taxpayers expense. I mean if you could legally bribe someone, and with another persons money, wouldn't you do it? LOL.

[Isaac Bartram]

Aw geez, thanks JB, I feel so much fucking better.:)

[Andrew]

I make no claim whatsoever to understand the politics of spending...whether or not it makes any political sense for the White House to spend this way, in terms of getting re-elected.

After years as a political observer, I have come to two solid conclusions about the POLITICS of spending:

1) I don't understand it

2) Neither does any other libertarian

Stepping back quite a bit, in principle taxes and spending are supposed to be congressional concerns, and they tend to be...IN A SECOND TERM. An unofficial rule of American politics is that a new president gets a lotta lee-way on his combination of tax and spending decisions-- and a lot less lee-way in his second term, regardless of his plurality.

Get it?

[thoreau]

Andrew-

I hope you're right. I don't see Kerry winning, so I hope you're right that spending will decrease in W's second term. I'm tempted to say it can't possibly get any worse, but there is no situation that a government (yes, even a Republican government) can't make worse...

[Jason Ligon]

Oink.

[late for the boom]

Nobody is going to touch this thread with a ten foot pole. Amazing

[Isaac Bartram]

To paraphrase RMN, we are all Democrats now.

[Russ]

"The numbers tell the story. The average annual real increases in domestic discretionary spending were 2.0 percent under Jimmy Carter, minus 1.3 percent in the Reagan years, 4.0 percent with George H.W. Bush, 2.5 percent in the Clinton years, and 8.2 percent with George W. Bush."

Frightening... one could almost get nostalgic for the Clinton years.

[thoreau]

I see nothing but perfect fiscal discipline here.

No joke. Here's how:

Undisciplined spending would be indiscriminate. Just spray money everywhere. But all of this spending is carefully targeted. Some is to appease the base (e.g. promote marriage). Some is to win over midwestern swing states (e.g. a rain forest in Iowa). Some is to make the President look more moderate (e.g. arts funding). The moderate stuff won't win over lefty voters, but it will make Bush more palatable to moderate swing voters. Some is to win over retired swing voters in Florida (e.g. free pills).

So I don't see any crazy spending. I see a well-planned spending spree.

See, Republicans do too know how to control spending. 🙂

[Russ]

Thoreau,

by that rationale, Bush could appeal to swing voters by cutting the budgets of the most deplored federal agencies... I think that most moderate swing voters would celebrate cuts at the EPA or IRS.

[joe]

The elephant in the room is the coming Social Security shortfall. The best way to pay for it is to go temporarily into debt, but this can only happen if the initial debt level is low enough (ideally, nonexistant) that the social security-caused debt will not cause the overall debt level to rise to an unsustainable level. Shrub and his buddies, knowing that what they want to do with social security is politically unfeasible, are basically bankrupting the federal treasury in order to force what they want on an unwilling public. So the spending is being done in the service of a principle - the principle that this country would be better off with a huge debt AND no system to guarantee a decent standard of living for elderly people.

[Fasano Luke]

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DATE: 05/20/2004 11:07:34
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