Conservatives dispute Bush spending estimates

WASHINGTON -- After three straight years of double-digit increases in federal spending, President Bush and the Republican Congress say they have the situation under control. But a number of conservatives say the actual spending this year will be triple the figures cited by the White House.

The two camps have chosen different kinds of budget numbers to bolster their positions. Bush enumerates the amount of spending that Congress authorizes each year. His critics cite the actual amount the government is spending.

In effect, the president and his allies are counting the money put into the spending pipeline, while the others figure the amount flowing out the other side, some of which may have been slowly trickling through for years.

The debate over federal spending has become politically charged, with both sides tossing out markedly divergent numbers. On Dec. 15, Bush said at a news conference that his administration and the GOP-controlled Congress had held spending not related to the military or homeland security to a 6 percent increase in fiscal year 2002, with a 5 percent increase last fiscal year and a 3 percent increase for the 2004 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1.

"We're working with Congress to hold the line on spending," Bush said.

Tad DeHaven, a budget researcher at the libertarian Cato Institute, published his version of the numbers a few days later. He found a 6.8 percent increase in the same categories in 2002, an 8.3 percent increase last fiscal year, and a 6.3 percent increase this year -- more than double Bush's 2004 number.

The president's figures "amount to a spin job," DeHaven wrote on the website of the conservative National Review. "Many people who support the president's tax cuts and his conduct of the war can no longer stomach his expansion of big government via big spending."

Congressional Republicans say they will hold overall discretionary spending this year to a 3 percent increase, with military spending rising 1.2 percent. Brian M. Riedl, an analyst at the Heritage Foundation, put the spending increase this year at triple the GOP's number, or 9 percent.

Wall Street also is raising doubts about the White House's budget optimism. Sung Won Sohn, chief economist at Wells Fargo & Co. and a noted economic optimist, has warned clients, "The budget deficit could lead to sharply higher inflation, rising interest rates, and a falling dollar unless measures are taken to restrain them."

Both sides may be correct, budget specialists say. The difference is whether they are counting budget authority, which is the spending authorized by Congress each year, or outlays, the funds actually shelled out by the government.

Federal budget authority grew 11 percent in 2002 and 15.3 percent in 2003, but if Congress and Bush refrain from enacting additional emergency spending bills over the next nine months, budget authority this fiscal year will rise only 3.1 percent, said the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan scorekeeper.

Actual spending, however, shows little sign of abatement. Outlays rose by 13.2 percent in fiscal 2002, 15.2 percent in 2003, and 8.9 percent in 2004 -- an average growth rate of 12.4 percent.