2003 Budget Completes Big Jump in Spending
The Bush administration is poised to complete the biggest increase in government spending since the 1960s' "Great Society," the result of conducting the war on terrorism while substantially boosting the education and transportation budgets, according to a detailed analysis of government spending patterns.</br></br>Spending on government programs will increase by 22 percent from 1999 to 2003 in inflation-adjusted dollars, according to the analysis by The Washington Post and vetted by budget experts in both parties.</br></br>The president's 2003 budget proposals, combined with spending approved in the first year of his administration and the last two years of the Clinton administration, dwarf the spending increase from any four-year period since President Lyndon Johnson fought the Vietnam War while launching a war on poverty. Other periods of substantial increases in domestic spending, including the Nixon and Carter administrations, were accompanied by cuts in military spending. President Ronald Reagan boosted money for the mili- tary while trimming the domestic budget.</br></br>In the short term, the latest spending hike is one factor helping to pull the nation out of recession. But over the long run, some experts say, most of the spending will be a drag on the economy, heighten the risk of sustained budget deficits and limit the maneuvering room of policymakers when, 10 years from now, the government must help fund the baby boomers' health care and retirement needs.</br></br>"We should be very concerned," said John Cogan, a budget expert at the Hoover Institution who advised the Bush campaign. "Clearly, the defense and national security increases are warranted. The failure to offset those increases with reductions should be a source of concern. The wrong thing to do is not confront those choices."