It’s bad enough that we have murderous Islamofascists wanting to kill Christians and Muslims. But this War on Terror is starting to bring out the bigots on the other side, who insist that we’re fighting a war not against terrorists, but against all Muslims. They want to pervert the US into an instrument of crusade, twisting our desire to prevent terrorism into a way to further a centuries-old grudge against some other religion.
They haven’t quite come out and called for the liquidation of the Muslims, but as far as I can tell neither has Iranian President Ahmadinejad called for the murder of every Jew, either.
We did not think, even 1 percent, that the capture would lead to a war at this time and of this magnitude. You ask me, if I had known on July 11 … that the operation would lead to such a war, would I do it? I say no, absolutely not.
That’s what the head of Hezbollah said of the Israeli attacks on his terror group. When your enemy regrets picking the fight, and wouldn’t fight you again, what more proof do you need?
Continuing my improbable defense of the current era of federal spending, I now address the rallying cry of the critics from the Heritage Foundation on down: non-defense discretionary spending. To summarize my findings: I don’t see the pattern of spending that the critics claim exists, as usual.
In part one of this informal series, I found that total spending is in line with the historic trend. In part two, I showed that pork spending is a negligible part of the federal budget. Previously I have dismissed my doubters as slicing and dicing the figures too much, but I have grown curious as to whether even that analysis holds up, so here it goes.
The sources for the following figures are Federal Spending – By The Numbers by Brian M. Riedl of The Heritage Foundation for the spending breakdowns (see the last page for the table I used), The Bureau of Labor Statistics for CPI deflators, and Citizens Against Government Waste for pork spending estimates.
We know we spent more money in 2005 than we did in 1990, the first year in the Heritage analysis, but where has that money gone? Broadly, we split the budget into two categories. So-called mandatory spending is fixed by law and the Congress does not even bother to decide how much to spend on an annual basis. This spending is on total autopilot. The rest of the federal outlay is then grouped into the so-called discretionary pot.
As it turns out, of the $688 billion (all dollar figures are 2005 dollars) in spending growth in the period, $470 billion of it is in the mandatory pile:
That doesn’t tell us much, though. So let’s break it down more specifically. The following chart uses the figures from Riedl with two exceptions. I added his categories of “Other Discretionary Spending” and “Katrina” together, then subtracted 20 billion from that to create a new discretionary spending category: Pork. And here’s what we get:
For the first few minutes this post was up, the graph was incorrect. I inadvertently left off a digit in the pork figures, making that slice too small. The graph has been corrected. The other graphs were unaffected by this typo.
(SS stands for Social Security, HS stands for Homeland Security) Aha! Non-defense, non-homeland security discretionary spending is right up there with Medicare as a top growth area in the budget! That’s true, but do we really want to pretend that about 20% of the total spending growth is the One True Indicator of conservatism?
For the sake of argument, let’s say we do. So, let’s look at where this non-defense, non-homeland security spending has gone year by year:
Well what do you know. We did have an ‘orgy of spending’ for exactly one year: 2002, the year we were all running around like chickens with our heads cut off after 9/11. That spike leads me to believe that Riedl missed some Homeland Security money in the Other pile. But even if he didn’t, look where we’ve gone since 2002: right back to normal, below even the final Clinton years.
So slice and dice our Congressional majorities if you must, but please keep things in perspective.
As the Iraqis stand up, we’ll stand down, President Bush has said. Well, look who are climbing to their feet:
See Streiff at Red State for more from his steady stream of great military insight.
Ordinarily I think fighting pork is a waste of time, since it’s only 1% of the federal budget. But when guys like Senator Stevens of Alaska rub it in our noses, it’s soooo easy to just join the mob.
So now I’m all-out rooting for Senator Coburn to stick it to Alaska. Just because it’ll make me feel better.
Well, my brother’s gone to a college where they, well, give great structure to his life. No, it’s not military, it’s religious. So while he’s spending time doing that, I’m taking good care of his Nintendo DS.
I’m on world 4, having completely done the first three worlds. By complete I mean complete: all coins, all secret levels. So far I’m pleased with the game. The sound effects from Mario 64 and later games don’t fit in well, but the SMB 1, SMB 3, and Super Mario World influences dominate.
Oh, and a few of the ‘minigames’ are alright. I guess when you throw enough of them at the player, a few have to stick.
The inflation picture’s looking just fine since the Fed’s string of interest rate hikes ended. Yes, it appears that part of the problem is that a combination of higher gas prices and a bursting housing bubble may be threatening to slow down the Bush boom, but reasonable growth with modest inflation is better than many outcomes.
Last thing we need is an economic slowdown ahead of the 2008 election…
If Hurricane Katrina’s strength was Bush’s fault, was Tropical Storm Ernesto’s weakness to Bush’s credit?
The California State Assembly has passed SB840, a bill that would ban health insurance, the purchase of medical care, and create a socialized medicine system in this state.
I’m just appalled. This is such a ridiculous, mind-boggling attack on freedom and quality of life. And on top of that, Pat Cleary cals it California’s Economic Death Wish.
Fortunately Phil Angelides even refuses to endorse SB840, and Governor Schwarzenegger will have a chance to veto this thing once the Senate re-passes it.
I’m still nervous. This is a nightmare.
Finally, Ramon Martinez hits his first career walk-off homer on the first pitch in the bottom half of the inning.
The Dodgers stay up by 3 over the Padres, the Reds fall behind the Padres by a half game in the wild card, and I’m going to bed.
I sure have been picking good games to watch, though. “Good morning, everybody,” Vin Scully says. You don’t hear him say that at the end of the game very often.