From today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution,"Texans paying for Bush's spend now, pay later plan":

Leaders in Washington and Austin have signed deals with the devil -- the devil in the details about their budget austerity, the devil in the assumption that the next budget cycle, or the one after that, will deliver them from their hazardous, short-sighted but politically pleasing ways.

In Washington, the third round of Bush tax cuts will push the national debt toward $7 trillion, costing hundreds of billions of dollars in interest, to be paid off by someone else. But $7 billion is not the debt that counts. Factoring in Social Security and Medicare, the Treasury Department estimates that the sum of America's long-term, unfunded obligations is $43 trillion.

In Texas, it serves to remember that were it not for Bush tax cuts, two in successive biennia amounting to about $3 billion, this Legislature would not have been in such a hole.

But Gov. Bush looked good and electable doing it, as do his ideological heirs. You can't argue with success when it comes to finding a way to get someone years away to pay for what you are pulling off today.