Tell me again how the era of GOP dominance is almost over:

House Republicans voted to cut student loan subsidies, child support enforcement and aid to firms hurt by unfair trade practices as various committees scrambled to piece together $50 billion in budget cuts....

President Bush met with House and Senate GOP leaders and said he was pleased with the progress....

"I encourage Congress to push the envelope when it comes to cutting spending," Bush said....

The House Education and the Workforce panel, for example, ... impose[d] new fees on students who default on loans or consolidate them and higher fees on parents who borrow on behalf of their college-age children....

The Ways and Means Committee approved on a party-line vote a plan [that] ... includes $3.8 billion in cuts to child support enforcement....

The bill also would tighten eligibility standards for foster care assistance in nine states and delay some lump-sum payments to very poor and elderly beneficiaries of Social Security's Supplemental Security Income program.

Minority Democrats opposed virtually everything that was done, saying Wednesday's actions are part of a broader GOP budget blueprint that also calls for $106 billion in new tax cuts over the next five years....

--AP

This is how brazen they are when they're getting slammed in the polls and are facing multiple investigations and indictments. They have no fear of the Democrats, they have no fear of the dewy-eyed idealists in their own party who thought they might cut some actual pork if asked nicely, and they certainly have no fear of the wrath of ordinary citizens. Why worry? Nothing's ever hurt them yet. The Democrats, by contrast, are timid when they're actually in charge. (Or so I seem to recall -- it's a fading memory.)