State of Union Proposals Could Add $106.6 Billion Per Year to Taxpayer's Tab, Says National Taxpayers Union Foundation 1/30/2002
From: Tom McClusky or Pete Sepp, 703-683-5700, both of the National Taxpayers Union Foundation ALEXANDRIA, Jan. 30 -- President George W. Bush's State of the Union speech may have emphasized America's commitments to the War on Terror abroad, but taxpayers could actually be shelling out more for his proposals to boost funds for non-security programs here at home. According to a line-by-line analysis released today by National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF), President Bush proposed at least $106.6 billion in new annual federal spending last night - 52 percent of which is largely unrelated to homeland security or national defense. Bush's overall combined total is 24 percent less than what his predecessor Bill Clinton proposed in his final State of the Union address in 2000. "Although President Bush delivered a loud and clear message on the need to fund the War on Terror, his domestic agenda actually calls for even more spending," said NTUF Senior Policy Analyst and study author Tom McClusky. Among McClusky's findings: -- Bush would increase homeland security and defense spending by $51.4 billion per year. Contrary to popular reports, this increase far exceeds what was enacted during the height of the Reagan buildup. In 1982, defense spending rose by $26.2 billion (in 2002 dollars). Bush's proposals last night doubled that amount. -- In spite of this massive jump, Bush also proposed to raise domestic spending by $55.2 billion per year, on items ranging from farm policy to prescription drug coverage. -- One of Bush's new wish-list items - recruiting 200,000 FreedomCorps "volunteers" - is actually a $5.8 billion re-tread of the AmeriCorps program, which has long been criticized for fiscal mismanagement in General Accounting Office and federal Inspector General reports. Even Bill Clinton, who aggressively promoted AmeriCorps, called for a boost of just $336 million to tax-funded "volunteer" programs in his final State of the Union speech. -- Even though Bush proposed more than twice as much in defense and security spending hikes as Clinton did in the year 2000, Clinton proposed more than twice as much in non-defense domestic spending. The bottom line: George W. Bush would raise total federal spending by $106.6 billion per year, compared to $140 billion per year in Clinton's last wish list. Since 1991, NTUF has regularly tracked the fiscal impact of proposed legislation through BillTally, a computerized database that reports the "net annual agenda cost" for each Member of Congress, based on individual sponsorships and co-sponsorships of pending legislation. For this analysis, McClusky matched Bush's proposals line-by-line with those in the BillTally system and in White House documents. President Bush proposed making 2001's tax cuts permanent, which would be of great benefit to taxpayers. However, McClusky noted that NTUF's estimates for the spending side of the ledger were conservative. For example, Bush apparently called for an unspecified increase in funding for schools, even after recently signing an education bill that would raise yearly education spending by a whopping $47 billion. "The 'guns and butter' philosophy of the late 1960s went on to help create a decade of high tax burdens, deficits, and general economic misery," McClusky concluded. "Today, taxpayers and policymakers alike may need to weigh the costs and benefits of both domestic and defense spending proposals in order to avoid falling into the same mindset." NTUF is the research affiliate of the 335,000-member National Taxpayers Union, a nonprofit citizen group working for lower taxes and less wasteful spending. Note: A line-by-line chart of the costs of President Bush's State of the Union proposals, an additional graphic comparison of Bush's proposals to Bill Clinton's speeches, and further information on BillTally are all available online at http://www.ntu.org |