Budget-sensitive Republicans

Knight-Ridder does more good work for us:

Over the past five years, Bush and the Republican-led Congress have been far better at expanding government than shrinking it. Spending for national security and government entitlement programs has skyrocketed, without offsetting cuts in other programs...

Tax revenues flowing to the federal government declined in the first three years of Bush's presidency, driven down by tax cuts and a mild recession. They have since rebounded as a result of economic growth and other factors, but federal spending has increased even more.

The $128 billion budget surplus that Bush inherited in 2001 has turned into a deficit of at least $337 billion this year.

So where's the money going?

More than 60 percent of the budget is devoted to programs that are essentially on autopilot - interest payments and the so-called entitlement programs, primarily Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Roughly another 20 percent is devoted to defense and homeland security.

Bush's proposed defense budget for 2007 is expected to top $440 billion, up from $334 billion the year he took office. Spending for homeland security has more than doubled, from $17 billion in 2001 - in a budget approved before the Sept. 11 attacks - to $50 billion this year.

Those figures don't include the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's another $440 billion so far, mostly for Iraq, where expenses are piling up at a rate between $4.5 billion and $8 billion a month...

With national security and entitlements essentially off the table, the only real targets for budget cuts are the "nons" - non-defense, non-homeland security domestic programs. In other words, the roughly 18 percent of the budget that goes for things such as education, environmental protection, transportation and other government services. They're feeling the pinch...

"I can assure that this president is very concerned about the budget deficit," White House economic adviser Al Hubbard said.