More AP Steno Time On Dubya vs. The Budget

It is to laugh (from here)…

WASHINGTON – President Bush is spoiling for a veto battle with Democrats over spending bills, but Congress has done such a poor job completing its budget work that the showdown could be weeks away.

(And as you can see, the headline reads that Congress “dawdles” on the budget, hence the holdup…sure.)

Memo to Andrew Taylor of the AP – try reading this from last month (particularly this excerpt). Maybe you’ll find a clue…

This battle centers around the rather conciliatory budget the new Democratic majority put together. They would nearly meet the president's request for enormous increases in defense and homeland security spending and propose small increases in social spending.

But the president has chosen confrontation. He says he will veto all spending bills that exceed his requests and an expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), while opposing improvements in the federal student loan program—all in the name of restraining government. Bush has adopted the abstraction that government should have a reduced role in public affairs—warning that the all-too-modest spending plans will unleash tax increases and the federal leviathan.

But the president's position is misleading and out of touch with the American public. First, there is no substance to his attacks on the size of the congressional spending proposals. Congress's fiscal 2008 spending plan exceeds the president's budget slightly regarding social spending—a mere $23 billion—or less than one percent of the entire budget. This difference between their budget and the president's will not open the spending floodgates.

Indeed, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found the congressional plan would actually reduce the size of social spending as a share of the economy. It is more appropriate to think of the Bush budget as proposing cuts, and the congressional budget as ensuring that program services are not cut. As for the new health and education spending—currently between about $50 and $70 billion—it will be spread out over five years, and some of it will be offset by spending cuts. The rest of the new spending will be paid for with additional taxes, but since the increase is moderate, it will have little impact on most taxpayers' bottom line.

And though I know I got into this yesterday also, what possible benefit does Dubya think could be reaped here?

In the through-the-looking-glass approach of Repug “governance,” enter wingnut extraordinaire Pat Toomey with the answer…

“Republicans squandered the brand as the party of limited government and fiscal discipline and that contributed significantly to their losses in 2006,” said former GOP Rep. Pat Toomey, a former Republican congressman from Pennsylvania who heads the anti-spending group Club for Growth. “A showdown like this is exactly what the Republicans need to recapture the brand.”

The hell with those pesky elderly, infirmed, unemployed, college students in debt up to their eyeballs, and kids needing health insurance (and to say nothing of our crumbling infrastructure; I’m sure Toomey will be one of the first people to hide if another bridge collapses)…we have to recapture our brand, right Pat??!!

And in response…

“The President is rightly defensive about his fiscal record, and clearly he is itching to veto appropriations bills ... in a vain attempt to re-establish his bona fides with conservative groups,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md.

You go, Steny! And by the way, I’m still waiting for you to explain to me how Jim Moran was wrong.

Actually, though, I have to give Dem House Rep David Obey credit for this for real…

“After having asked us to borrow another $150 billion for the war in Iraq, he's trying to claim somehow that he's 'Mr. Fiscal Rectitude' by squawking about our efforts to restore $16 billion of his cuts,” Obey said.

And finally…

Democrats say their differences with Bush are small compared with the overall size of the budget. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., last month termed the $22 billion gap a “very small difference.”

“Only in Washington can $22 billion be called a very small difference,” Bush said recently.

I’ll tell you what, Dubya; try halving your $50 billion request here for Iraq and Afghanistan (here), state publicly that you’ll abide by a troop withdrawal timeline as a reason to start scaling back on the money, and the deal will be done, OK?

Hey, since this is in many ways a make-believe story, I thought I’d provide something President Stupid Head would consider to be a make-believe answer.

Update 10/1: Wow, could Taylor be more of a partisan with a lede like this one?