I am excited to have my first official copy of the United States budget for 2006. The annual release of the president’s budget is an event unto its own, typically followed by political pageantry and hard-nosed analysis. I was desperate for a piece of the action. When some slick senator complains the president balances the budget on the backs of the poor, I want to be there, budget in hand, to call him a phony or rejoice in his analytic prowess. I had splendid visions of poring over numbers, rounding them to the fifth significant digit and pulling all-nighters to check the assertion that nondefense discretionary spending would decrease 1 percent, adjusting for inflation.
What follows is the tale of my journey through the U.S. budget catacombs.
Did you know a copy of the budget costs $67? Neither did I. Adding the appendix costs another $85, and the cheapskates at the Government Printing Office weren’t running a two-for-one deal. Determined not to feel forlorn, I rationalized my expenditure by convincing myself it may actually help reduce the enormous deficit. I did calculations, figuring about $4.5 billion would be generated if 10 percent of the U.S. population ordered the budget and appendix. Suddenly I felt like a better citizen.
I’ll never forget the day it arrived. The packaging consisted of thick cardboard — proper material, I concluded, for something as important as the budget. And when I tore through it, with heart pounding and pencil sharpened, I received a whiff of air reminiscent of freshly-printed material. This one, I knew, was created especially for me. The experience was solidified when I read its cover: Fiscal Year 2006 Budget of the U.S. Government.
Unfortunately, this also was when things started going downhill. One of the first things I realized while perusing the budget was its glossy pages. Fairly ostentatious, I thought, for a book of numbers. But then I made another startling observation: the near absence of numbers themselves. Missing are the data tables, the graphs charting our course back to fiscal solvency, the convincing figures detailing national priorities. Instead, the budget is littered with color photographs of President Bush talking with employees at U.S.A. Industries (how many manufacturing jobs were lost?) and others showing Secret Service agents getting out of a car (with a caption noting, “The Secret Service ensures the safety of the president”).
Something was clearly wrong. Perhaps I received the wrong budget, the one sent to folks living outside Washington. None of the numbers the experts cited could be located in my budget: the food stamp and Amtrak cuts, the additional money to fund Afghanistan and Iraq and the increased allocation for Homeland Security. Oddly, I didn’t find evidence of any program whose days are numbered, but I did read growth in overall discretionary spending is supposed to be below inflation. Amazing, I thought, since 37 programs received spending increases.
There wasn’t mention of Bush’s proposal to cut $60 billion in Medicaid spending. I did see a reference to providing “states with additional flexibility in Medicaid to further increase coverage among low-income individuals and families without creating additional costs for the federal government.” There was more colorful language regarding deficit reduction: “The 2004 deficit came in $109 billion lower than originally estimated … the actual 2004 deficit, while still too large, was well within historical range and only the 10th biggest deficit in the last 25 years.” Increase health coverage? Only the 10th largest deficit? Confusion.
The Constitution doesn’t actually authorize the president to prepare and submit a budget each year. Indeed, modern presidents have been budget activists to varying degrees, mixing different amounts of good information with “budget spin” to promote their agendas. But it seems unlikely what I received would be helpful to decision-makers. At least I know now the budget request for the obscure Institute of Museum and Library Services — $262 million.
Chris Herbst is a public policy doctoral student. He can be reached at cherbst@umd.edu.
