Thursday, May 27, 2004

Yin and Yang: Now we know what "Compassionate Conservative" means. The compassionate part is to run up federal deficits like a drunken sailor during the first term, in order to appease all constituencies and to avoid re-election accusations of cutting important programs. The conservative part is to finally instill fiscal responsibility and slash the federal budget as a lame duck in the second term.

That seems to be the plan, according to a memo that the The Washington Post uncovered. The White House is warning all domestic agencies to expect big cuts in the 2006 budget -- if, of course, Bush is re-elected.

So now Bush is trying to get best of both worlds. He's going to campaign as a fiscal conservative without having to own up to actually cutting the funding for any programs. We'll see if anybody buys that.