Obama's budget has come out, and it's a whopper. The Associated Press has the details: The total proposed budget is $3.83 trillion, and $1.56 trillion would be deficit spending, which is, as far as anybody can tell, a record. His case for it is that the money must be spent to boost the economy, and, indeed, a lot of it is bundled into measures that are intended to create jobs.

Obama's plan for addressing the deficit is freezes on government spending starting next year, once the economy is back on its feet, if that happens; "That's why it's called budgeting," he told a House retreat of Republicans Friday in Baltimore. So far, there has been no response to Obama's budget from Gov. Tim Pawlenty, but, seeing as the president can't sneeze without Pawlenty putting out a press release, we can probably expect one later today. We at Daily Glean expect it won't be too far afield from the last go-round, reported on April 11 of last year, which the AP duly noted, in which Pawlenty took the president to task. His money quote: "The federal government should keep a lid on taxes, control government spending and borrow less — rather than increase the size and scope of the federal government so much that Washington is guaranteeing future tax increases." Will this year's response be substantially similar? We wait with bated breath.

Interesting, Obama's budget also is looking for $200 million to fund cities that are going to house trials for suspected terrorists, or so said a congressional aide. We at the Glean haven't had a chance to go through the budget line by line, but if money is really earmarked for these trials, we can certainly expect a response from Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, for whom these trials have been of particular interest. Heck, on her own website she republishes a column she wrote for the New York Post demanding that Congress stop the civilian trial for Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other accused terrorists, which she told the House of Representatives sends the message "You too can have a show trial in the city of your choice if you come to America." We'd bate or breath for her response, but you can't keep bating your breath over and over; it's just not good for you.

It will be interesting to see how Congress in general responds to Obama's budget. His technique of governing has seemed to include a healthy dose of just letting Congress do what they do with minimal interference, which hasn't made it easy for his call for health care reform to make any headway — something the president especially took House republicans to task for Friday ("If you were to listen to the debate, and, frankly, how some of you went after this bill, you'd think that this thing was some Bolshevik plot," Obama said, and when Republicans responded with laughter, he quickly added, "No, I mean, that's how you guys — that's how you guys presented it.") At least one congressman, however, still has hopes for the public option, which was a casualty of the process — and that congressman is Minneapolis's own Keith Ellison. MinnPost's own Derek Wallbank reports that Ellison signed a letter suggesting to Congress that they make use of a legislative process called budget reconciliation (here detailed by Wikipedia) to pass the public option with only 51 votes and without the possibility of filibuster.

Back to the subject of budgeting: Minnesota House Democrats have their own ideas about stimulating the economy, as detailed by Bill Salisbury of the Pioneer Press: It all starts with tax breaks. Included in the legislation is tax breaks for "investments in high-tech, manufacturing and green businesses," as well as breaks for the Mall of America, which is looking to expand considerably. This is a proposal that Pawlenty has already responded to, and his reponse was cautiously favorable: According to Pawlenty spokesman Brian McClung, "Gov. Pawlenty has long championed an angel investment tax credit and hopes the DFL will break from their pattern of including it in a bill that gets vetoed, because it also has a truckload of other job-killing tax increases." It's interesting how a single sentence can both pat somebody on the back and shake a menacing fist in their face.

Of course, a lot of Pawlenty's vetoing last year took the form of line-item vetoes when he single-handedly slashed the budget, and he might not have as much freedom to do so this year. Brandt Williams of Minnesota Public Radio tells us that Minneapolis has joined as an "interested party" in the lawsuit against Pawlenty's unallotments. Pawlenty has already lost one unallotment case when a Ramsey County judge ruled that he had "overstepped his authority by unilaterally cutting funds to a special program for low-income Minnesotans," according to Williams.

If you're a junkie for the inner-working of the political process, this is all terrifically exciting. Most people aren't wonky like that, though, so this week's excitement mostly came in the form of a small musician — not Little Man, although he's plenty exciting. No, we speak, of course, of Prince, whose appearance at 89.3 The Current's five-year anniversary party created quite a disturbance in the force, mostly in the form of some very excited tweets, which the LOL/OMG blog exhaustively detailed. (Sample tweet: I just made a bizarre and uncontrolled squealing noise.) We at the Daily Glean are always a bit surprised when Prince gets this reaction. He's a star, sure — a megawattage star at that. But if you haven't met him yet, where the hell have you been hiding yourself? But, then, we also get into a snit when people excitedly point out Grant Hart in the street. Hart lives here, we'll say crossly, and then people will tell us to calm down.

So what do we get excited about? Ringo Starr wearing an Electric Fetus T-shirt to the Grammys, that's what. I guess Ringo has forgiven Minneapolis after the Beatles' disastrous 1965 concert; either that or he just doesn't know what the hell an Electric Fetus actually is.

We also get excited when Mike Schultz wins a race. Who is Mike Schultz? He's the fellow who lost his leg in a snowmobiling accident and then proceeded to make his own prosthetic leg. Schultz just won ESPN's Winter X Games Adaptive SnoCross race, whereas what has Prince done recently?

Oh yeah. That Vikings song. But we promised never to speak of that again.