Yesterday the Office of Management and Budget detailed its plan to terminate or reduce funding for 141 federal discretionary programs, saying that these cuts could free up to $14.7 billion in spending. The document, which also details Bush's plan to cut $71.1 billion from mandatory programs over five years, can be seen here.

The budget reconciliation bill passed by the House on February 1 was apparently different from the bill that was sent to President Bush for his signature. The discrepancy between the bills involves a provision that was intended to allow Medicare beneficiaries to purchase home-oxygen devices as opposed to paying endless rental fees. However, a clerical error made during the enrollment of the bill changed the policy to apply to practically all medical equipment. House and Senate aides are pointing fingers at each other for this change.

Recently there have been some interesting op-eds on budget business in the Washington Post. Former CBO head Douglas Holtz-Eakin submitted an op-ed February 5 in which he discussed how increasingly booming entitlement programs need a "fundamental rethinking" that will dictate both the size of government as well as levels of taxation. E.J. Dionne, Jr. discusses in a February 7 column how "tax cutting is now the idol of the Republican shrine," and points out that sane budgeting will never happen unless deficit hawks work to turn popular opinion against this worship of tax cutting.

President Bush's FY 2007 budget released on Monday allocated $441.3 billion for interest payments on the debt during fiscal year 2007. That's a huge 39 percent increase over the $318 billion spent four years ago and a 25 percent increase from the $352 billion spent last year. The president's allocation is a 11 percent increase over last year's request.