In his recent State of the Union address, George Bush said:

My budget substantially reduces or eliminates more than 150
government programs that are not getting results or duplicate current
efforts or do not fulfill essential priorities.

The principle here is clear: Taxpayer dollars must be spent wisely or not at all.

That sounds like a good idea. Wise, prudent spending on programs that work. Let’s look around the US government and see what’s not getting results and what doesn’t fulfill essential priorities.

Social Security? At the end of 2003, Social Security paid monthly benefits to 47 million people, about 1 in 6 of all Americans. Total income during 2003 was $632 billion, and total expenditures $479 billion. The excess $153 billion went into the trust fund that will cover baby boomers when they retire; that fund is now up to $1.5 trillion. Of the $479 billion in 2003 expenditures, $471 billion was benefit payments; that means less than 1.7% of outlay was required to administer of the program. Pretty efficient, I’d say.

No, I guess Bush wasn’t talking about Social Security.

Maybe he meant missile defense, once called Star Wars. This program has been running $7 to $9 billion a year, and the total cost will be at least $100 billion. Some deployment began in 2004, but this research-level system provides no defense. With minor exceptions, the rudimentary testing conducted to date has been a failure. As Ann Scott Tyson reports in today’s Washington Post:

For the second time in as many months, the Bush administration’s new missile defense system failed to complete a key test yesterday, automatically shutting down a few seconds before an interceptor missile was to launch toward a mock enemy warhead.

The Pentagon’s missile defense system, even if it is ever fully implemented, will not be capable of intercepting most missiles that might be launched toward the US. It provides no protection against terrorist threats, which are far more likely than missile attacks.

Yes, that sounds like unwise spending to me. I wonder why Bush requested $10 billion for missile defense in the FY2005 budget. An oversight, I presume.

Perhaps he was talking about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We’re now up to $275 billion and counting. There were no WMDs in either country, no connection with Al Qaeda in Iraq, and no immediate danger to the US. But we are spending at least $1,000 for every person in the US, as Steve Clemons points out, for the dual invasion and occupation. There are other costs: 100,000 dead Iraqis, 3,500 dead Afghans, 1,618 dead American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. To say nothing of the loss of American influence, of soft power around the world. We are now less safe, less secure, than we were before incurring those costs—so this must be one of those programs the president was talking about.

But for some reason Bush has just requested an additional, off-budget $82 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The need for these special funds must have been a real surprise to him,
since he didn’t think of including them in the regular budget a couple
of weeks ago—I presume he now realizes that the elections in those
countries will not end the American occupation, and the occupation of hostile countries costs
money. Or maybe it’s just another oversight.

Congress should take Bush at his word and refuse to fund either Star Wars or the colonization of West Asia. That would leave $92 billion this year alone that could be applied to the Social Security trust fund, extending its full funding from 2052 to at least 2055. After all, Social Security is a program that is getting results, does not duplicate current
efforts, and does fulfill essential priorities. Congress, heed the words of the principled, compassionate Mr Bush: "Taxpayer dollars must be spent wisely or not at all."