No No NO

Bad Bad BAD:

WASHINGTON — President Bush, confronting a brewing rebellion within conservative ranks, promised Friday to help Congress cut spending in other areas to try to offset the cost of Hurricane Katrina reconstruction. […]

The president ruled out tax increases to reduce red ink. He said the Office of Management and Budget would help lawmakers trim federal programs to help offset reconstruction costs that independent analysts predicted would exceed $200 billion.

“You bet it’s going to cost money,” Bush said at a White House news conference.

“The key question is to make sure the costs are wisely spent and that we work with Congress to make sure we are able to manage our budget in a wise way,” he said. “And that’s going to mean cutting other programs.”

(Via Suburban Guerrilla.)

Cutting other programs– like, I don’t know, shoring up the levees and floodwalls– is what got us into this mess in the first place. If you hadn’t decided $20 million could be better spent on a desert war, you might not have to spend $200 billion now.

And as Mark Kleinman points out, the Republicans have been in charge of the House, the Senate, and the Presidency for the past two and a half years. How come there’s $200 billion per year of unnecessary spending in the Federal budget?

Clearly, “managing our budget in a wise way” is beyond this doofus. I mean, he thinks costs are things that you spend. No, costs are what you incur. Resources are what you spend to pay costs. No wonder this idiot has driven so many company balance sheets into the ground. And now he’s doing the same with our country’s accounts.