Investor's Business Daily (11/15/99, p. A28) editorializes that "Giddy from their 1994 election victory that gave them control of Congress, Republicans promised to shrink government. But as Congress adjourns for this year, it appears Republicans don't believe in limited government after all. ...

"But it was not to be. Overall federal spending has risen, from $1.56 trillion in 1996 to $1.72 trillion last year. The federal government will spend $1.77 trillion this year. ...

"Neither have the Republicans succeeded in rolling back regulation. After modestly cutting federal spending on regulatory programs in their first budget, they've increased funding every year since."

GOP BOOSTS # OF FEDERAL REGULATORS TO 131,587

"And after actually cutting the regulatory work force in their first two budgets, staffing has grown every year Republicans have held the majority. A record 131,587 employees will oversee federal regulatory activities in fiscal 2000. ... [T]hey couldn't even kill the National Endowment for the Arts. ..."

TAX, SPEND, AND ELECT IS THE BIPARTISAN MOTTO

"Still the sad truth is the GOP hasn't been that focused on limiting government. The overall view of Republicans is not that different from that of Democrats: The easiest way to get re-elected is to ladle out federal largess. Staying in office has become the GOP's guiding principle.

"If the Republicans really believed as they spoke, they at least would have voted on bills to eliminate cabinet departments, cut spending and tried to override the president's veto of this year's tax cut."

TO DO IT, YOU MUST BELIEVE IT

"[A]s Gen. George S. Patton was quoted in Friday's Leaders & Success feature, 'Wars are lost in the mind before they are lost on the ground.' And this Congress proves the point: The battle for individual freedom will always be lost given the statist mind-set that prevails."

Investor's Business Daily editorializes (11/18/99, p. A26) that "The 'Fathers Count Act of 1999' has a Republican author, Connecticut Rep. Nancy Johnson, along with sizable Democratic support. It won healthy majorities from both parties when the House approved it 329-93 on Nov. 10. ..."

HOUSE APPROVES "GREAT SOCIETY"-STYLE FAMILY INTERVENTION SUBSIDIES

"In spite of its declared aim of reviving the institution of marriage, a key Republican theme, most of its $155 million in grants (a five-year figure) seems destined for the same kind of training and education programs the government has been running for years. ...

"Grant awards will be decided by panels representing Congress and the administration. But federal bureaucrats will be doing the staff work, and they're hardly the ones to lead a pro-family reform in the administration of welfare. ..."

ANOTHER ESTABLISHMENT OF ANTI-CHRISTIAN RELIGION?

"With public money will come oversight from a largely secular political establishment. Religious groups taking that money will have to give up some of the freedom they enjoy now.

"Democrats over the years have taken well-deserved lumps as inveterate social engineers, always ready with some new, tax-paid program to school, train, counsel or simply buy people out of poverty.

"But many Republicans have caught the engineering bug. They, too, seem to think that public money can get at the roots of bad behavior if one just pumps it through the right channels. ...

"All the while, the government continues to subsidize single parenthood through its existing welfare system. Most federal benefits flow only if a recipient is a single parent."

John Harris points out (Washington Post, 11/15/99, pp. 1, A14) that "When the newly elected Republican congressional majority roared into Washington in 1995, the most ardent revolutionaries loudly declared their intention to eliminate the Department of Education. The department's budget that year was $24.4 billion.

"This month, as Republicans nervously stepped back from many of their budget disputes with President Clinton, lawmakers approved spending that will give the Education Department $35.6 billion. ..."

REPUBLICANS SURRENDERED WITHOUT A FIGHT

"What is going on in Capitol Hill this month is more than just the usual haggling over annual appropriations. It is the latest, and--many on both sides believe--the last, sputtering battle in a five-year war between the GOP majority in Congress and Clinton over federal spending and the role of government in American life.

"It is a war that Clinton has won so decisively, at least in the realm of public opinion, that Republicans no longer have a stomach for fighting. ...

"Clinton has won the philosophical argument."

CLINTON GETS 100,000 FEDERAL TEACHERS

Alison Mitchell adds (New York Times, 11/13/99, pp. 1, A9) that "As the Congressional session sputters to a close, Republicans are quietly ceding ground to President Clinton in budget talks, determined to avoid even a hint of the kind of ideological conflagration that led to a government shutdown four years ago.

"Compromise by compromise, the Republicans have added more than $5 billion to their spending bills in the last few weeks alone and given Mr. Clinton a victory on a politically significant education program. ...

