(While we’re at it, why not claim savings from not fighting Germany, Japan, North Korea, and Viet Nam… ought to be able to squeeze a few bucks out of that)

Obama is once again counting on the ignorance of the populace so far as budgeting is concerned. He is offering nothing positive other than raising taxes, and is attacking the other side for not agreeing with him… the only thing he has ever shown any real talent for doing. I’ve read through sections of several federal budgets, and every single one of them has contained accounting gimmicks that would get someone from private industry put in jail (in fact, one of the things Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling of Enron were convicted of was trying to do what Geithner was persuading Wallace was perfectly reasonable… claim savings to be used as revenue from a project that was never funded and was cancelled).

The problem Geithner and the administration is having with persuading anyone familiar with budgeting of this ploy is simply this… Funding used to pay for military operations during wartime are NEVER included in the regular budget, and are not debated during the regular budget processes. War appropriations are done separately on an “as needed” basis (primary debate for war appropriations are done by assorted defense committees, with the Budget committees consulted only prior to the floor vote… the ides being that whatever the military needs to prosecute the war, they pretty much get). Wallace is aware of how this works not only because he’s a damn good reporter, but also because when Democrats started demagoguing the financing of the war in Iraq, he was shown exactly how the appropriation process works (in fact, a good friend of mine was the liaison for Wallace at the Pentagon during this time).