Absurdity of September budget battle

During a time when Congress should devote all of its attention to debating Iraq, leaders on Capitol Hill decided to wait until just this month to address the budget for the 2008 fiscal year, which begins on October 1st.  In other words, the bills must be passed within the next month, or else the federal government cannot fully function.

We can complain all we want about how Democratic leaders should have dealt with this issue earlier.  In fact, the media will do a lot of that.  But what should not be overlooked is the absurdity of Bush's complaint that Democrats are asking for too much money.

Richard Simon shows us the dispute:

Cabinet heads wrote to congressional leaders last week urging them topass appropriations bills "with reasonable and responsible spendinglevels" before the current fiscal year ends.

Bush has proposedexpenditures of $933 billion, a 6.8% increase from this year's spendinglevels. That amount does not include direct expenses for the wars inIraq and Afghanistan. The House bills, by the White House's estimate,exceed the president's level by $22 billion.

In layman's terms, Bush is raising a fuss because the Democrats want to increase the budget by 2%, even though Bush's own version is a 6% increase from last year.  This complaint comes from the same President who never vetoed a single spending bill when the Republicans held Congress, yet the national debt rose by more than $3 trillion.

George W. Bush is the last guy that has any credibility while preaching fiscal discipline.

Comments

[crshedd]

bush and company have crowed about the massive increase in tax collections (since the tax cuts-go figure). why would he have to ask for a 6 percent increase. next years budget should be 2 percent less.