Slowing the Spending.

THE wave of post-Katrina spending is tipping President Bush's fiscal record from bad to atrocious. We all know the litany that got us to this point: Bush has never vetoed a bill, even as Congress has agreed to fund an estimated 14,000 pork projects, up from around 1,000 in 1996; he has presided over a federal spending increase of 33 percent since 2001, with 55 percent of the increase in the last two years unrelated to defense, according to Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation; and he created a new entitlement, signing a $500 billion (and counting) prescription-drug bill.

Conservatives could just manage to swallow all this, when it seemed as though Social Security reform might change the politics of entitlements. Now, the Katrina aftermath has made Social Security reform, already unlikely, still more so, while driving up federal spending yet further. This turn of events casts all that has come before in an even worse light.

Hence the rumblings of revolt, which we heartily endorse. Bloggers have made lists of pork-barrel projects that can be cut. Republicans like John McCain--who has been starring in his role as scourge of wasteful spending in recent weeks--are calling for a repeal, or in some cases delay, of the prescription-drug bill. The Republican Study Committee in the House has compiled a wish list of areas where funding should be outright revoked, or at least frozen. Their "Operation Offset" details ways to save $102 billion in 2006 alone, and $950 billion over the next ten years. We would be happy to take all the RSC's suggestions, and just running our eyes along the list, with the word "eliminate" repeated over and over, is enough to thrill our hearts.

But we are also aware that the Republican majority in Congress is not a conservative majority--and that fact imposes realistic limits on conservative strategists. Fights over repealing "earmarks" will be extraordinarily bloody, without yielding major savings. A repeal of the prescription-drug bill (which we opposed at the time of its passage) is unlikely to happen and would be demagogued by Democrats as paying for Katrina on the backs of the ailing elderly. The most promising area is corporate welfare.

It doesn't have a natural base of support, and cuts in it will be much harder for Democrats to oppose. Republicans should have taken it on long ago. According to the RSC, eliminating corporate welfare would cut $5 billion in 2006 and $50 billion over ten years. Take one example: The Advanced Technology Program was instituted in the late 1980s, when the conventional wisdom held that the Japanese government's support for industry was causing that economy to overtake America's. This program, funded to the tune of $150 million per year, gives grants for research and development on products with "significant commercial payoff." That is, the money funds research on only the most marketable products, those that companies have the most incentive to fund anyway. General Motors, Motorola, and IBM have all cashed in. Over 35 percent of ATP funding has gone to 39 Fortune 500 companies, whose combined 2003 revenue was $1.4 trillion. Naturally, the program has survived long after the alleged crisis that brought it into being was shown to be a false alarm.

It's not sexy, but Bush and anti-spenders in Congress should also be pushing to reform the congressional budget process, which favors free spending. Making the budget resolution binding, for instance, would rein in appropriators who ignore it to lavish money on their own priorities. Cuts in pork-barrel spending are important, but we have learned that, when the current anti-pork moment passes, pet projects will be back with a vengeance. The trick is to create the basis for savings over time.

What is now the most important ingredient is presidential leadership. On spending, it has been absent for five years. In his press conference after the Miers nomination, Bush made a point of emphasizing that the Katrina spending has to be matched with serious offsets. That's a start. Following through on his words would be even better.