Commentary
Oregon Daily Emerald
Thursday, February 17, 2005
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In my opinion
Bush’s budget
BLUNDERS
It’s been a rough decade to be a
fiscal conservative. On account ol
the $300 billion for the wars ir
Afghanistan and Iraq, and massive
(but maybe ill-directed) hikes ir
Medicare, education and labor budg
ets, the American taxpayer has foot
ed the bill for big-ticket line iterm
that have pushed real dollar govern
ment spending past $20,000 pei
household for the first time since
World War II.
That remarkable figure, however,
comes from a report drafted by
the conservative Heritage Founda
tion, usually a supporter of Presi
dent Bush. The administration’s
spending has nettled other conserva
tive-leaning groups too; a Wall Street
Journal editorial complained in
2003 about the “GOP’s spending
spree,” lamenting that “Bush has
yet to meet a spending bill he does
n’t like.” Indeed, the Bush adminis
tration inherited a $236 billion annu
al federal surplus, whereas the
federal deficit will sink to an esti
mated record $427 billion in the
2005 fiscal year.
Of course, an unqualified compar
ison to the fiscal heyday of the late
’90s is neither as fair nor as informa
tive as some of the administration’s
critics like to think: An economic
turndown began before Bush took
office, and the Sept. 11 terrorist at
tacks left already lagging consumei
confidence pallid.
Moreover, the wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq complicate any analysis o!
Bush administration fiscal policy.
Certainly, the need to remove
TRAVIS WILLSE
RIVALLESS WIT
oppressive governments from pow
er, or at least genocidal dictators,
carries a moral necessity that many
leftists deny. (How exactly they
ought to be removed and by whom,
however, are separate and ethically
thornier matters.)
Still, the central folly of the Bush
administration’s economic policy is
not difficult to locate: Bush’s dedica
tion to fiscal conservatism is only
half-hearted.
His moral clarity about fiscal
self-determination is spot-on.
Individuals tend to spend money
on themselves more appropriately
and efficiently than governments
acting on their behalf. Of course,
this is only true up to a point:
Some kinds of infrastructure and
resources are only reasonably
managed by a government. The
funding of reasonably neutral
judiciary and law enforcement
agencies is necessary to protect
civil liberties and other things man
dated by the spirit or letter of
the Constitution.
But somehow, Bush has coupled
the philosophy of a leaner federal
pocketbook with that of a bigger
credit limit. Between Sept. 30, 2000
and the same date in 2004, the fed
eral deficit ballooned by $2.22 tril
lion. That’s about three times the
$714 billion deficit increase, adjust
ed for inflation, of the second term
Reagan presidency, an administra
tion oft maligned as archetypically
poor fiscal managers.
Of course, defense spending
hikes may be necessary in wartime.
Between Bush’s first inauguration
and mid-2003, defense spending
increased by 34 percent. But non
defense discretionary spending
jumped 28 percent during the same
period. In fact, 55 percent of
the spending increases were unrelat
ed to defense and homeland securi
ty, according to the Heritage
Foundation analysis.
The problem is not difficult to see:
Spending has skyrocketed, but
thanks to both a flagging economy
and tax cuts, federal revenue has
decreased. Given that some eight
percent of federal spending now
goes to paying interest on existing
debt, overextending the national
pocketbook is a poor tool for long
term planning.
Present governmental spending
far outstrips what it should be and
tax cuts are economically and moral
ly beneficial, but only when made
fiscally sound by commensurate
spending cuts. Some political battles
are pitched between principle and
pragmatism. Regrettably, the Bush
administration’s economic policies
are allied with neither.
traviswillse® daily emerald, com
■ Guest commentary
Government 'minions' should stay
away from our right to self defense
Guns are tools used to inflict or
threaten violence. Violence or the
use of physical force is the most ba
sic means of providing for one’s per
sonal safety. Should I be denied this
basic right?
