Score One for Obama

One of the worst features of the Bush administration was its dishonesty in accounting--using only the 5-year window, fudging on AMT, keeping the Iraq/Afghan war off budget in supplementals. Obama is, at least for now, promising to correct those errors according to this NYTimes piece. The last paragraph breaks new ground:

He will also budget $273 billion in that [10-year] period for natural disasters. Every year the government pays billions for disaster relief, but presidents and lawmakers have long ignored budget reformers’ calls for a contingency account to reflect that certainty.

I wonder whether they'll split it between FEMA and USDA? We'll see, but it's a good first step. We should also budget for California to split off and fall into the Pacific, but this is progress.