So much for fiscal conservatism. Then again, historically speaking, it's easier to pitch dismantling the social welfare safety net for the poor and middle class as a way of saving it when you've run the government into deficit through tax cuts for the rich.

One of the women on welfare I worked with at the Philadelphia Unemployment Project, Gerry, once said to me, "What we need to tell Washington is to give us caps and gowns, not wedding gowns." Washington, unfortunately, isn't listening. Bush's new proposal to invest $1.5 billion not in vocational training, or daycare, food stamps, but in pressuring poor women to marry their children's fathers is as misguided as it is offensive. One particular statistic proponents of such a plan should keep in mind: well over half of women on welfare report having been victims of domestic abuse. In other words, Bush's proposal would drive women back into abusive relationships.

Guess whose deficits the IMF is worried about now? Doubt we'll see the US forced into a "structural readjustment" plan by the IMF anytime soon. Although when it comes to "austerity measures" - privatization, union-busting, anti-environmentalism, and the like - the Bush administration seems to be doing just fine on its own.

More compassionate conservatism: "...the president's proposed budget for the 2005 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, would control the rising cost of housing vouchers for the poor, require some veterans to pay more for health care, slow the growth in spending on biomedical research and merge or eliminate some job training and employment programs." And tax cuts. Don't hold your breath for corporate subsidies or the Pentagon budget to go under the knife.