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Congress confronts spending Both Republican and Democratic spenders are crying the blues about the fiscal 1999 spending plans. It seems they will have only $1.7 trillion - 21.5 percent of the nation's economic output, the most since the height of World War II - to spend. The problem, the spenders say, is that doggone ''balanced budget'' agreement of last year. Politically expedient as it may have been, it now imposes spending caps which Congress dares not break. The poor dears may have to ''cut'' as much as - brace yourself - 1 percent from what they had hoped to spend. Thus, we're in for ''a brutal budget season,'' says The Washington Post. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bob Livingston, who rather likes spending now that he's the House's chief spender, declares a proposed $1.7 trillion budget to be ''a tight bill under a tough allocation.'' Rep. David Obey, the ranking Democrat on Livington's committee, proclaims Congress is headed for ''a train wreck'' on the four biggest appropriations bills. One cannot imagine the awful stress closing in on our elected representatives. They actually may be forced to make something resembling decisions about spending, as in actually setting some priorities, just like - gasp! - businesses and households throughout the land must do. Good Lord, the bicycle office at the U.S. Department of Transportation might get nicked! Stop the madness before it claims the Nectarine Board or the EPA's ongoing study of water fleas' sex lives! Come now. If Congress can't manage to keep overall spending more or less level for a year, making adjustments within the federal leviathan to distinguish important spending (e.g. national defense) from unimportant spending, then every single one of them ought to look for some other line of work &emdash; as tax collectors, perhaps.
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