Like a mother who won't let her children go outside and play until they finish their homework, President Clinton wouldn't let members of Congress go home early to campaign until they finished his homework assignment: spend the budget surplus.

Hilarious, considering that conservative members of Congress will now go home to their conservative districts and promise that they still believe in "low taxes and less spending." Ha.

Even more hilarious is that less than six months ago Congressional Republicans were drooling over an $800 billion dollar tax cut. They raised hell when Clinton vetoed its ass out of there. And now they're close to approving a budget that is nearly $300 billion more than what Clinton had demanded.

Obviously, reality negates rhetoric.

As soon as news of the budget surplus hit front pages and pundit shows last year, Republicans got the rhetoric going. They touted the silly idea that they should give the extra money back to the American people instead of using it to pay off the national debt, fund education, social security and a slew of other government programs. They were attempting to ride on a Reaganesque message of low taxes and low spending.