Two more of my posts have appeared at the Heritage Foundation Policy Blog today. The first takes a quick look at three amendments to the defense appropriation being debated in the Senate this week. Did you know that a memorial commission, a traveling exhibit on World War II, and a market research program will help us win the war on terror? Neither did I, but Senators Daniel Inouye and John Warner apparently think so.

The second post takes a longer look at Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's maiden speech, delivered at Columbia University yesterday. Paulson gave some reason for optimism that the Bush administration might finally get serious about cutting the federal budget after five years of growth in both discretionary and entitlement spending. I say some optimism, because we have heard much of this rhetoric before, and neither Congress nor the White House has had much political will or desire to put it into practice.

Still, Bush did want to reform Social Security last year before being thwarted by the Democrats, who preferred to do nothing about it except pretend that the problem doesn't exist. Paulson reminded everyone that under current system, entitlements such as Medicare and Social Security will go from 8% of GDP to 17% of GDP by 2060, just slightly under the cut of our GDP that the entire federal budget takes now. I have more on this at Heritage, so be sure to read it all.

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