Many will point to statistics and
studies to suggest that guns do more
damage than good, and therefore as
sert that the government can legiti
mately revoke this natural right in
the name of “safety.” The standard
social contract follows that in order
to compensate for the loss of the
right to defend one’s self, the govern
ment will provide that defense in the
form of the military, CIA, state and
local police, etc. I challenge this ar
gument on the grounds of my firm
and unwavering views on individual
liberty and freedom, an affirmation
that I thought would be more wel
come on such a “liberal” and “free
spirited” campus.
I firmly believe the government
never has the right to revoke
the right to choose one’s own
method of self-defense, not even in
the name of some illusory vision of
idealism. Even worse than to remove
the right to personal defense is to li
cense it out to an elite class of profes
sional bullies. I don’t want my free
dom subsidized, arbitrarily plucked
from me by some appointed council
that claims for itself the privilege to
apportion out rights and freedom as
it chooses.
Furthermore, I don’t accept how
the government creates a higher
caste of minimally educated “profes
sionals” who get to dispense of my
right to defense. I’m not convinced
any institutional form of forceful so
cial control is inherently better than
I am, and therefore I am convinced it
is essential I am equipped with any
necessary resource to defend myself
and my freedoms against these con
trolling institutions and their sharply
uniformed minions. I don’t trust the
government with my freedom and I
don’t trust their ministers of justice
with keeping me safe.
So, on the basis of a genuine belief
in freedom and distrust of authority,
I’d like to remain my own authority
and not concede to the government
or its institutions any privileges I
cannot revoke at my leisure when
they misuse them.
Chris Fanshier lives in Eugene
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■ Editorial
Is Bush
hoping for
another
Cold War?
North Korea’s declaration that it possesses
nuclear weapons should be a wake-up call for
all Americans. How can the Bush administra
tion expect other countries to abandon their
nuclear aspirations when they have con
doned, and are currently participating in,
nuclear proliferation?
When the father of Pakistan’s nuclear pro
gram, Abdul Qadeer Khan, publicly confessed
to passing nuclear secrets to North Korea, Iran
and Libya last year, the Bush administration did
next to nothing about it. Why? Because Pak
istani President Pervez Musharraf — who knew
about the whole thing according to Khan, an
accusation that Musharraf denies — was our
partner in the war on terror. When you have
friends like these...
President Bush appears to be doing every
thing in his power to start a second nuclear
arms race. Eerily, this week a test of the na
tional missile defense shield failed for the
third straight time in two years, according to
the Los Angeles Times. Furthermore, the ad
ministration is pushing for additional research
into less devastating, so-called “usable”
nuclear weapons.
This has the effect of pushing other countries
into developing their own usable nukes in or
der to even the nuclear playing field. As the
New York Times editorial board wrote on
Feb. 10, “America’s nuclear creativity should be
focused on convincing nations like Iran and
North Korea that nuclear weapons will not en
hance their own security, not on setting a per
verse contrary example.”
From backing out of the Kyoto Protocol —
which took effect Wednesday and was ratified by
140 countries — to refusing to recognize the ju
risdiction of the International Criminal Court, to
advancing a policy of preemptive war, the diplo
macy-phobic Bush administration has done lit
tle except give rogue nations a giant excuse for
their misbehavior. On the global stage, America
acts as if international norms should apply to
everyone but Americans. We have a "do as we
say, not as we do” mentality; this arrogance has
earned our government near universal hatred
throughout the world. When President Bush pro
claims, “Iran with a nuclear weapon would be a
very destabilizing force in the world,” his words
carry the stench of hypocrisy. Do American
nukes, and our new breed of so-called usable
nukes, have a stabilizing force?
If we really want to pursue a “Son of Star
Wars” program, then we should do it multilater
ally and transparently, so that everyone could be
protected by the missile shield. We also need to
double the international inspection effort of the
International Atomic Energy Agency and make
penalties for violations much more severe, as
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan called for at
Sunday’s security conference in Germany.
But most of all, the U.S. has to stop its own
nuclear proliferation by abandoning research
and development on usable nuclear weapons.
In addition, we must work with other nations
to reduce existing arsenals and account for and
protect all nuclear stocks to ensure that one of
those weapons doesn’t fall into the hands of a
terrorist group like al-Qaida.
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David Jagernauth Shadra Beesley
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