DALLAS – One didn't need the acute hearing of a Blue Dog to hear Rep. Gary Condit's career crumbling during a prime-time interview that did the California Democrat more harm than good. Condit should have gone with that ol' standby for politicians in hot water: "I don't recall.''
Washington would accept that. It is willing to forgive politicians who forget what they say – or do – from day to day.
Witness the surreal debate surrounding another Beltway mystery, that of the vanishing budget surplus, and how it is that no one recalls where it went or who spent it.
Democrats are doggedly trying to re-fight another of yesterday's battles – this time, the $1.3-trillion Bush tax cut – by complaining that what was projected in May to be a $275-billion surplus will actually clock in at a measly $153 billion come the end of September.
TRENDING: St. Patrick's role on the 'external hard drive'
Meanwhile, the White House continues to attempt to pull a rabbit out of the hat by pressing ahead with plans to modernize education, subsidize prescription drugs, reform Medicare, build missile defense and privatize Social Security.
The Bush administration – according to its CEO – intends to deliver on those promises while also promising not to touch the portion of the surplus specifically generated by Social Security taxes. In fact, President Bush declared recently, the only justification for dipping into the mythical Social Security "trust fund'' (which doesn't exist in the first place, but that's another story) would be an economic emergency or war. The White House claims the budget will still be $1 billion in the black.
But just this week, the Congressional Budget Office said that the spending already approved, or necessary for government operations, would eat up as much $30 billion from the Social Security surplus. That's $9 billion this year, $18 billion in 2003, and $3 billion in 2004.
Forget voodoo economics. Bush's plan is loco economics. No wonder his chief economic adviser, Lawrence Lindsey, confessed recently on a Sunday talk show that even if he were permitted to play the stock market, he might not.
The Democrats are no better at managing the pocketbook. After trying unsuccessfully to demagogue the tax cut by claiming that it offered a Lexus to some and a muffler to others, many Democrats saw that the bandwagon was leaving without them and jumped on. Joining with moderate Republicans, they proposed a tax cut of their own that – at about $900 billion – was considerably smaller than the $1.6 trillion cut asked for by Bush but not much less than the $1.3 trillion eventually agreed upon. Then they took their share of credit.
But when someone noticed that the surplus had been depleted, they started pointing fingers. Even now, while supposedly indignant over the tax cut that ate the surplus, Democrats are not sufficiently upset to repeal it. These donkeys are no dummies. Instead, the party of Truman passes the buck. Democratic luminaries such as Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina now demand that the White House lead itself – and the Democrats – out of this mess.
If these are our tax dollars at work, the rebate checks should have been larger.
Those who share credit should share blame. Besides, it is outrageous for Democrats to howl at the idea of tapping a Social Security surplus when they have refused to bite the bullet and do anything that might spare America's most beloved entitlement program from bankruptcy. Rather than propose a nearly $1-trillion tax cut themselves – only to have giver's remorse – they could have spent that money to convert Social Security to a partially private system. Instead, they demonized the president's bipartisan commission on Social Security for even labeling the current system unsustainable.
Republicans, too, need to level with the American people and admit that the tax cut – even if justifiable – was so extravagant as to make it impossible to pay for the rest of the Bush agenda without tapping the Social Security surplus. And, on the tax cut, they should not shy away from telling voters what most of us already know – that we cannot have our surplus and eat it too.
Both parties need to avoid pulling a Condit. They need to grow up, take responsibility for their actions, come clean with the American people about the exact nature of their dealings with those government funds and tell them everything they know about the missing surplus.