Holding The High Cards

s poker players ruefully remark, you play the hand you're dealt. It may seem a loser, but skillful play still can produce a win. President Bush and his budget director, Mitch Daniels, now are playing the hand they were dealt this fall, and success may well be in the cards.

There has been no shortage of criticism of the choices Bush and Daniels made in assembling their first full budget, outlining spending in fiscal 2003 and beyond. Some say there's too much for defense; others complain about the virtual freeze on domestic discretionary spending unless it's related to improving homeland security. The use of Social Security surpluses to finance deficit spending in the government's other accounts has been attacked, as has consequent failure to reduce the national debt.

These may not be the highest cards in the deck, but Bush certainly has matched his spending priorities to the urgently apparent needs of the times. The big increase for the Defense Department, the largest since the early Reagan years, would enhance the country's offensive and defensive might. Some might say the President's very expensive fighter aircraft and defensive missile shield programs are poorly targeted in light of the threats we're facing now, but they're part of a red-white-and-blue package that could well prove hard for the other players around the table to beat.

Homeland security initiatives, including boosts for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Customs Service and the Coast Guard are a long overdue downpayment on repairing the capabilities of these important agencies. Here too, Bush's hand appears unassailable, even by those who would like to see more of the budget ticketed for the needy in American society.

And by virtue of flawless fiscal policy timing, Bush has been able to call his Democratic critics' bluff on rolling back last year's tax cuts. He holds the high cards.

The budget, as Matthew Weinstock observes this month, makes much of the President's effort to link funding to the effectiveness of programs. This desirable linkage is achievable in agencies whose operations can be reliably measured-the Coast Guard, for instance. It's more difficult to do in the case of many domestic spending programs-as demonstrated by the sharp debate surrounding the Head Start program described by Shawn Zeller's article.

Might one accuse the tight-fisted Daniels of going soft on WIC-the nutrition program for women, infants and children? It was one of only three programs Daniels praised-and the only social program-in a speech last November, and it got a modest budget increase for 2003. Yet there's really no evidence that WIC produces better health in its recipients, according to a recent detailed evaluation by an American Enterprise Institute team.

Articles in this issue of Government Executive certainly bolster the case for more spending on homeland defense. Katherine Peters' on-the-scenes account of the impossible job faced by federal inspectors who have to deal with huge and growing volumes of imports at New York Harbor is enough to curl one's hair. Jason Peckenpaugh recounts the great strains new port security duties have imposed on the Coast Guard. In two stories featured on our cover this month, Jonathan Walters and Shane Harris outline the essential task of improving cooperation and communications among all of the many security and public health agencies in our fragmented intergovernmental system. It will take years and many billions of dollars to correct these long-neglected deficiencies.