Bush warns Democrats on stalematePresident Bush yesterday reasserted his role in domestic policy as the spender in chief and ultimate legislative backstop, urging Democrats to cut pork-barrel spending in half and telling them they will take the blame for stalemate if they send him bills he has to veto.
His warning came the day before Democrats take control of Congress, where they already have taken the first steps to consolidate their power and push through their own lobbying and ethics changes, new budget rules and an increase in the minimum wage.
In both a published column and in a statement he made after his first Cabinet meeting of the year, the president tried to get out ahead of Democrats by setting spending goals and promising cooperation -- to a point.
"If the Congress chooses to pass bills that are simply political statements, they will have chosen stalemate. If a different approach is taken, the next two years can be fruitful ones for our nation," Mr. Bush said in the Wall Street Journal column.
And in his Rose Garden remarks he vowed to introduce a budget next month that will eliminate the deficit by 2012, and challenged Congress to follow "one important message" voters sent in last year's elections by ending secret earmarks, or pork-barrel spending.
But he already has run afoul of Democratic leaders in the House, who said the president is making an executive branch power play and argued he doesn't have credibility on spending issues.
Yeah, actually, the Democrats are right and Bush doesn't have any credibility on spending. After all, if he was actually bothered by how the government's been spending, he would have done something when his own party held the Congress. He's just making himslef look even more of an ass than he usually does.

I think what it means is that the Republicans are going to try to recover their old base by playing their old game of "we're the fiscally responsible ones".

In fact, neither party can be called fiscally responsible now.

We're hosed.

As usual.