Bush's Budget Backs Bad Behavior

The Bush Administration released it's 2005-06 2.5 trillion dollar budget plan on February 7. As noted earlier from statements in his State of the Union, Bush is intending on cutting a lot of very popular and vital programs. This week the Senate is taking up the budget resolution (which according to Senate rules is filibuster proof) but the Republicans have plans to attach lesgislation to allow drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR). It will be a close call in the Senate. Four anti-drilling Democratic Senators were replaced by four pro-drilling Republican senators in the 2004 elections so the Republicans think they might have 51 votes to include raping and pillaging of the environment included in the Bush Budget.

However, now comes word from the "other body" that the chairman of the budget committee will not allow ANWR drilling legislation attached to the House budget resolution which means that during budget reconciliation it will take 60 votes, not 51 votes to have legislation authorizing ANWR drilling included in the final budget reconciliation act that Bush must sign into law to keep the federal budget operating.