WASHINGTON — Consumed by waging war, the Bush administration is increasingly giving the Republican-controlled Congress the back of its hand, acting as if the legislative branch were a constitutionally mandated annoyance.
Administration officials have abruptly canceled appearances before congressional committees and refused lawmakers’ requests for information. Now President George W. Bush wants to sidestep congressional oversight of how he spends nearly $75 billion that he is seeking for the war and homeland security.
“Nice try,” scoffed Rep. Mark Steven Kirk, R-Ill., during a hearing on the spending plan. “There are a lot of precedents we don’t want to accept here.”
Since the beginning of his presidency, Bush and his team have worked hard to reinvigorate the executive branch of government. But increasingly, with the United States fighting wars against terror and Iraq, Bush is seeking even broader authority to act without answering to legislative scrutiny. The administration says it needs “flexibility” to spend much of the money — meaning it wants to be free to spend it any way it wants without having to ask Congress first.
Congress is beginning to push back.
Legislative committees could put their stamp on how the $75 billion is spent as early as Tuesday. Republicans and Democrats have already made clear that they intend to give the president the money he wants, and perhaps more. But they want to rein in the president’s drive for expanded authority.
“I don’t know how that flexibility works, but the Congress has always balked at giving too much flexibility, because it is our responsibility to watch the purse,” said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, one of Bush’s staunchest allies.
To many lawmakers, Bush’s request for flexibility is only the latest example of administration disdain, if not contempt, for Congress. Time and again, Republicans and Democrats say, the Bush administration has stiff-armed lawmakers or scorned their committees.
One week before U.S. cruise missiles began falling on Baghdad, Pentagon officials turned down a Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s request for top Pentagon officials to testify about reconstruction in post-war Iraq.
Instead, defense officials chose to brief journalists on that subject the same day. “No answers!” fumed Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. “That does not encourage a great amount of trust and cooperation.”
Also on the same day, Treasury Undersecretary Peter Fisher abruptly canceled his scheduled appearance before the Senate Finance Committee, where he would have likely faced questions about rising budget deficits and the national debt.
“If I weren’t a Republican, it wouldn’t be so embarrassing,” committee Chairman Charles Grassley said.
Bush’s own condescension has irritated members of Congress. Nearly two weeks before he launched the war on Iraq, Bush referred publicly to lawmakers as “the spenders.”
That “certainly encourages warm feelings,” Hagel said sarcastically.
It’s to be expected that Democrats would complain about treatment by the Republican White House. What’s noteworthy, however, is that such criticism now comes from many Republicans in Congress, including some who vote regularly with the president. By skipping the Foreign Relations Committee hearing, for example, the administration got crosswise with Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., the panel’s chairman and an influential player on international issues.
“There’s a strain of arrogance in all of this,” said one Republican senator, on the condition of anonymity. “They need to do a better job.”
Grover Norquist, a conservative activist with close ties to the White House, said lawmakers have a point. “There is a sense that the White House has to understand that they are co-equal branches of government.”