Leaving a Legacy of Kleptocracy In "Budget Gridlock Is a Shameful Legacy for Bush and Many Others," in today's Roll Call, leading congressional scholar Norman Orenstein bemoans the shrinking center in Congress and its impact on budget policy, as expressed in the current AMT and budget debates. Orenstein fingers the GOP for the fix we're in on AMT, sacrificing PAYGO on its altar and having to fix it at all: Republicans had many opportunities to fix the AMT when they were in the majority, and instead chose their own year-to-year Band-Aids, because they did not want to tell the American people the truth about the long-term budget drain the fix would entail. That was the same reason they pulled a bait and switch on the big package of tax cuts, deliberately having them all expire after 10 years to mask the costs, then trying to extend them by calling inaction a tax increase. But Norm, you seem to have forgeten the Cheney Axiom, that Deficits Don't Matter to the GOP, which explains the even more outrageous and irresponsible behavior of the president on the appropriations bills — vowing to veto the latest version of a bipartisan compromise before it was accomplished, showing no interest in working in divided government across party lines, drawing lines in the sand over $11 billion out of a $3 trillion budget. Of course, $11 billion is real money, but this has nothing to do with the numbers or with fiscal responsibility. Bush Sr. had some notion of serving as a steward of government. By contrast, Jr. is a kleptocrat, pilfering public goods and distributing them to buds and cronies through contracts and tax cuts. So much self-dealing to do, so little time ... to care about deficits.