Sure, he talks a big game about "fiscal responsibility," but it's more a rhetorical tick than any sort of commitment to adequately funding national priorities. This week is emblematic of the president's bankrupt talking point. On Wednesday, the president sent his Secretary of Defense to ask Congress for 192.8 billion to fight a war that most Americans don't want to fight. Meanwhile, the president is threatening to veto Congress's proposed spending levels because they are "irresponsible and excessive level[s] of spending." Furthermore, Bush is also threatening to veto the reauthorization of SCHIP because the bill would provide insurance for too many children.

• 68% of Americans think the U.S. should decrease or remove all troops from Iraq.
• 63% of Americans support the $35 billion expansion of SCHIP to provide health insurance for an additional 4.4 million children.

Naturally, the president has threatened to massively increase spending on the former and veto the latter. The president supports neither fiscal responsibility nor national priorities. If the president was serious about fiscal responsibility, he would fund his war. If he supported national priorities, he would sign the wildly popular and fiscally responsible (paid for by a cigarette tax increase) SCHIP expansion.