In these days of trillion dollar budgets and hundreds of billions in budget deficits each year, I long for the days when a billion dollars was considered serious money. The House passed a $37.4 billion budget for the Department of Homeland Security, a government entity that didn't exist six years ago. We spend $10 billion a month in Iraq, and that's not even in the budget. George W. Bush has become the biggest spending president in history even with inflation adjusted dollars. So it puzzled me, to put it politely, when I read that he was going to veto the DHS funding bill because he has pledged to keep overall spending to limits he proposed in his budget. WHAT? Should we add schizophrenia to the list of purported ailments befalling our great "decider"? "Bush has expanded federal nonentitlement programs in his first term almost twice as fast each year as Lyndon Johnson (the previous post -war spending king) did during his entire presidency... George W. Bush is the biggest spending president of the past 40 years in both the defense and domestic discretionary spending categories by a long shot." (Cato Institute, Oct. 2005)

"Spending for the war in Iraq, interest on the federal debt, and the huge trade deficit will combine to create upward pressure on interest rates that will be felt in middle-class households and small businesses that have to make loans above prime. Richard Kogan, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan Washington D.C.-based policy research institution, sees President George W. Bush's plan to make massive tax cuts that largely benefitted the wealthy as a big contributor to the growing budget crunch and the steady flow of budgetary red ink. Despite an initial budget surplus, the administration ran a string of deficits in Bush's first term totaling nearly a trillion dollars, from $158 billion in fiscal year 2002, to $375 billion in '03, and $412 billion in '04. The net interest on the national debt at $160 billion, or 7% of federal spending, was relatively low in '04. However, by fiscal year 2014, Uncle Sam will be paying an estimated $441 billion in interest, or 11.5% of all spending." (Earl G. Grave Publishing Co. 2005) (Gale Group 2005)

Unbelievably, this new Democratic controlled Congress wants to outspend Bush. "All told, Democrats plan spending increases for annual agency budgets funded at Congress' discretion of about $23 billion above Bush's February budget request. The moves have prompted the White House to promise vetoes of bills exceeding Bush's budget request-with the exception of the veterans funding measure...Most recently Democrats added $17 billion to an Iraq war funding bill, money not sought by Bush, despite his veto threats against "excess and extraneous" spending." (AP, June 16, 2007) But, of course, he did not veto the Iraq spending bill. No amount of money seems too much for this president to spend on Iraq. Vetoes will be reserved for domestic social programs.

But now that Congress is controlled by Democrats Bush and his allies have resurected the "tax and spend liberal" cliche' to label their political enemies. But he has become much worse...."a tax cut and spend neo-con". Tax cuts for the rich are paid for by social service cuts for the middle class and poor. Massive off-budget spending in Iraq will be paid for by our children and grand-children. No spending bills proposed by the Republican controlled Congress were threatened with vetoes. Why, now, the change of heart? Hipocracy. Politics.

What do I want for Father's Day? A safe and secure future for my children. A nation that spends more to promote peace than to fight war. A nation that spends more to preserve the environment than to destroy it. A nation where everyone has access to quality health care, not just those who can afford it. In other words, a federal budget that is as it should be, a moral document. Finally, I want a Congress that works for the voters, not the giant corporations that line their political war chests with money.