"On education, they can share credit with him for financing his program to add 100,000 teachers over seven years to the nation's schools."

Dave Boyer and John Godfrey report (Washington Times, 11/3/99, p. A4) that "Congressional Republicans finished their budget for fiscal 2000 yesterday, with the party of fiscal restraint proposing $34 billion in increased spending overall and facing five vetoes that could result in still more spending. ...

"But the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office now estimates that the Republicans' budget would increase discretionary spending by about 5.8 percent over fiscal 1999.

"'They pre-empted the budget summit by spending it themselves,' said Marshall Wittmann, congressional affairs director for the Heritage Foundation. 'Fiscal restraint is being cast off to the side. What's stunning is at this stage there's very little protest even among conservatives.'"

SOURCE: Budget of the United States for Fiscal Year 2000, Historical Tables ** 1962 figure; 1960 not available  * Congressional Budget Office, July 1999

In the midst of ongoing discussions about the Federal budget, it never hurts to look at the facts.

Using 1994 as the benchmark year (when Republicans won control of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives), Uncle Sam's annual tax take has increased by more than $600 billion.

TARIFFS DOWN ON FOREIGNERS, TAXES UP ON AMERICANS

Indeed, income taxes alone are more than $385 billion per year greater than six years ago. FICA taxes are up by $185 billion and business taxes by some $36 billion, while estate taxes and gift taxes have also increased. The only drop-off was in tariffs (customs, duties, and fees collected) which once constituted the principal source of revenue to the Federal government. That was before we were letting Chinese Communist goods into America with tariffs which were only a tiny fraction of those imposed on U.S. goods offered for sale in Red China.

If the budget is theoretically balanced, it is only because FICA taxes have been treated as if they were general revenues and revenues in general have expanded to meet outlays. Even in the world of a supposed budget surplus, we are still expected to pay some $358 billion in interest on the national debt during Fiscal Year 2000.

NATIONAL DEBT OF $5.7 TRILLION MOCKS BALANCED BUDGET CLAIMS

At the same time, national defense outlays are set to have actually dropped by more than $7 billion a year since 1994, not even adjusting that total for inflationary consequence. And, of course, the overall debt to the United States has not dropped in the past six years it has increased from $4.6 trillion to $5.7 trillion.

As reported by Eric Pianin and Juliet Eilperin (Washington Post, 10/21/99, p. 1), "Congressional Republicans agreed yesterday to pump billions of extra dollars into federal education initiatives, the National Institutes of Health and scores of other social programs in an effort to trump President Clinton on some of his signature issues."

CLINTON COLLABORATORS PERPETRATE ONE-PARTY RULE

"After initially threatening deep cuts, House GOP leaders went along with the Senate in adding substantially to Clinton's budget request on many of these politically sensitive programs. The Republicans added $340 million for education, for a total of $35.2 billion, and $2.3 billion for the NIH, for a total of $17.9 billion. ...

"The new labor-and-health bill, with more than $300 billion in funding, would declare about $2 billion for energy assistance, refugees and public health to be 'emergency' funding exempt from spending limits. And it would essentially borrow $10 billion from next year's budget to help finance some of the programs.

"... The emergence of the huge social spending bill was a significant event on a day in which Republicans and Administration officials tried to capitalize on the cooperative spirit at Tuesday's White House meeting between Clinton and the congressional leadership."

Sue A. Blevins, president of the Institute for Health Freedom, points out (Investor's Business Daily, 10/12/99, p. A24) that "Congress -- unless it acts fast -- has officially moved us one step closer to 'Hillary Care.' Not just by passing a so-called patients' rights bill, but by failing to protect Americans' medical privacy.

"By missing its self-imposed Aug. 21, 1999, deadline, established in 1996 by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, Congress has given the job of establishing medical privacy regulations to the Clinton administration, through the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services."

YOUR MEDICAL PRIVACY IS IN JEOPARDY

"HHS' regulations -- due no later than Feb. 21, 2000, according to current law -- will include the creation of a 'unique health identifier,' which would require every American to carry a plastic card -- much like a driver's license -- encoded with a microchip that links to a database with everyone's complete medical history.

"Sound familiar? Remember the 'smart card' plan? The plan that didn't receive a single vote in Congress? An important part of Hillary Clinton's 1993 health-care plan -- the President's Health Security Plan -- included a provision to create a unique health identifier. In fact, the plan stated that 'like ATM cards, the health security card allows access to information about health coverage through an integrated national network.' HHS' plan will be the same thing under a different guise."

