The howling has just begun

Published 3:54 pm Friday, May 8, 2009

Sacred cows aren’t herded easily — especially toward the political slaughterhouse.

Gov. Chris Gregoire learned that truth during this year’s legislative session, where her proposal to eliminate more than 100 state boards and commissions resulted in just two dozen being chopped. (Alas, the state will have to get by without the Acupuncture Ad Hoc Committee and the Special License Plate Review Board. Thank heavens it still has an Oversight Committee on Moral Guidance.)

President Obama must know how Gregoire feels. The details of his $3.4 trillion budget proposal, released Thursday, included proposals to cut 121 government programs to the tune of $17 billion — a meager one-half of one percent of the total package. The sacred cows launched an immediate stampede of protest.

Don’t come near agriculture subsidies, warned Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark. The White House will just have to accept the new presidential helicopter Obama says he doesn’t need, said Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey, D-N.Y., whose district includes 800 people who work on the helicopter program.

Closer to home, a bipartisan delegation of Northwest lawmakers wrote to the administration pleading that it not cut the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund.

The federal budget contains thousands upon thousands of programs that support jobs, industries and various good works. But the supply of money, despite what some have apparently come to believe, is not infinite.

Hundreds of billions in stimulus spending, which was necessary to rescue the nation from a deeper economic crisis, along with the need for major health care reform require a major rethinking of other spending. The cuts Obama proposes hardly scratch the surface of what will be needed. Tougher decisions and sacrifices are yet to come, including Obama’s promise for real earmark reform, which he punted this time around.

Fixing America’s broken health-care system is fundamental to restoring the nation’s long-term economic health, and it will likely require more short-term deficit spending. The president must hold firm to his commitment to mitigate that by trimming elsewhere, which will mean saying no — over and over — to members of his own party defending their various sacred cows.

It will take commitment, persistence and political skill. Of all the leadership tests he faces, perhaps none will be more telling.