The Bush Administration has begun the annual pas de deux with Congress as appropriations bills begin to get the full attention of Members of the House and Senate.
The US fiscal year ends on September 30, so if we want the Congress to get out of town in an orderly manner late this fall, they have to pass all the bills which fund the various departments, agencies, corporations, and commissions which do the important work of the Federal Government.
The Bush Administration wants to hold spending growth to about four percent over Fiscal Year (FY) '01. The Congress has, in recent years, in concert with the Clinton Administration, presented spending bills adding up to about 7% in new spending annually.
There is a famous fable about the frog and the scorpion. The scorpion asks the frog to carry him across a river. The frog demurs, saying the scorpion will sting him, thus killing him. The scorpion responds he wouldn't do that because it would mean that he, too, would drown. The frog sees the logic of the argument, the scorpion climbs on his back, and they hop into the river.
About halfway across, the scorpion, indeed, stings the frog. As the frog fades he asks, "Why?" The scorpion responds, "I can't help it. It's in my nature."
The Members of the Appropriations Committees are the scorpions: They have to spend money. They can't help it. It's in their nature.
Jacob Schlesinger's Wall Street Journal profile about the Administration's point-man on spending, Office of Management and Budget director Mitch Daniels, notes that Daniels wanted to have some "hold" music installed on OMB phones.
The song of choice? The Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want."
This is a guy we like. The President has nicknamed him, "The Blade."
Remember the front-page-top-of-the-fold-banner-headlined howls of protest in the major US dailies over President George W. Bush's narrow, unyielding, dangerous, in-the-pocket-of-the-oil-companies position on the Kyoto Treaty: That China and India be included?
Remember that the Left (still passionate for the glorious days of the sixties, ditching classes, sitting in the coffee house, quoting reverentially from "The Little Red Book") said that China had made MAJOR strides in reducing the amount of greenhouse gas emissions pointing to the claims of China having increased energy efficiency by 50% while raising output nearly 30%?
Prepare to be shocked: China was lying.
Two new reports have, according to a Washington Post piece by John Pomfret, "concluded that China's greenhouse gas emissions have dropped little, if at all."
The switch from coal to hydroelectric and gas is not occurring as quickly as the Chinese have claimed, automobile traffic is doubling every five years, and Chinese officials have been lying to each other about how many coal mines are currently operating in the country.
This modestly important information, which flies in the face of about 873 million words written before, during, and after the President's two European visits this year, was placed on page A-16.
Give the Post credit. No one else, except the International Herald Tribune which is half-owned by the Washington Post, seems to have run the story at all.
On the Physics Phront: According to a study to be released next week by a professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, the speed of light has changed slightly over the past 15 Billion years which actually strengthens the multi-dimensional string theory of the structure of the universe and other indecipherable stuff.
The Mullings Director of Standards & Practices, having learned this news, claims speed of light should now officially be defined as the amount of time which transpires between the moment I withdraw $100 from an ATM to the moment I realize I don't have enough cash left to buy a Grande Mocha at the New South Old Town Starbucks in Alexandria Virginia.
This Mullings is so obtuse even I had to go to the Secret Decoder Ring to find out what I was talking about. Join me there.
Entertainment news from Reuters: Oscar-nominated Actress Kate Hudson ("Almost Famous") has sued her former personal assistant, claiming that the woman secretly spent $63,000 of the star's money on herself.
Mullings has learned Ms. Hudson is about to begin principal filming on her next film: "Almost Stupid."
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