Another budget deal that's good for Washington and bad for America: Congress pisses down our backs and tells us it's raining.

• Author: Mitchell, Daniel J.

Advocates of smaller government are justifiably upset by the pork-filled spending bill enacted in December. With goodies for countless special interests, it was more "ominous" than "omnibus." But that wasn't the biggest fiscal hit Congress inflicted on America in 2015. After all, appropriations bills always contain execrable handouts.

The real defeat actually took place two months earlier, when negotiators agreed to bust (for the second time) the federal spending caps imposed as part of the 2011 Budget Control Act. The October deal meant the December legislation redistributed an additional $50 billion of other people's money. That set the stage for the end-of-year Bacchanalia.

That's Not Rain

If GOP leaders had simply admitted they lacked nerve to forge a better deal in the face of an intransigent president, congressional Democrats, and weak-kneed members of their own caucus, that would have been disappointing enough. But they added insult to injury by trying to spin this fiscal surrender into a victory.

When the agreement to bust the spending caps was first announced, the top Republican in the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), declared it (in Politico's paraphrasing) "a key win for Republicans." And when the December spending bill was unveiled, Politico reported that "Speaker Paul Ryan told House Republicans on Monday night that the yearlong $1.1 trillion government-funding bill contains policy victories for the GOP."

The only appropriate response is Captain Fletcher's line in The Outlaw Josey Wales:"Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining."

Some conservatives defended the deal on grounds that it was necessary medicine to protect against a round of automatic budget cuts known as sequestration, which they argued would gut defense by forcing disproportionate cuts. The Pentagon budget makes up less than 25 percent of total outlays, but it would have borne 50 percent of the sequester.

Yet the military still managed to function from 2013 to 2015 under a prior sequester. Moreover, since the United States accounts for more than 45 percent of the world's military spending (with allied nations chipping in about half of the remainder), abiding by the caps would hardly have precipitated a crisis. And even if you think Pentagon spending was cut by too much, that doesn't justify increasing spending for all parts of the budget.

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