RUST COMMENTARY: CLINTON'S BUDGET-BALANCING PLAN IS FULL OF NEW SPENDING

No, the era of big government is not over.

No, Bill Clinton's budget does not balance the budget by 2002.

No, the Clinton budget does not provide tax relief for working families.

And no, there is no tooth fairy.

Like second marriages, Bill Clinton's $1.7-trillion federal budget is the triumph of hope over experience. Even by Washington standards, the division between rhetoric and reality in this 1,500-page, six-pound budget document (appropriately printed with a dollar-bill-green cover) rivals the Grand Canyon.

The White House describes this fiscal blueprint as "lean and mean." But how is a budget that expands federal outlays by $56 billion in 1998, $74 billion in 1999 and $55 billion in 2000 lean and mean? How is a budget that calls for a massive new entitlement program -- Medicare for children -- with a $20 billion price tag, fiscally responsible?

And how could a president who boastfully campaigned on having "ended welfare as we know it" propose neutering that law by requesting $21 billion in new welfare benefits? The welfare law hasn't even been tested yet, and the White House is in full-scale retreat to placate its left-wing poverty industry constituency.

However, only a few economic realists in the GOP, such as Senate Budget Committee Chairman Phil Gramm (R-Texas), lambasted the Clinton budget as "a sham." Sadly, Gramm and House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich (R-Ohio), who was also highly critical, seem out of step these days with most of the "statesmen" in the rest of the Republican hierarchy.

How pitiful has the Republican counterattack been? Some of the sternest criticism in Washington came not from Capitol Hill Republicans, but from the Washington Post editorial page. The Post called it "an illusory budget." "More than anything else," the Post said, "it seems to tread water. It is not remotely the powerful document the president pretends."

What is it that makes this such a delusional document? First, the "spending cuts" in the Clinton budget are a fantasy. More than two-thirds of the budget savings would come ... in 2001 and 2002, when Bill Clinton isn't president anymore. The Clinton budget puts new meaning into the phrase "passing the buck."

Then there is the stampede of new spending programs.

* A 34% increase in the Department of Education budget from $29 billion to $39 billion.

* The odious Goals 2000 would see its budget inflated by 26 percent. Bilingual education would rise by 35 percent -- in one year. The Reading Corps, a new Clinton invention, would receive $200 million. This is voluntarism?

* A 31 percent hike in the Americorps program to $800 million. These are Clinton's $7-an-hour volunteers.

* A $1.5 billion increase for failed foreign aid programs.

* Funding for 10 American Heritage Rivers -- whatever they are.

* $20 billion in welfare spending restored.

* A kiddie care health program and five other new entitlement programs costing $58 billion.

Everyone knows that entitlements are bankrupting the nation. So what does Bill Clinton call for: new open-ended entitlement programs.

If it seems that this can't possibly add up to a balanced budget, that's because it doesn't. In fact, the deficit of $107 billion in 1996 will float in the wrong direction this year and next, rising to $124 billion under the White House budget in 1998. Only in 1999 does the deficit start (allegedly) falling.

Bill Clinton promised last year to balance the budget by 2002 using honest numbers. Surprise, surprise. He's reneged. The Congressional Budget Office says that the Clinton budget is still in deficit by at least $37 billion in 2002. Then the deficits get larger each year.

Bill Clinton's "targeted" tax cuts are more fiscal hocus pocus -- here today, snatched away tomorrow. Yes, Bill Clinton calls for a $98 billion tax cut over the next five years. But guess what? He also wants to raise taxes by $76 billion. The net result is a tax cut of $22 billion out of an $8 trillion tax base. That's a whopping tax cut of 0.3 cents on the dollar. What magnanimity!

But wait. It gets worse. The Clinton tax increases are permanent. The tax cuts expire after 2000. The long-term impact of the Clinton budget is to raise our taxes, not lower them.

The bottom line is this: Bill Clinton has offered the largest budget anywhere, anytime in the history of the planet. Even as the defense budget falls each year, total non-defense federal expenditures would rise by almost $250 billion by 2000. This is the end of big government?

It is hard to choose who is more contemptible here-the Clinton Administration for proposing this fiscal fraud-or squeamish Republicans for idly sitting by and refusing to expose it as such. -- Stephen Moore, director of fiscal policy studies at the Cato Institute.

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California Educrats Lose: In a dramatic turnabout in a trend-setting state, the California State Board of Education endorsed a new list of approved textbooks at the end of last year that marks a return to the phonics method of teaching children to read. In 1988, the board endorsed a group of books that pushed the "whole language" method, and its recommendations were followed by the vast majority of school districts. Now, nationally, California students rank close to the bottom in reading proficiency. After the board's vote in 1988, "Department of Education and university curriculum experts, and some zealous principals, yanked phonics-based books out of classrooms -- often over teachers' objections," says the Los Angeles Times. Of course, the publishers of the whole language textbooks that are now likely to be replaced say they are considering legal action.

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Sex and the Military

The ongoing investigation of the military's sexual abuse scandal has turned up new information that no one wants to talk about. Forty percent of the female recruits who have charged sexual abuse now admit they had consensual sexual relationships with the accused sergeants. The public is just beginning to hear about the shocking number of pregnancies from consensual relationships on board Navy ships. One baby suffocated to death when a female sailor tried to smuggle the child off the ship. Even her commanding officers didn't know that she had been pregnant. Increasingly, the experiment, driven by feminist pressure to mix men and women in all military units is looking like a failure. Morale has plummeted, careers have been destroyed, and military officers talk off-the-record of unit cohesion falling apart because of sexual jealousies and competition -- but no one wants to speak up! Raising questions about current policy can kill the chances of advancement.

Whatever happened to the idea that a nation's military was supposed to fight and win wars -- not to be a gigantic laboratory for radical social change? Military men who have harassed and abused women in their command should be dealt with severely, but we also need to revisit a policy that ignores what happens when men and women are thrown together in close quarters far from home. -- Washington Update.

~Gary Rust is president of Rust Communications, which owns the Southeast Missourian and other newspapers.