Friday, February 02, 2007

Trolling II

According to an article in today's NY Times (2/2/2007), President Bush will be asking Congress to cut Medicare and Medicaid spending by $60 billion over the next five years. The article notes that Bush had sought $40 billion in cuts two years ago and Congress failed to enact most of his requests even though Republicans had a majority in both houses of Congress. So Bush thinks he can get larger cuts in two popular social welfare programs now that the Democrats have majorities?

Congressman Charles Rangel (D-NY), who is now the chair of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, put it very succinctly: “There is a large area for potential compromise and agreement, but with these latest Medicare proposals, the president is just asking for controversy.”

"Just asking for controversy" defines a troll very well.