At a time when Republicans are eager to prove their mettle on spending restraint, their deeds are falling far short of their election-year promises.
The House is poised to pad the deficit by passing $91 billion in debt-financed funding for the war in Iraq and for hurricane relief. Meanwhile, the Senate is working on a budget plan shorn of tax and spending cuts wanted by President Bush.
To top it all off, by week's end the Senate must vote on permitting the federal debt to grow by $781 billion to avoid a disastrous government default. The measure would allow the debt to grow to almost $9 trillion -- $3 trillion more than when Bush took office.
"People are not enthusiastic," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.
Just this past weekend, a bevy of GOP presidential aspirants and southern politicians trooped to the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in Memphis, promising to be more thrifty with taxpayers' money.
"We've been hit with unexpected challenges -- a recession, 9/11, homeland security, the war on terror, Katrina," Majority Leader Bill Frist told the GOP faithful in Memphis. "But they're not justification for a one-way ticket down a wayward path of wasteful Washington spending."
Election-year political concerns have forced Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg, R-N.H., to drop Bush's proposal to shave $36 billion from Medicare over five years from his plan. However, fellow Republicans agitated for more funding for defense, veterans benefits, education, health research and border security.
Senate debate began Monday, but it's not certain GOP leaders can muster enough votes for Gregg's bare-bones budget plan.
Environmentally friendly Republicans are upset that the measure would pave the way for opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration.
The GOP faithful are unenthusiastic over a blueprint that fails to deliver tax cuts and new spending curbs. "It's not near enough," said Sen. Sam Brownback," R-Kan., a prominent conservative. "It's what we can get through, and we'll be pressed to get this through."
On the other side of the spectrum, Bush's proposed cuts on domestic Cabinet department budgets have GOP moderates such as Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania threatening to oppose the budget altogether.
Specter chairs the Appropriations subcommittee that funds education and health programs. He is pushing to add $7 billion to the budget to bring such funding back to the levels of two years ago. Specter has threatened to oppose the budget altogether over Bush's cuts to programs such as education and health research.