YOU WON'T EVEN KNOW WHEN THEY'RE SEARCHING YOUR SECRETS

"If the plan moves forward, hundreds of individuals and organizations will have access to your medical records, whether you know it or not. Medical records could be accessed every day, with or without your consent, by employers, health insurance companies, law enforcement officials and medical researchers.

"Not only will these groups and others be able to access your basic health information, such as your immunization history, but also more confidential information, such as your HIV status and your genetic data. ..."

YOUR INSURABILITY COULD BE JEOPARDIZED

"Access to this type of data can irreparably destroy someone's reputation, employability and possibly insurability. With the creation of a unique health identifier, not only could the number of medical-privacy breaches increase, but access to this type of sensitive information by government researchers and others could be legalized as well. ...

"If Congress doesn't act soon, a major piece of Hillary Clinton's health-care plan will take effect in February 2000. The American public resoundingly rejected that plan and voted Republicans into office to stop it. Now we'll see if they do their job.

"But one thing is certain: Medical privacy is too important an issue to be left in the hands of the Clinton administration."

TaxPractice, a weekly magazine for tax practitioners published by Tax Analysts, reports in its September 20 edition that "House and Senate conferees to the Treasury, Postal Service, and General Government appropriations bill on September 9 not only fully restored increases to the IRS that the House had slashed in July but also decided to fund the agency at a figure higher than had been approved by either chamber -- the full $8.249 billion requested by President Clinton."

CLINTON COLLABORATORS LOTT AND HASTERT RUN CONGRESS

"Across the board, the conferees raised the IRS spending levels to meet what the administration had requested. Thus, under the conference agreement, IRS functions now are slated to be funded at the following levels during fiscal 2000:

• "$3.323 billion for IRS processing, assistance, and management. The Senate had approved $3.292 billion in funding for this category; the House, $3.270 billion.

• "$3.337 billion for IRS tax law enforcement. Here, the Senate had approved $3.305 billion in fiscal 2000 appropriations while the House had approved $3.301 billion.

• "$1.455 billion for IRS information systems. The Senate had approved $1.450 billion in funding for this category; the House $1.395 billion."

According to Owen Ullmann (USA TODAY, 9/30/99, p. 12A), "Boosting the minimum wage is the kind of issue that violates the core conservative principles of Republican leaders in Congress.

"So surely they'll block a Democratic push this fall to raise the pay of America's 4.4 million lowest-paid workers, right?"

PRINCIPLES "ARE LIKE PIECRUSTS, MADE TO BE BROKEN"

"Not likely. Despite philosophical opposition to government meddling in the marketplace, the GOP leadership is clearing the way for passage next month of a bill that would increase the $5.15-an-hour minimum wage by at least $1 over the next two to four years. ..."

$141,300 FOR OUR RULERS POLITICALLY REQUIRES BOOST IN MINIMUM WAGE

"Opponents of a minimum-wage increase essentially surrendered Sept. 16, when the Senate joined the House in voting to raise lawmakers' annual salary by $4,600, to $141,300, effective next year.

"President Clinton signed the pay raise into law Wednesday.

"Business lobbyists figure that Republicans facing tough re-election campaigns next year wouldn't want to open themselves to attack for boosting their own pay but not the wages of struggling families. ..."

IT WILL HURT THE POOR AND HELP THE UNIONS

"Some economists contend that a minimum-wage increase reduces job opportunities for the least skilled workers because employers absorb the higher payrolls by cutting back on new hires."

Tim Weiner reports in The New York Times "News of the Week in Review" section (10/3/99, p. 3) that "The Republicans have promised -- publicly, daily, fervently -- not to finance the operations of the Government by spending money out of the Social Security trust fund. No Congress has done this since 1967. ..."

$40 BILLION MORE DIVERTED FROM SOCIAL SECURITY TRUST FUND

"More than $20 billion dollars, nearly twice the previous record, is being drawn down from the ledger for fiscal 2001. A nearly equal amount is simply being erased from the books by a device known as 'directed scorekeeping,' which one respected Federal budget analyst, Stan Collender of the Fleishman-Hillard public relations firm, defines as 'lying about the numbers.' Venerable projects like the decennial census ($4.5 billion), a home-heating assistance program ($1.1 billion), agricultural aid ($8.7 billion at last count), along with still-uncounted billions for defense, have been deemed unforeseeable 'emergency spending' -- meaning Congress can pretend they do not really count against the bottom line. ..."

