Will Reason Prevail?:

Will Reason Prevail?: House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) is on board, if not leading, the bandwagon to look for cuts in the federal budget to pay for this year’s hurricane disaster relief, which, he says, “has dwarfed all previous national disaster assistance packages.” Speculation abounds around the beltway on which programs will get cut—and big-ticket defense programs like the F/A-22 Raptor are high on many lists. In a counterpoint to those who claim we must cut, cut, cut, Tom Nugent, writing for the National Review Online, says, “We’ve been here before, … [and] the concerns of the budget-deficit hawks didn’t pan out.” He does not believe the “Hooveresque prescription of spending cuts, postponed tax cuts, and higher taxes” proposed by budget conservatives is at all necessary to pay for Katrina.