As this excellent column from Bloomberg.com highlights, there is a gap between the administration's rhetoric and reality when it comes to tackling the long-term budget implications of the rising costs of entitlement spending. Bush spent a lot of time last year making a big deal about the unfunded Social Security liability, and the liability for Medicare is expected to be even greater, with the administration estimating an $11 trillion shortfall.

Despite this stark reality, Bush has no fiscally responsible plan to deal with rising entitlement costs. The Social Security shortfall could be shored up by repealing some of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts to the wealthy, yet Bush has no interest in doing this. Instead, he continues to push for extending expiring tax breaks, and for eliminating the estate tax, which taxes less than 2 percent of the wealthiest estates in America. The result promises to be a shift in the burden of these costs from the wealthiest in our society onto to everyone else.