Brain-dead Reporting, MCMXI

The NYT's latest "White House Memo":

In Shift, Bush Emerges as a Budget Warrior
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg
Published: September 22, 2007
WASHINGTON, Sept. 21 — George W. Bush ran for the White House as a compassionate conservative. Now he is portraying himself as a conservative of a different stripe — the fiscal kind.

Mr. Bush is headed into a spending battle with Congressional Democrats with the two branches of government as divided on the issue as they have been since the federal shutdown of 1995. The president has threatened to veto 10 of the 11 appropriations bills that have passed the House, as well as legislation expanding a popular children’s health care program. On Monday, he will step up the fight with a speech accusing Democrats of fiscal irresponsibility.

Budget warrior eh? That's quite impressive! Especially when such a warrior is responsible for tax cuts that have created a structural budget deficit, where more money is going out than coming in for as many years as projections can handle. Despite the NYT's Bullwinkle-esque take on it, what's driving the deficit is not domestic spending, especially not discretionary domestic spending.   It's those tax cuts.

Nor is there anything new about the White House covering their opposition to some domestic programs  by invoking "don't be fiscally irresponsible" rhetoric.  From three years ago:

Office of Management and Budget Director Joshua Bolten did not rule out an outright freeze on non-defense, non-homeland security fiscal 2005 discretionary spending during a meeting Wednesday with about 50 conservative House Republicans. But he held firm that President Bush's budget would hold the line on spending and reduce the deficit, according to members attending the briefing.

Cut all the discretionary domestic programs you want, it still won't cover the deficit. 

Anyway,  I can't wait until the our new budget warrior-in-chief announces  his tax cut rollback.  Maybe it will come sometime around after Inauguration Day 2009.