National Review Online asked a group of budget experts to comment on the release of President George W. Bush's new budget. The entire symposium can be viewed here. AEI's Veronique de Rugy's comments are below.

In FY2007 the president wants to spend $2.77 trillion. That's $909 billion more than when Bush took office six years ago. His budget will add $18 billion for hurricane relief on top of the billions already blanketing the affected regions, as well as wasteful proposals such as $56 million to initiate construction of the Alaska Region Research Vehicle and $55 million for activities during the International Polar Year.

Since in power, President Bush has increased total spending by 48.7 percent. Defense spending increased by 67 percent while non-defense spending increased by 49 percent. But things are getting worse with each passing year. This year alone, total spending is schedule to increase by at least 9.6 percent. And total spending as a percentage of GDP went from 18.4 percent when President Clinton left office to 20.8 percent in 2006. That's the highest in 12 years and a sad record for this administration.

The good thing in this year budget is the rhetoric. Throughout the budget we are told that we are right back on the road to fiscal responsibility. The bad thing is that this budget is all talk and no action. For instance, the president proposes to save $14.5 billion by cutting 140 wasteful programs. These cuts represent 0.5 percent of the $2.77-trillion budget. Last year, he proposed about $16 billion in savings and got $6.5 billion from Congress--40 percent of the amount requested. So if history is any guide, President Bush will do nothing to defend his proposed cut and he'll be lucky if he gets $5.8 billion in savings, which is about 0.2 percent of the total budget. That's nothing.

Second, the administration wants to freeze non-homeland non-defense spending. But the portion of the budget Bush wants to restrain represents less than 1/6th of a $2.77 trillion pie. These spending limits are meaningless.

Third, Bush proposes to cut about $36 billion out of Medicare over five years. Medicare spending over that period will be $2.6 trillion. So the alleged entitlement cuts represent one and a half percent of Medicare spending. That's hardly a revolution.

Congress and the White should stop obsessing about cutting the deficit like they have done in the last three years. It is the wrong measure of fiscal responsibility. Instead, they should focus on reducing the size of government (spending), not just the part financed by borrowing. The only way to do that is for President Bush to finally get his veto pen out and start using it aggressively against a pork-addicted Congress.

Veronique de Rugy is a research fellow at AEI.