[AntiGuv]

You will get no disagreement from me. It's just that the enormous gulf between the conservative budget policies of Reagan and the liberal budget policies of Bush is least evident in the category of defense spending.

If it were up to me, I would cut entitlements, nondefense, and defense spending - but then again I would have a radically different foreign policy from that of at least the past three administrations.

[WOSG]

"You will get no disagreement from me. It's just that the enormous gulf between the conservative budget policies of Reagan and the liberal budget policies of Bush is least evident in the category of defense spending. "

I dont see it as black and white, and not all in Reagan's favor. For all the faults of current budget, total spending versus GDP is under 20%, less than under Reagan.
While we are epxanding defense budgets, Reagan's cold war defense budgets were a bigger percentage of GDP than the current ones. I think the expansion now though is that much less necessary, as we dont face the same level of large military threat. Terrorism is "assymetrical" as they say.

What bother me is not that these are awful budgets. Really, they are not, the deficits worries are overwrought, and the spending increases, while bothersome, are - at least for this year, smaller than the economy will grow (and deficit will decline too)... What bothers me is that for once we Republicans control the budget process completely and we should live up to our rhetoric about fiscal responsibility.
We could and should be more like the 1994 GOP Congress and keep TOTAL spending at 0% increase.

"If it were up to me, I would cut entitlements, nondefense, and defense spending" Me too. OTOH, I think Bush's foreign policy is exactly what we need!