The president's budget: loving your leviathan
George F. Will on the president's "austere" budget:
It proposes spending 38 percent more than the government was spending when Bush became president. It would slice off only thin slivers here and there: Remember, entitlements and interest are two-thirds of the budget and discretionary domestic spending is just 17 percent. It calls for a 3.6 percent increase over last year's spending total. Discretionary spending unrelated to security is slated to decrease only 0.7 percent. The net cut of 1 percent of the Education Department's budget is a mere nick to a budget that has grown 40 percent under Bush.
Total spending proposed by the president: $2.57 trillion. Meanwhile, Mr. Bush has promised to veto any decrease in spending for the new prescription drug benefit for seniors, even though that program is facing a $324 billion cost overrun.
I don't think it was true even at the time President Clinton said it, but plainly it's not true now. The era of big government -- really big government, no less -- is not over; it's only just begun.