The Man, Sticking It to the Little Guy
President Bush quickly nominates the successor to William H. Donaldson at the Securities and Exchange Commission: Representative Christopher Cox. Here's a bit about his background from the NYTimes:

Mr. Cox - a devoted student of Ayn Rand, the high priestess of unfettered capitalism - has a long record in the House of promoting the agenda of business interests that are a cornerstone of the Republican Party's political and financial support. A major recipient of contributions from business groups, the accounting profession and Silicon Valley, he has fought against accounting rules that would give less favorable treatment to corporate mergers and executive stock options. He opposes taxes on dividends and capital gains. And he helped to steer through the House a bill making investor lawsuits more difficult. That measure, which Congress adopted over President Bill Clinton's veto, was hailed by business groups, which say it has reduced costly and frivolous cases. It has also been criticized by consumer and investor organizations. They say its adoption in 1995 contributed to an unaccountable climate that fostered the big accounting scandals at companies like Enron and WorldCom a few years later. Mr. Cox's legislative record was cited on Thursday by President Bush as a primary qualification.

So the regulatory climate that helped decimate many middle-class Americans' retirement savings is the passing grade for BushCo. And if you needed any further evidence as to BushCo's loyalies, there's this bit of news from the American Prospect (subscription-based):

Not that they’ve advertised it, but Republicans are gunning for food-stamp recipients. It’s all part of their low-visibility war on the poor. In early May, reports surfaced about the nasty surprise they’ve planned for poor seniors signing up for the new Medicare prescription-drug entitlement. Turns out that food stamps will be cut proportionally to the cash value of the drugs that seniors no longer have to buy out of pocket. But that was only the latest Republican attack on the program, which serves more than 25 million Americans. An even sneakier assault has been playing out in slow motion through the budget process. In February, President Bush earned plaudits from a wide range of very surprised observers by including in his budget proposal several billion dollars of cuts in farm subsidies. Many commentators championed his political courage, but savvy observers suspected from the outset that the president’s talk of cutting agricultural aid was a charade. Here’s why: A budget resolution doesn’t specify cuts in programs. [...] Following the release of Bush’s budget proposal, Goodlatte signaled that he had no intention of going along with the agricultural-aid cuts, and every intention of foisting required spending cuts onto the food-stamp program instead. In March, his Senate counterpart, Georgia Republican Saxby Chambliss, echoed Goodlatte’s stated intention to cut food-stamp funding, telling The Associated Press that “we can come up with a significant number there.” On April 12, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns acknowledged that the administration “recognize[d] that Congress may have other proposals to achieve these savings” and was open to considering “other cost-savings recommendations” besides farm-subsidy cuts. Bob Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that food stamps will end up sustaining between half and all of the total $3 billion over five years that the agriculture committees must cut from their mandatory programs.