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down spending per se; it's supposed to get rid of waste. As it happens, though, waste has flourished while Washington has sacrificed lots of necessary spending.
The former category includes big programs such as the $180 billion in agricultural subsidies Bush approved in 2001, or last year's Medicare bill featuring tens of billions in subsidies for healthcare industries. It also includes garden variety pork, such as money for the Punxsutawney (Pa.) Weather Museum or the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. (Both projects were deemed vital in the same budget that trims the NSF.)
The NSF is not the only worthwhile project that has gotten stiffed. It's not even the only project that conservatives consider worthwhile that has gotten stiffed.
Crucial aspects of homeland security -- such as inspecting incoming ships for nuclear material and hiring enough immigration agents to track down illegal immigrants from the Middle East -- are getting far less than needed to ensure that Americans are protected from terrorism. Even the denizens of the conservative Heritage Foundation have complained about the Bush administration's stinginess on homeland security.
Why are bad programs driving out the good? Because budget pressure, the pressure of the deficit by itself, does not guarantee that Congress will make good choices. The Republicans' preferred plan, which we've seen through Bush's first four years, is to say yes to everybody: tax cuts and spending programs can buy a lot of votes. If they must cut back, they'll keep the programs that help Republicans win election, including the home-state pork, and cut out virtuous programs that don't have the same political muscle. Like the NSF.
Of course, this isn't an unalterable law of nature. If the governing party has some sense of responsibility, it will fund programs on the basis of the national interest rather than on the basis of which ones have the most powerful lobby.
That's what President Reagan's budget director, David Stockman, said he was doing when he promised to go after "weak claims, not weak clients." By that he meant he would try to cut out programs with a shaky rationale, not those that merely lacked powerful backers in Washington. The GOP's operating principle today is just the other way around.
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