bush-league budgeting

De facto President George W. Bush the Disastrous challenges the Democratic (yes, that's "Democratic" Bush, not "Democrat". Or should we start referring to "Republic" policies?) Congress to balance the budget. Seems the time is right to do so - mostly, of course, because now the Republicans don't control the whole shebang.

And just to show his sincerity, Bush says that the budget should be balanced while his gift-wrapped-for-the-rich tax cuts should be made permanent. And you know he wouldn't want any cuts in the rapidly growing Pentagon budget - which doesn't even include the hundreds of billions of dollars we are pissing away in the sands of Iraq on Bush's absurd Middle Eastern "project."

But Democrats should do somethings to close the deficit gap. They should repeal the most egregious of the tax cuts. And they should look closely at Pentagon spending. The needs of 2007 are not the same as 1987 when we still faced a large conventional and nuclear-strategic threat from the Soviet Union - we should budget for a military better able to respond to today's needs, not one full of carrier groups and armored divisions.

Oh, and a few dollars should be found to better fund climate studies, suffering in the Bush Administration because of its unfortunate habit of disproving the head-in-the-sand, everything's just fine attitude of the climate change deniers.