It was inspiring listening to President Bush outline his plans in the State of the Union speech last week, and now that he has sent his budget to Congress, I’d like to offer some praise for the new American philanthropists whose altruistic spirit will make those noble programs possible.

Generous citizens like my nieces, Maren and Anna, will play a crucial part in financing the president’s new prescription drug benefit for seniors, and as their uncle, I couldn’t be prouder.

And not just of them. A Saturday or so ago, I shivered in a Charlestown rink with my friend Michael Hunter as his son, Miles, raced across the ice in a hockey game. It was bitter cold, but worth it to come show my appreciation to Miles and his pals, who will help pay for the tax-free stock dividends and untaxed savings account the president wants me to have.

Watching with us was Miles’s sister Miranda, and I’m just as pleased to report that if the president gets his way, she’s ready to help foot the bill for developing the new hydrogen cars to clear the air of the pollution that got Al Gore so cranky about the internal combustion engine.

With that in mind, it was a pleasure to buy them a slice of pizza after the game; it’s a tiny investment compared to the windfall I’ll reap from their future taxes. What a big-hearted group, one and all! The thousand half-pints of light, I call them. Now, Maren and Miles are 7, Miranda is 6, and Anna is 4, so I suppose, technically, one could argue that isn’t precisely right, since they haven’t exactly volunteered for the new commitments the president has made in their name. But then, the generations before me set things up that I had no say in – the GI Bill and Pell Grants and student loans and the like – so we’re all in the same boat.

Paul Tsongas used to say that, or something like that, when he ran for president back in 1992. I covered him some back then, and I’ve got to tell you, compared to George W., he was a walking wet blanket. The Democrats would hold a forum to preview all the great new governmental goodies they were ready to give away, and Tsongas would show up like the landlord demanding overdue rent right in the middle of your Super Bowl festivities. We just can’t afford new tax cuts, he’d say; they’ll only swell the federal budget deficit and pass on current costs to the next generation while pushing up interest rates and hurting the economy.

Try spending a dreary February day listening to that! I mean, whine on, harvest moon, as the first President Bush once said. Why, it was as bad as the time Mike Dukakis held a Christmas party with a cop and a Breathalyzer just outside his office door. The consensus among the other candidates was that Tsongas was an awful scold. A conservative, some of them whispered. A Republican in disguise, even, which is just about the worst thing you can say about someone running for the Democratic nomination.

But they were wrong there. Republicans aren’t just conservatives anymore, they are compassionate conservatives, and when you add the compassionate, that means not having to worry about niggling little details like who pays the bills.

And besides, all that stuff about deficits and interest rates turns out to be just so much hooey. According to the new economic theorists, deficits really don’t have anything to do with interest rates – just read The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page if you don’t believe me – and that being the case, they are good medicine not just in times of recession but perfectly fine when the economy is booming as well.

Lucky thing, too, because just the other day, Mitch Daniels, the president’s budget chief, said that we’ll now be running great big deficits well into the future. Well, hey. You know what George W. thinks: When in doubt, do what the Old Gipper did and you can’t go wrong.

But excuse me, I’ve wandered a bit from my original intent, which was just to say an appreciative word about the president for the initiatives he has proposed, and about Maren and Anna and Miles and Miranda and the whole grammar school generation that will pay for them.

And as for me? Well, if Ted Kennedy would just get his butt out of the way and let the president speed up his tax cuts, I might be able to take a Caribbean vacation this year.

God knows I need one, what with the strain of worrying about whether Congress will do the right thing and abolish the estate tax once and for all.

Scot Lehigh’s e-mail address is lehigh@globe.com.

© 2003 The Boston Globe