instead of finding the best one, and before long they’re working at cross-purposes
and shutting out any new rivals.”
One lobbyist put it frankly: “There is nothing more permanent in this town than
a temporary program.” From my own experience, I can verify the statement.
For example, the Low Income Heating and Energy Assistance Program was
established to protect low-income households against a steep hike in fuel costs. The
energy crisis faded and prices returned to normal, but the program lives on now
almost two decades later.
The helium reserve was established to guarantee the government an adequate
supply during World War II. Fifty years later, in the aftermath of the Cold War, the
reserve remains in the federal budget.
The Civilian Marksmanship Program was initiated in response to the poor rifle
skills exhibited by recruits during the Spanish-American War. In large part, it continues
to this day because the subsidy has underwritten an annual rifle competition sponsored
by one of the most powerful interest groups in the nation, the National Rifle Association.
There is an old adage: “Nothing is a priority when everything is a priority.” By
succumbing to myriad demands to add one more and then one more and then yet
another program to the federal budget, Congress under Democratic control essentially
and eventually discredited the government by promising too much and delivering a
bureaucratic mumble-jumble that delivered too little.
Deficit pressure also has dampened public trust in government and weakened
voter support for new initiatives. The federal budget has not been in balance since
1969. Deficits soared from $65 billion in the last year of the Carter administration to
twice that amount in the first year of the Reagan term. Throughout the remaining years
of the Reagan-Bush era, deficits ranged from $150 billion to $290 billion. Deficits
have dominated public policy deliberations for more than a decade. Voter awareness
of and anxiety about a federal government that spends beyond its means have fueled
animus toward policymakers and bureaucrats alike.
In response, initiatives such as the Gramm-Rudmann-Hollings budget act and
the “pay as you go” provisions of the 1990 budget reconciliation bill have been
instituted to provide fiscal discipline. The demise of the Catastrophic Health Care bill
in 1989 demonstrates the difficulty of advancing new and expensive programs in a
pay-as-you-go environment. The Clinton health bill faced a similar demise for much
the same reason: Budget procedures demanded that the proposal be honestly
financed. When the true costs of the program were openly debated, the public
recoiled from the prospect of creating a new and large federal bureaucracy.
Existing entitlement programs, however, are not subject to the same budget
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