I'm all for the baby steps. Hell, I don't expect that a president or congress could cut the budget the way I want. However, we are not making baby steps.. we are making massive leaps toward bigger government.
I think cutting discretionary spending as proposed is a baby step. That's something that has to happen year-over-year to get back to a sane level. The real meat is finding ways to cut entitlements which are much harder to change like the failed Social Security plan.
Bush has been a problem on illegal immigration and on not being tough enough on spending, but saying he's not conservative I think is a bit of an exaggeration.