MISPLACED BUDGET PRIORITIES - AT 7:18 P.M. ET:  The president released his $3.4-trillion budget today, and grandly announced that it contains $17-billion in savings, or, as it's called in the restaurant business, a tip.

Half the savings will come from the Pentagon, not encouraging when you look at what we're facing internationally.  And there's this:

In addition to the F-22 and presidential helicopter programs, proposed cuts include halting a $19 billion transformational satellite program and trimming $1.2 billion from missile defense.

COMMENT:  Trimming missile defense now is like trimming anti-submarine warfare in 1941.  North Korea and Iran are serious, fanatical, emerging missile powers.  Pakistan's missiles, or some of them, may fall into Islamist hands.  We could soon find hostile missiles based in Latin America.  We should be expanding the missile-defense program, not contracting it.

Budgets are often DOA in Congress, and we hope that enough of the honorable members take a good look at the defense budget, making adjustments where sanity requires.

May 7, 2009