Budget Battles: Campaign promises and budget dreams

There has been some increased federal budget activity on the presidential campaign trail in recent days. George W. Bush made a statement several weeks ago on a variety of aspects of the budget process while Al Gore made a nationally covered speech about his plans for the surplus. And both of the presumed nominees have talked about tax cuts lately.

Stump speeches aside, an incoming president usually has little ability to make big or rapid changes in the budget.

The most important thing to keep in mind about all this recent posturing-as well as that still to come-is simple: It probably does not matter.

Presidential campaigns happen months before anyone is sworn into office. By the time the president-elect takes the oath and starts to govern, the economic situation is often very different than the one that existed while he was running.

In this case both candidates are making statements about what they would do on the budget seven months before the inauguration. Very little is likely to be the same next January as it is today.

In addition, very few presidents are in a position to have an immediate impact on the budget-no matter what they say during the campaign or how earnestly they say it. The fiscal year is almost four months old by the time a new president moves into the White House. It is even older by the time an administration's machinery is in place to propose what should be done-most revisions to a previous president's budget submission are sent to Capitol Hill in March or April. And it is older still by the time the new Congress decides who will serve on which committees, the committees decide on their subcommittees, everyone figures out the agenda and the legislation making the changes gets enacted... that is, if it gets enacted at all.

This means that in the absence of some type of crisis that everyone acknowledges must be quickly addressed, or what is perceived to be a clear mandate that dare not be ignored, the incoming president usually has little ability to make big or rapid changes in the budget.

But there are also other reasons to look skeptically at the budget pronouncements of the presidential candidates.

First, their economic advisers will probably be different after the election. To the great consternation of most campaign workers, a president's senior policy advisers after the election are usually quite a different group from those who advised the candidate. The cabinet often consists of women and men who had little or no role in the campaign; the president needs to take their biases, contacts, experiences and expertise into account when dealing with the whole budget and the budgets of their agencies and departments. In addition, the Congress the new president has to deal with will be different from the one that existed during the campaign. Statements made now about how the new president would change the process to avoid slowdowns and shutdowns may no longer be relevant if the House or Senate changes hands or if the majority in either chamber changes substantially.

Similarly, stated preferences about which programs would be increased or how they would be changed that are made in the legislative vacuum of the campaign must be rethought, reworked or dropped completely before being offered to a real Congress that must pass judgment on them.

This last point is actually the most important reason that the current budget statements by Bush and Gore should be taken with a grain of salt. During the campaign, promises on the budget can be made without any real concern about whether they will actually be enacted. Each of the presumptive nominees can act like he will be king rather than president, and be able to impose his preferences by fiat rather than legislative compromise.

We know from the debates of the past few years that there is little or no consensus on what to do with the budget in Washington. We also know that narrow majorities in the House and Senate, having a surplus instead of a deficit, and the seemingly strong desire by voters to have Congress and the White House do nothing that might mess up the extraordinary economic situation currently enjoyed, have combined to essentially freeze budget policymaking in place.

None of this is expected to be very different after the election. With no obvious mandate for a change on the budget likely to be forthcoming from the voters, there is no reason to think that the next president will have the desire or ability to make big changes- regardless of what is said on the stump this summer.

Question Of The Week

Last Week's Question. "Budget Battles" readers were asked who makes the 302(b) allocations that are used to determine whether an appropriation bill is above or below the limits set in the budget resolution. The answer is the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, which determine the allocations for their respective house. In the words of two-time former winner Richard Kogan, this means "...the 302(b)s for each body need not initially match each other." Because of the large number of correct responses, two winners of an "I Won A Budget Battle" T-shirt were selected at random. They are: Douglas Wagner, press secretary to Rep. Jim Leach, R-Iowa, in his Cedar Rapids office, and Brad Hunt, an adjunct professor of history at Roosevelt University in Chicago.

This Week's Question. Here's your chance to win your own "I Won A Budget Battle" T-shirt to wear while watching Fourth of July fireworks. What is the deadline for the Office of Management and Budget to release its mid-session review of the budget? Send your response to scollender@nationaljournal.com by 5 p.m. EDT on Saturday, June 24. Please include the address to which you want the shirt sent if you win. If there is more than one correct response, the winner will be selected by random drawing.