The President's FY 2008 budget submission to Congress was only hours old yesterday when senior Republicans in both the Senate and House stopped just short of declaring it still-born: Senate Budget Committee ranking member Judd Gregg (R-NH): Unfortunately, I don't think it has got a whole lot of legs... The White House is afraid of taxes and the Democrats are afraid of controlling spending. Rep. Michael Castle (R-DE): I am concerned that this budget request may fall short in balancing non-war Defense Department funding with the need for critical domestic spending priorities. [And h]onest accounting must preclude politically motivated gimmicks... We would be remiss if we didn't take into account ... a very difficult alternative minimum tax fix and the impact that will have on the overall goal [of balancing the budget]. Not to suggest that this means Bush's budget is D.O.A., but the public expression of this degree of skepticism by GOP lawmakers on the day of the budget's release does not bode well for its prospects in Congress over the coming months. The GOP may not be eager to disregard the $930 billion discretionary spending cap Bush seeks to impose, but some key spending cuts (e.g., to Head Start) will at least mean some spending priority trade-offs under the cap. On the entitlement side, as House Ways and Means Committee chair Charles Rangel (D-NY) points out, "It is disingenuous for the president to suggest cuts [of $101 billion over five years] to Medicare and Medicaid that he knows the Congress will not support... It's not going to happen."