"Nobody believes that's going to happen," Flake said. "It's frankly a pretty transparent gimmick."
Bush set a firm cost limit of $6.7 billion for tax breaks in the energy bill. Congress then approved breaks worth $11.5 billion over 10 years in an energy bill that will cost $12.3 billion overall. In late June, the White House hastily requested an additional $975 million to finance unanticipated veterans' health care costs for 2005. The Senate responded with $1.5 billion.
So far, Congress has completed only two of 13 annual spending bills, but both -- one primarily financing the Interior Department, the other funding Congress -- busted lawmakers' prescribed spending caps, by $134 million. The House and Senate have passed spending plans for the departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and Education that exceed Bush's request by billions.
And on July 14, the House overwhelmingly approved a major water bill that authorizes projects worth $10.3 billion over 10 years -- $4.4 billion in the first five. In 2000, Congress approved a similar act worth a fraction of that, $1.6 billion over five years.
To fiscal conservatives, it is not just the total cost of the bills but also their content. Covering 1,752 pages, the highway bill is the most expensive public works legislation in U.S. history, complete with 6,376 earmarked projects, according to the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense. Kern County, Calif., home of powerful House Ways and Means Chairman Committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R), snagged $722 million in projects, or nearly $1,000 per person. Los Angeles County, with clogged highways and 10 million people, will receive barely $60 per resident.
Even before the bill was signed, Kane County, Ill., leaders showed their faith in Speaker Hastert last week by unveiling blueprints for a $120 million bridge, to be financed largely by the federal government.
This week, House GOP leaders sent their legislators 52 pages of talking points, some addressing fiscal discipline, others touting the spending. The final page lays out 12 "Ideas for August Recess Events," none of which trumpets small government.
Sean M. Spicer, a spokesman for House Republican Conference Chairman Deborah Pryce (Ohio), said lawmakers have nothing to be ashamed of. House appropriators have recommended that 101 federal programs be terminated, at a savings of $4.6 billion. And House members have pushed their Senate colleagues to stay pretty close to the budget limits.
The highway bill means jobs, he said. The energy bill addresses a pressing national interest, and no one is going to complain about additional funding for veterans' health care, he added.
"With Congress unable to keep its pocketbook pocketed, it would be nice if President Bush could be counted upon to cast his first vetoes on bills so richly deserving of them," the editors of the conservative National Review wrote yesterday.
But administration officials counter that the bills could have been far worse. An energy bill worked out by House and Senate negotiators in 2003 would have cost more than twice as much as the current version.
"It should be signed," said Deputy Energy Secretary Clay Sell. "It's the best energy bill that can be passed."
The highway bill initially proposed in the House would have cost $88 billion more than the final version.
"The president's insistence on spending restraint resulted in both the highway and energy bills coming in far less than originally proposed by Congress," said Scott Milburn, spokesman for the White House budget office.
