Last year I spent a lot of time pouring over pdfs and budget tables, and in addition to being instructional and vaguely entertaining (keep in mind that I'm a nerd) it was a character-building exercise. I think that a lot of folks would benefit from doing the same.

Still, like Kevin Drum, I'm not inclined to do much budget-blogging this year. I've become too cynical. Reading stuff like this all over the place doesn't help. I do find it interesting to watch some Democrats embrace federalism and contemplate a state-oriented strategy (here's the latest example, but there have been many others). It surely makes one wonder what the point of belonging to a political party is: is it to win, to advocate for certain programs, to push for certain principles, or to protect your own? Perhaps it can be said that the parties have neither permanent constituencies nor permanent methods, but merely permanent interests. In any case, I'm coming to despise them both (OK, mostly the GOP). Aside from the social security fight, domestic politics is becoming less and less interesting to me. Is it outrage fatigue? Resignation?

Maybe these guys can solve the problem, but I doubt it until this other issue gets solved.

UPDATE: Hilzoy, Brad and Max, however, can at least muster the will to condemn the clown show. Good for them.

... the other major blogosphere Brads are doing yeoman's work, too.

I am soooo not falling for this:

President Bush will seek deep cuts in farm and commodity programs in his new budget and in a major policy shift will propose overall limits on subsidy payments to farmers, administration officials said Saturday.

Such limits would help reduce the federal budget deficit and would inject market forces into the farm economy, the officials said.

The proposal puts Mr. Bush at odds with some of his most ardent supporters in the rural South, including cotton and rice growers in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi.

The new chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Thad Cochran of Mississippi, and more than 100 farm groups are gearing up to fight the White House proposal. The administration's willingness to push the proposal, despite such protests, suggests how tight the new budget will be.

Most of the subsidies are paid to large farm operators growing cotton and rice and, to a lesser degree, corn, soybeans and wheat.

Mr. Bush would set a firm overall limit of $250,000 on subsidies that can now exceed $1 million in some cases.

I would be overjoyed if something like this actually happened, but I'm confident that the welfare-staters in Congress will put them back in. As is, I suspect, the White House.