One of Mr. Reagan's few failings as president was a reluctance to veto spending bills that arrived for his signature billions of dollars over budget. The result was big deficits. Mr. Clinton, meanwhile, proved that a president can veto congressional budgets, even to the point of shutting down the government, and still win the subsequent public-relations war. Mr. Bush must hold the veto threat over Congress because every extra dollar of wasteful spending is a dollar unavailable for the crown jewel of his economic plan, the tax cut. If Mr. Bush scales back his tax cut, and trillions of dollars of surplus tax collections continue arriving at the Treasury, we could very easily see the biggest spending binge in Washington since LBJ launched the Great Society.
Revenues whet the congressional spending appetite.
Even under the Bush budget, the federal government will continue to grow too rapidly. There are defects, including the absurd proposal to nearly double the Department of Education budget over the next five years. Experience indicates this plan will make the schools worse, not better. But on balance, this is a fiscal plan that cuts taxes, slows domestic spending, moves to private accounts for Social Security, and has special-interest groups in Washington hopping mad. It's a prosperity budget that fiscal conservatives should rally behind, and for which the president should fight relentlessly.