WASHINGTON — Congress and the White House are promising to find ways to pay the crushing costs of Hurricane Katrina, but they are already shooting down leading options that could help achieve that goal.
Washington is flooded with politicians calling on Congress to cover the cost of rebuilding with spending cuts and tax increases. But seasoned anti-deficit legislators doubt they will turn rhetoric into reality.
"There's been a working majority for disregarding fiscal discipline," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg (R-N.H.). He added that he has been urging spending restraint among his colleagues, "but so far, it's been a very small echo chamber."
A proposal to take back thousands of recently approved highway projects -- the cornerstone of a spending-cut plan offered Wednesday by fiscal conservatives -- lacks support even among Republicans. A call by the fiscal conservatives for postponement of the costly new Medicare drug benefit has been swatted down by the White House and GOP leaders. And efforts to cut other domestic programs would probably fall far short of covering the full cost of the hurricane cleanup.
Some fiscal conservatives are hoping that the open-ended costs of rebuilding the Gulf Coast -- on top of burgeoning costs of the war in Iraq and the possibility of another powerful hurricane hitting Texas -- will be a tipping point that brings deficit reduction back in fashion.
"This could be one of those fiscal crossroads moments," said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a budget watchdog group.
But for now, there is no consensus about whether to offset Katrina's costs, let alone how.
Legislators have been assuming the cost of rebuilding the Gulf Coast could run as high as $200 billion. Late last week, Bush said he wanted to cut spending in other programs to pay these costs.
But when pressed for details, White House officials have simply reiterated proposals in the president's annual budget -- $15 billion in domestic spending cuts and $137 billion in 10-year savings from entitlement programs -- even though most of those suggestions have been rejected or ignored by Congress.
For many disgruntled conservatives, the Bush years have left a legacy of big-spending benchmarks. These include the nation's most expensive education, farm subsidy and Medicare bills, a 94% increase in international spending and an increase from 6,000 to 14,000 in the number of federally funded local and state projects, according to an analysis by Brian M. Riedl of the Heritage Foundation.
