Shell Game?

AJC.com reports, "Gov. Sonny Perdue's proposed state budget underfunds up to $70 million in programs for the mentally disabled, poor people accused of crimes and technical school maintenance, according to a new legislative analysis.

"Critics claim Perdue moved the money to help fund pay raises and $100 gift cards to defray classroom expenses for Georgia's 100,000 teachers, a politically potent force in every election season. Perdue's office dismissed the critics as Democrats who don't have any ideas for improving education."

I'm no expert here but the criticism sounds legitimate. Granted, I don't know whether helping defray teachers' out of pocket expenditures is money better spent than what the money was supposed to go for, but it seems that the budget is the budget. Absent an emergency, you'd think the budget would rule.

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Health Care Gap

Joshua Marshall's question about W's latest health-care initiative is worth repeating without comment:

"When you go buy a car you're able to shop and compare," says President Bush. "And yet in health care that's just not happening in America today."

Is figuring out which cancer test to take like buying a car?

Truth is Stranger than Fiction

President Bush made a big healthcare speech yesterday.

Bush is making a series of appearances this month to highlight priorities he outlined in his State of the Union address. It was the second day in a row that the president emphasized the need for changes to the nation's health care system. On Wednesday, he pushed his call for an expansion of health savings accounts at the headquarters of the Wendy's fast-food chain in Ohio.

The ironing is delicious.

Wow. Just wow.

In a good way.

Congress Grows a Pair

In a welcome turn, Congress is apparently exercising its oversight responsibility again, even if in limited ways. Congressman Chris Shays, a Republican representative from Connecticut argued "the White House Was Clearly in a Fog." It's probably just that they want to distance themselves from the President in this mid-term election year, but it's nice to see anyway. A strong and vigilant Congress, like an independent judiciary, is an important bulwark against a power-hungry executive and the resurgence of an Imperial Presidency.