This, too, reverses a Republican practice. When they held Congress, Republicans escalated the number of earmarks, regarding them as "preservation tools" in helping incumbents win elections. In the 2006 election, however, the heavy use of earmarks backfired. Earmarks became a symbol for Republican misrule of Congress.
Bush has never been known as a spending hawk. But aides now say he was "frustrated" at times by the insistence of congressional Republicans that he shy away from vetoes. They concede, however, that he willingly signed a farm bill in 2002, perhaps the most egregious of spending bills in his first term. The excuse was 2002 was an election year.
Nor is the president a small government conservative with all the stinginess the name implies. On the contrary, he calls himself a compassionate conservative and has defended social spending programs aimed at the poor. Also, his creation of a Medicare prescription drug benefit appalled some conservatives.
Bush and congressional Republicans learned a painful lesson from the 2006 election: Excessive spending made them politically vulnerable. Now they are unified in turning the tables on Democrats and attacking them as big spenders. The Democratic budget has "given us an ability to recast the differences between the parties again," said a House Republican leader.
Credit for Bush's emergence as a hardliner is shared by two White House officials, chief of staff Josh Bolten and budget chief Rob Portman, a former Republican House member. Bolten was Portman's predecessor in the budget post, one that usually leads to a strong preference
for limits on spending and austere budgets.
Still, Republicans worry Bush may split with them when the showdown comes between the White House and the Democrats. The president may be offered full funding of his defense budget in exchange for the higher domestic spending favored by Democrats. That's an offer Bush probably can't refuse.
Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDRD.
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