I'm a bleeding heart liberal when it comes to anything social. You name it, I'm for it. I run more moderate with fiscal issues, but never Republican, because though they seem to preach common sense fiscal responsibility in action their responsibility seems to only benefit the already rich, which doesn't really make sense to me. Not to mention, the last few years of hawkish international relations has definitely turned my stomach -- though I blame that more on the people involved than on any platform of the Republican party.

Like every other liberal, I celebrated when the Democrats took Congress, and an amazing woman like Nancy Pelosi took leadership. However, as I read what the new Congress is going to do with the FY07 federal budget, I cringed. Is this what we will expect from our new leadership? Don't they realize that federal agencies (not just the one near and dear to my heart) do some pretty amazing things and require their budgets be re-evaluated, extended, increased to keep up with inflation, annually? If the annual budget process is this painful, why don't they turn some of the farther reaching federal agencies into a multi-year budget cycle - only requiring reapproval every few years. Give them time to actually implement a project before their money is ripped out from under them. Imagine saving a bunch of money to renovate your kitchen, and then halfway through the project, someone takes half that money away. Now you can't finished. You've already spent half your money, and just have a run down kitchen left to show for it. I don't believe the federal government wastes our money in its beauracracy and inefficient contracting (though that is part of it) - I believe the government wastes our money by stopping and starting projects with and without enough money to suceed every year.