Or is it just narcissism?

President Obama sought to increase the amount of money available for the federal government to spend on former presidents in advance of his White House exit.

In his budget requests for fiscal years 2016 and 2017, Obama proposed hikes in the appropriations for expenditures of former presidents….

To the tune of a $600,000 increase—18%—in this spending.  No doubt the job of President is stressful; one has only to look at how much the last two—Bush the Younger and Obama, both relatively young men on their first election—aged over their mere eight years in office.  But none of this increase, nor any of the baseline of roughly $3.2 million, is intended to cover health related costs.  No, the money is intended for life style, protection details, libraries, and the like.

Notice, too that no existing ex-President has asked for an increase in such monies, not Jimmie Carter with his health problems, not Bush the Elder and his age-related health problems, not Bill Clinton, not Bush the Younger.  Only Obama wants more money, and he’s not even ex yet, just preparing to be.

Hmm….

The debate is well worth having.

House conservatives have vowed to block a fiscal 2017 budget put forth by Republican leadership Tuesday, saying it doesn’t cut spending enough and creating uncertainty over the GOP’s ability to pass a fiscal blueprint this year.

Never mind that the blueprint cuts spending by $6.5 trillion over the next 10 years and, if future Congresses stick to the plan would eliminate deficits and so permit beginning to pay down the nation’s $19 trillion debt.  The cuts in the first year of these 10 years don’t go far enough to suit these self-styled conservatives (small-c, you’ll note).

It’s certainly true that real cuts in the hand are worth two (or more) promised cuts in later years; however, this is the first budget plan in decades that actually, explicitly promises those later cuts and to that concrete end.

But: as these guys consider blowing up another budget plan, they need to ask themselves how much spending they’ll be able to cut if they force a plan that has no hope of being enacted?  What do they think will be the value of their political symbolism?