President Bush: Bargain Hunter

The president sends a message to our nation's poor.

The budget battles have started to heat up here in Washington, and our thrifty president is putting his boot down on excessive spending by Congress. Two big-ticket items are being debated: the first is SCHIP, a program that subsidizes states for providing health insurance to low-income children. Although President Dookie never vetoed a spending bill sent to him by the GOP-controlled congress of his first term, an additional $30 billion (for a total of $60 billion) to insure kids for the next five years is apparently too much for him to stomach. When it comes to constant war however, the president wants to loosen Congress’ purse strings to the tune of some $190 billion, the largest annual budget request for war in American history. The cost of the War on Terror now tops $800 billion, or close to $2,700 per American. Remember when the Iraq War was only going to cost $10 billion and we’d all get free oil and Iraqi manservants to do our bidding? Shit, man.