Fedblog


The 'Laptop Notebook' Budget


Here's President Bush crowing about his administration's (relatively) paperless fiscal 2009 budget:

I submitted the budget today to Congress -- it's on a laptop notebook, an e-budget. It saves paper, saves trees, saves money. I think it's the first budget submitted electronically.

At the risk of parsing the president's words too closely, I hope his budget team didn't actually submit the budget on a "laptop notebook." I think that the process could've been handled more efficiently over that newfangled Internet thing.

COMMENTS


  • not new fangled Al Gore invented it back in the 70's

  • The one Al Gore invented?

  • Later in the President's briefing he said:

    "This is a good, solid budget. It's not only an innovative budget, in that it's coming to Congress over the Internet, it's a budget that's balanced -- gets to balance in 2012 and saves taxpayers money."

    Notice, the "over the Internet" phrase. Come on guys, give him a break!

  • @John in ATL: Let's parse that one a little more closely. It's a balanced budget with a $400 Billion with a B deficit, before factoring in Iraq, Afghanistan, and anything else that happens to come up.

    Uh, but what he meant to say was that it gets to balance in 2012, 4 years into his retirement, assuming that Hillary or Barrack doesn't write a completely new budget that is less nonsensical. Oh, and assuming they don't correct the AMT over the long haul. Also assuming they don't start anymore expensive foreign adventures. Oh and assuming they don't permanently enact the Bush tax cuts that he's asking Congress to permanently enact.

    That's a lot of assumption for a decider.

  • If this is the first budget submitted electronically, we are in more trouble than I realized!

  • Bush's brain has left the building. Not that he had all that much to begin with, but this budget shows how completely out-of-touch he has become. He wants to pay for a huge increase in defense spending AND reduce the budget deficit by cutting money from programs that help the poor, the elderly, and children. A truer 'compassionate conservative' Bush could not be. While we're at it, lets give out a reckless $145B in tax rebates to "stimulate" the economy. Never mind that its been sinking for years but now there is an election. Isn't that call buying votes? Thankfully, the Democrats will stonewall this one until Obama is elected with a Democratic majority Congress.

    BTW, Al Gore NEVER claimed to have 'invented the internet.' It is an outright lie perpetuated by neocon talking heads like Limbaugh and then repeated by his drones. What Gore actually said was "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." It's true that Gore sponsored legislation that created ARPANET which evolved into the internet. A little puffery I grant you, but it's a long way from an out-right lie.

  • galiberal al baby said lots of nonsense. Remember the day he and bill toured the white hose and they both thought a bust of George Washington was Caesar. The economy has been robust since he rescued it in 2001. My concern over the stimulas package is that money proposed by the democrats will go to illegal aliens as well

  • Memo to Tom Shoop: As the new editor at GovExec, be sure to limit your editorializing and elevate your writing, even in blogs. If your commitment as editor is indeed to serve your readers better, do so by ensuring your writing is direct and unbiased, and by omitting such loaded words such as 'crowing' when referring to the President's remarks, however tempting.

  • Laptop Notebook? Is that the same thing as a Trapper Keeper?

  • GaLiberal - The ARPANet was developed in the late 1960s. Al Gore was first elected to Congress in 1976.

    "It's true that Gore sponsored legislation that created ARPANET which evolved into the internet." Is that statement "puffery" or "an out-right-lie?"

  • M L Harris...speaking of making assumptions...you're making a lot of assumptions on who's going to be in the White House next. Since when is the election already decided? Besides, if a dumbocrat gets in, the deficit will grow even higher with all the socialist programs Hitlery and Obamason will start. Don't look for the budget to be balanced...there's no way in the world it will happen. Oh wait...I forgot...they'll raise our taxes to pay for it. Get out the checkbook you liberals, it's gonna cost us all.

  • People who pretend to think that Al Gore said that he invented the internet are usually just trying to distract from a debate that they are losing about the incompetence of Bush.

    It is well established that Gore only said that he led the passing of the laws that funded the internet. Yes, the bad government, not the free market, created and funded what eventually became the internet.

    Newt Gingrich said on CSPANon Sept. 2000: "Gore is the person who, in the Congress, most systematically worked to make sure that we got to an Internet."

    When someone tries to change the subject with the "Gore-invented-the-internet" line, that means that they lost the debate.

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