Newsday (New York, NY)

August 31, 2001 Friday ALL EDITIONS

SECTION: VIEWPOINTS, Pg. A46

EDITORIAL;

Fiscal Flimflam;

If there's too little money for his pet programs, Bush should blame himself, not Congress.

Who's he kidding? Even judged against the flexible yardstick of presidential truth- stretching, the budget pronouncements from the Bush White House lately have been lollapaloosas. The president was at it again the other day, claiming in a speech to the American Legion that he sees no reason why the vanishing surplus should stop him from getting his top priorities of defense and education funded when Congress returns from summer recess.

That might, conceivably, be true in the short term. But only if President George W. Bush gives some clue as to how he intends to accomplish it. So far, he hasn't. Nor has he acknowledged that his own tax cuts-as well as budget provisions enacted when his party controlled both houses of Congress-complicate the task. Take, for example, Bush's request for $18 billion in additional defense spending in 2002, part of what he calls the "first installment" of a long-term buildup the president brags would be the most robust since Ronald Reagan's. But Congress' own budget resolution says this money cannot be spent if it would mean siphoning funds from the Medicare and Social Security trust fund surpluses - an event that, in fact, already has occurred.

As for education, it will necessarily compete with other priorities Bush has endorsed, but not shown how he will finance. These include such routine items as extending expiring tax provisions, like the research and development tax credit, that the White House and both parties on Capitol Hill automatically embrace.

And that's only the short-term squeeze. In the long run, Bush promised during his campaign to provide billions in additional spending for missile defense, Medicare drug coverage, health research and other popular spending programs that aren't accounted for in the gloomy recent White House and congressional budget updates. There is nearly $1 trillion in additional costs -promised by Bush or expected by Congress - the White House does not account for.

The president complained to the American Legion that this fall, his two top priorities might be "played off against each other." What he didn't say is that it's his own tax policy, and his failure to be honest about its consequences and his own campaign of over-promising that set the stage for this fight.