President Bush sent his first budget to Congress this week, a pretty little $1.96 trillion number that included a $1.6 trillion across the board tax cut.Bush claimed that with the estimated $5.6 trillion 10-year surplus, we can afford the massive cut while maintaining “fiscal responsibility.”The $5.6 trillion figure comes from the Congressional Budget Office, which, by law, gives an annual 10-year budget estimate. However, the bipartisan office can’t predict the future.Its last estimate was off by $2.1 trillion and is one of those “federal bureaucracies” that the Republicans claim they don’t trust.It strikes us as odd that President Bush, at the same time he is warning of a coming recession, is standing behind the notion that surpluses will increase in the years to come.Bush knows the rhetoric; he knows what the people want to hear. They want to hear that it is OK to get that tax cut, and that everything else will be just fine, too.But that’s not the truth. Bush’s budget will cut numerous environmental programs, including a 25 percent cut on research into alternative fuel sources.Think his oil buddies will mind? We don’t, either.Bush wants to accomplish one thing with his plan: Give those rich corporate sponsors who paid for his campaign the big tax cut he promised them. Just like Reagan’s initial tax cut, though, sooner or later we will be paying off deficits he will inevitably create. In 15 years, what will pay for those deficits Bush will create? Our Social Security and Medicare, that’s what.I guess, as Bush says, the surplus belongs to the people. It appears he’ll leave the deficits for their children.editorialboard: Carrie Tett, Jocelyn Marcus, Katie Goldsmith, Andrea Hauser and Tim Paluch