The quote of the day from Mitch Daniels, Budget Director for the White House:

"A balanced budget remains a priority for this president"

Meanwhile, in the real world, Mr. Bush presents a budget of $2.229 trillion with a projected deficit of $307 billlion, the largest deficit in history, eclipsing the previous record held by, guess who, Bush the Elder. And next year, even with the voodoo economic "dynamic scoring" (known in the engineering trade as the WAG technique), the deficit is even larger. This deficit does not include funding for the proposed Iraq war ($200-600 billion), include the money being ripped off from the Social Security trust fund ($160 billion), or account for all the other tax cuts which Bush has proposed. Tonight on C-SPAN, Sen. Conrad, ranking member of the Budget Committee, estimated the cost of all these cuts at $1.4 trillion dollars over the next 7 years. At times during that conference, Sen Conrad was practically speechless, reduced to shaking his head sadly as he answered questions from the press.

I don't think I have seen anything like it before but, of course, there has never been any budget which is so irresponsible. And, yet, the average GOP voter still thinks of the Republicans as the party of fiscal responsibility. This lie has been exposed so often that I hesitate to bore my reader. Nevertheless, for the interested, the facts are presented here on this blog, here by Dwight Meredith, and here by others. The impending retirement of the so-called "baby boomers" is a real demographic phenomenon that cannot be dismissed by the GOP like global warming. It is clear that the number of workers per retiree will continue to drop but the GOP, from Reagan on, persists in running up such deficits and looting Social Security. It is heinous and criminal, a total abdication of any semblance of fiduciary responsibility.