Surprise...!

America's prosperity requires restraining the spending appetite of the federal government. I welcome the bipartisan enthusiasm for spending discipline. I will send you a budget that holds the growth of discretionary spending below inflation, makes tax relief permanent, and stays on track to cut the deficit in half by 2009. My budget substantially reduces or eliminates more than 150 government programs that are not getting results, or duplicate current efforts, or do not fulfill essential priorities. The principle here is clear: taxpayer dollars must be spent wisely, or not at all. - George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, 02/02/05 (emphasis mine)

Looks like sound fiscal policy to me. And I'm certain that that will surprise many of you to see me agreeing with Dubbyuh. And I would agree with him if he actually meant it, but he doesn't.

On Monday, the failure of Dubbyuh's pet project, the national missile defense system, was reported(1.)...again. At $85 million a pop, that adds up rather quickly. This Reagan-era weapons program does squat all to protect our borders from a pocket nuke in a shipping container, it has been plagued by technical problems and has, thus far, proven anything but successful. The program is not getting results, by any definition. By the standards Dubbyuh laid out in the SOTUS, funding for this program should be eliminated.

Already facing budget cuts(2.) because of the reliability issues, there are other forces at work to cut funding to the program. First and foremost of these is the "war on terror". After 9/11, the focus was shifted from a conventional military threat to the unconventional threat posed by international terrorism. Despite the $10 billion already poured down this particular rat-hole, there remains "no demonstrated capability" to even get off the ground, much less knock down an incoming missile. But that simply doesn't appear to enter into the calculus. How many humvees would that $10 billion have armored? How many flak-jackets would it have provided?

Thus far, however, funding is only being cut for the program, when, according to the criteria laid out in the SOTUS, it should be cancelled. But this apparent contradiction should come as no surprise to anyone. Dubbyuh has a long and checkered history of saying one thing and doing another.

Citations:

(1.) The San Francisco Chronicle, pg A3, 02/15/2005. Also, here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/02/15/MNGISBB1R01.DTL&type=printable

(2.) Business Week Online, 02/04/05