IN PRINCIPLE, THEY OPPOSE WHAT THEY PRACTICE

"But there was more, much more, as the millennial fiscal year 2000 began. On the floor of the House, members of Congress almost unanimously passed a non-binding resolution -- a promise made with fingers crossed -- pledging never again to spend a dime of the Social Security surplus.

"Down the street, at that minute, their number-crunchers at the Congressional Budget Office were calculating that they were in fact spending $18 billion of the surplus, a number growing with every closed-door conference."

CONGRESSIONAL PAY HIKE OFFSET BY DELAYING TAX CREDITS

"And at the very moment President Clinton was signing into law a pay increase for members of Congress averaging $4,600 a year, Republican strategists were figuring that the only way to avoid spending the surplus was to delay a tax break for 20 million Americans on the lower rungs of the economic ladder.

"None other than Gov. George W. Bush of Texas, the presumptive Republican standard-bearer, denounced the idea, saying, 'I don't think they should balance their budget on the backs of the poor.'"

Another prominent Republican is endorsing a terrible idea to undermine the American family and diminish the "liberty of conscience" protections established in the First Amendment to our Constitution.

$75 MILLION TO LET CLINTON PLAY "BIG DADDY"

As reported by the Family Research Council (Washington Update, 9/20/99), "Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) and Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) recently introduced legislation to provide about $75 million a year in grants to launch and enlarge programs that encourage men to embrace the resonsibilities of fatherhood."

UNCLE SAM SHOULD NOT BE TREATED AS A BLOOD RELATION

Marriage is a covenant with God when man and wife take vows to love, honor, and obey until death they do part. Civil government has no legitimate role in that covenant.

The net effect of this program is to assign the Federal government powers well beyond its Constitutional authority and to place itself above the authority of moms and dads with respect to their own children.

"Four years after House Speaker-to-be Newt Gingrich's post-election prediction that GOP leadership would 'radically transform the way government works by Easter,' the federal government still does almost everything it did then. ..." (Source: Washington Post, 8/3/99, pp. A1, 6)

"'For those of us who came here with a zeal for limiting government, it's been a very frustrating 42 years,' said Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), one of the most outspoken conservatives in the historic GOP freshman class of 1994, which has already dwindled in the House from 73 to 49 members. 'We've been losing the battles, again and again.' ..."

MORE FUNDING FOR "CULTURAL COMMUNISM" -- TOO LITTLE FOR DEFENSE

"[A] 'Return of the Living Dead' analysis by the libertarian Cato Institute suggests that the GOP's post-takeover declarations of a new era of budget austerity were vastly overblown. Since 1995, Cato found, spending has actually increased overall among the programs targeted for extinction in the original "Contract With America" budget, including hikes of 513 percent in school-to-work grants, 119 percent in the Goals 2000 education program, and 72 percent in bilingual education funding. The three Cabinet agencies on the GOP's 1995 hit list are alive and well; the Commerce Department's budget has grown by 40 percent."

Investor's Business Daily (7/21/99, p. A24) asks if you "Remember the outrageous tax cut of Ronald Reagan? ... It was worth $750 billion over five years. The current GOP bill is worth $792 billion over 10 years. ...

"The Senate's $792 billion bill is even more timid. ...all the hot air is over a tax cut, the bulk of which won't kick in until 2006. All the hot air is also about a tax cut that'll come to less than 1% of gross domestic product over that period."

TRILLIONS FOR THE TAX-USERS, PENNIES FOR THE PEOPLE

Investor's Business Daily editorializes further (8/6/99, p. A22) concerning the Republican tax cut that:

"* The tax cut for 2000 is a miserly $5.2 billion. Only $156 billion would be cut over the first five years." By contrast, during the first five years, spending would amount to some $9 trillion.

"* It would take four years for the bottom tax bracket to fall to 14%. All other brackets wouldn't go down until 2005."

As reported by Geoff Winestock (Wall Street Journal, 7/27/99, p. A19), "The World Trade Organization has ruled that a $2 billion U.S. tax-incentive provision for American exporters violates global trading rules, giving the European Union one tit-for-tat victory in its continuing trade wars with the U.S.

"The preliminary WTO ruling -- that the tax exemption constitutes an illegal export subsidy -- isn't the final pronouncement on the matter. Indeed, the decision must go through numerous bureaucratic procedures before a final ruling is issued, probably in September.

"Nonetheless, the ruling represents a breakthrough for the EU, which has been pounded this year by the WTO in its trade spats with the U.S. EU Trade Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan was quick to divulge details of the confidential ruling, and called on the U.S. to change its law.

