Surprise, surprise, surprise

WASHINGTON - President Bush on Friday ruled out raising taxes to pay for Gulf Coast reconstruction, saying other government spending must be cut. "You bet it will cost money, but I'm confident we can handle it," he said. Bush spoke after his advisers warned that Hurricane Katrina relief and reconstruction costs will swell the national debt by $200 billion or beyond. "It's going to cost whatever it costs," he said. "We're going to be wise about the money we spend."

If only the draconian new bankruptcy laws about to go into effect could be applied to our dry drunk-in-chief's spending binges. The bastard flat-out refuses to pay for his quagmire. He refuses to pay for his gallows-conversion, Gulf Coast Great Society crony giveaway. The only meaningful differences at this point between Dubya and Lyndon Johnson are the disparities in intelligence and motives. The results, on both human and macroeconomic levels, are getting tough to distinguish.

Is there a rule written down somewhere that says that Presidents from Texas have to screw up this way?