Now that Congressional junkets are on the back burner for a while, I suppose that folks in Washington, D.C. are burning the midnight oil poring through the federal budget President Bush sent to Congress recently.

The document itself weighs 15 pounds, which is just one reason that I haven't heard anyone - outside of a few people I know inside the Beltway - say anything about it.

That works to Mr. Bush's advantage, of course. The budget is so big and so complicated and so subject to spin and to smoke and mirrors that a lot of it goes without public scrutiny.

The Boston Globe crunches some of the White House numbers this morning. The article points out that the President proposes cutting $100 million from energy conservation and shortchanges by 22 percent the renewable energy programs that were one of the few bright spots in the blockbuster federal energy bill he signed last year.

And, Mr. Bush asks for a 10 percent increase in funding for drilling on public lands.

And once again, he revives the effort to drill in the Arctic Refuge - even though Congress drove a stake through the heart of that idea only weeks ago.

It's deja vu, all over again.