"'This export subsidy has created a major distortion of U.S. trade by granting very substantial and unfair advantages to U.S. products,' Mr. Brittan said."

Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution makes clear that it is Congress, not any gang of international bureaucrats and bankers, who have authority to set U.S. trade policy:

Once again members of Congress who acquiesce in WTO are violating their oaths of office.

Tom Carter reports (Washington Times, 7/21/99, p. A13) that the GOP House voted "to resume funding of U.N. family planning programs after a one-year hiatus....An amendment to authorize $25 million for the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) was approved on a 221-198 [Roll Call no. 312, 7/20/99] vote. ...

"In effect, the United States will give UNFPA about $20 million next year. Last year, Congress refused to approve any money for the agency.

"Approval of the amendment was a setback for anti-abortion Rep. Christopher H. Smith, New Jersey Republican, who has consistently linked foreign affairs funding with anti-abortion legislation. ...Mr. Smith said UNFPA did not deserve U.S. support because it was 'complicit' in China's 'crimes.'

"That view was challenged by Rep. Benjamin A. Gilman, New York Republican and chairman of the International Relations Committee, who co-sponsored the amendment that passed."

Thomas W. Lippman reports (Washington Post, 6/13/99, p. A22) that "With the United Nations exercising legal authority in Kosovo and long-delayed confirmation hearings for U.S. ambassador-designate Richard C. Holbrooke scheduled to begin this week, a new drive is underway to persuade Congress to pay this country's debt to the world organization."

HALEY BARBOUR WHORES FOR TED TURNER

"Former Republican national chairman Haley Barbour is the lobbying point man. His client is the Better World Campaign, a small Washington organization established with money from media tycoon Ted Turner to promote the United Nations."

HAS HE NO PATRIOTISM? HAS HE NO SHAME?

"Barbour's mission is to persuade Congress to enact legislation authorizing release of funds already appropriated without attaching an antiabortion rider that induced President Clinton to veto a similar bill last year. ..."

BIG BUSINESS CHIPS IN TO SEEK PERSONAL PROFIT AT THE EXPENSE OF NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE

"The Better World Campaign has enlisted the support of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, an influential business group, which last week invited U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to make a pitch to members at a Washington dinner. ...

"Annan promoted the United Nations as 'business friendly' and the stabilizing force that makes international commerce possible. ..."

$926 MILLION VOTED BY CONGRESS IS BOTTLED UP

"More than half the debt is for peacekeeping activities that the United States voted in favor of undertaking, which means it is owed not to the world body itself but to the armed forces of friendly nations that went to such trouble spots as Bosnia at U.S. behest. ...

"Two years ago, Congress appropriated $819 million, to be paid over three years on condition that the United Nations cut its budget and undertake administrative reforms. With $107 million in U.N. debt to the United States that would be written off, the package totaled $926 million.

"But the money has never been spent because legislation authorizing release of the funds came with a condition attached by [N.J. Republican Congressman Christoper H.] Smith that the White House refused to accept: restrictions on the use of U.S. funds to aid family planning organizations overseas that work to ease restrictions on abortion. Even though the restrictions were watered down to win Clinton's acceptance, he vetoed the bill. ...

"The 1997 Balanced Budget Act set aside $1 billion for U.N. payments outside the spending 'caps' that restrict other spending. It is 'no year money,' meaning it can be spent whenever authorizing legislation is enacted and the United Nations meets the reform requirements demanded by Congress."

HALEY BARBOUR AND HIS NEW WORLD ORDER PAYMASTERS WANT TO GET THE MONEY FAST -- BEFORE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE FIND OUT

"But unless the money is spent by Sept. 30, 2000, the end of fiscal 2000, the exemption from the spending caps will expire. In that case, the U.N. debt would have to compete with other budgetary items, making it vulnerable to being raided for other purposes.

"'Legislation takes time. If it's not done in the context of the fiscal 2000 budget, it's problematic next year, an election year,' said Craig Johnstone, a former State Department budget official now at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce."

Mr. Barbour was interviewed by Tony Snow on Fox News Sunday (6/13/99):

TONY SNOW: "Mr. Barbour, You've got about half the members of Congress right now signed on the side of George W. Bush and they don't know the guy." ...

HALEY BARBOUR: "George Bush has made a tremendous record in Texas...."

HALEY WANTS TO DISBURSE YOUR $$ OUT OF THE COUNTRY