The War Against US

E.J. Dionne latest column, Bush's War Budget, points to the worst thing about the Bush's budget — what's bad isn't just what is says it will do, but what it refuses to admit that it will do. I don't know what else to say, except that despite the folksy demeanor, at the core Bush is just calculating and mean.

Churchill recognized that a time of war places a special obligation on the governing classes to those who benefit least from a nation's social and economic arrangements. Bush, on the other hand, is doing all he can to benefit the economic elites and, through stealth, to undercut government's commitments to the least fortunate.

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The president's program is neither conservative nor compassionate. It is radical in its stealthy way, and it threatens to undermine the federal government's rather modest commitment to helping states and cities assist their poorest residents. Yet by pushing so many of the fiscal problems so far down the road, Bush hopes to insulate himself from the political costs of his choices.