In a boost to Budget Chairman Jim Nussle's plans to enact substantial budget cuts to offset the cost for recovery from Hurricane Katrina, House Speaker Hastert announced yesterday the approval of a package of cuts modeled after Nussle's plan. "In order to maintain our commitment to deficit reduction, we are proposing to move a mid-session Budget Amendment for the first time in almost 30 years (1977)," Hastert said in a written release. The release also detailed the following proposals for offsetting Katrina costs:

• An "additional across the board cut of '06 discretionary spending." Permanently eliminate and "deauthorize" programs that House appropriators have zeroed out.
• Increase total minimum reconciled mandatory savings from $34.7 billion to $50 billion. "In addition to the $50 billion, we will offset dollar-for-dollar the new mandatory spending included in reconciliation/entitlement reform that is required to address the disasters."
• "We will bring forward packages of additional rescissions to further help offset reconstruction costs. Congress must develop, with the President, a budget for reconstruction and a plan to pay for it."

What is truly befuddling about this statement is Haster's claim of a committment to deficit reduction. It has been under his leadership that the Congress has enacted reckless and short sighted tax and budget policies that have driven the federal government back iinto the red in the first place. And Hastert does not have a committment to deficit reduction - he has a committment to cutting programs and services and reducing the size of government. If the Speaker was serious about deficit reduction, he would be talking about either tax rollbacks or increases in addition to budget cuts.