From a reader:

Jonah,
Running anything is no fun. It is hard work, and demands all manner of efforts from those who have to make decisions. The Clinton administration treated governing the country like fun, and that’s how we got to 9/11, Iraq and Enron, all messes from Clinton that Bush had to clean up.
You are upset at the amount Bush is spending. To some degree, this can’t be avoided; after all, we have a war to fight, and the government is mandated statutorily to pay for the Katrina clean up. How about laying some blame at Congress? After all, they are the ones who control the purse strings. Highway bills, for example, have been almost veto proof. Given how evenly the pork is spread around, vetoes have rarely if ever been sustained. I would also add that during the 1990s we did have efforts made in Congress to cut useless programs such as the NEA, and a line item veto was passed. Republicans got their asses handed to them in elections over things like the first issue, and the line item veto law was struck down by the SCOTUS as unconstitutional.
Let’s face it, the American people talk a much better game than they play when it comes to spending