The president claims that his $2.57 trillion budget is the first step on the road to fulfilling his campaign promise to halve the deficit by 2009, even if Congress agrees to make his tax cuts permanent and enacts still more reductions. That claim is completely unfounded. Indeed, if the White House team that drafted this budget were subject to Sarbanes-Oxley, criminal indictments would be flying.

Start with the fact that most of the spending reductions the president proposes will be rejected by Congress. The budget calls for the elimination or curtailment of some 150 programs. But last year the president proposed eliminating 65 programs for a savings of $4.8 billion--and Congress agreed to eliminate only four programs for a savings of less than $200 million. Although Congress is under some pressure to keep spending down, it is under even more pressure from the farm lobby, the business lobby, the veterans' lobby, the poverty lobby, and the oldies' lobby, to mention only a few groups that will fight Bush's cuts. [More]