The struggle for a responsible budget continues as three moderate Republican senators join the Democratic chorus against President Bush's proposed tax cuts.

At least for the moment, three Republican moderates in the U.S. Senate have introduced conscience into the federal budget process. The three joined Democrats in cutting President Bush's irresponsible $726-billion tax cut proposal in half.

Even half is too much under current circumstances, but at least a majority of senators has taken a stand against the worst budgetary excesses of the Bush administration.

The president has pushed for massive tax cuts that mostly benefit the wealthiest Americans, in spite of unmet costs of the war in Iraq and homeland security and a growing challenge to fund Medicare and Social Security. If the Bush tax cuts were to be fully implemented, the federal deficit would grow to more than $1-trillion over the next five years, according to an estimate by the Congressional Budget Office.

That figure is almost certainly low. The CBO used a formula favorable to the administration's point of view. The long-term costs of the war in Iraq also haven't been factored in. Yet a deficit of even that size threatens to increase interest rates and wastes more tax dollars on debt repayment rather than meeting the nation's real needs. In other words, the president is financing his tax cuts on the backs of the next generation.

Republican leaders say the tax cuts are needed to stimulate the economy. But the cornerstone of the Bush package is a tax exemption for stock dividends. Most of those benefits would go to the top 5 percent of Americans, who are likely to stash the windfall rather than spend it. No one has made a good argument for how these tax cuts would create jobs.

The cost of the Iraqi war apparently influenced the three key Senate Republicans: George Voinovich of Ohio, Olympia Snowe of Maine and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island.

On Tuesday, the president asked for $75-billion to pay for the war, but that amount would cover only anticipated expenses over the next six months. The bill for postwar occupation and rehabilitation of Iraq will almost certainly be much larger.

While the senators deserve praise for their disciplined stand in the face of political coercion, the struggle for a responsible budget is far from over. More parliamentary tricks are ahead, and the Senate will have to work out its differences with the House, which gave Bush every penny in tax cuts he asked for. The House's version of discipline was to cut the budgets of services that help, among others, veterans and low-income elderly and children.

A substantial tax cut is certain to be part of a final budget. In a time of uncertainty, the easiest choice is to borrow against the future. But it is wrong.

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