Three trillion dollar budget!! Up a frigging TRILLION since Bush took office, and almost all of that with a Republican congress. A third of that increase is related to the war and the military, most of the remaining two thirds of the increase is social spending including the entitlements. The remainder is mostly lost in the noise.

I theorized to Glenn Reynolds that the shit hit the fan in the Republican congress when Gingrich hit the bricks, and the Contract With America hit the birdcage. It still looks that way to me, and I'm not seeing a lot of people left in the party to replace these ideas.

This says a lot for the need for principled Republicans on ALL aspects of conservative philosophy, not just a few of them. Sure as hell the "fiscal conservative" leg of the stool seems to have gotten burned up in the fireplace.