Don't you just love it when you find money you didn't know you had? A $5 bill stuck between the sofa cushions, an uncashed check for $50 lying in a drawer, an interest check for $100 that you weren't expecting.

Rejoice! As a nation, we are about to find $87 billion we didn't know we had. Because if we'd known about it, surely we would have used it to re-open all of those libraries that had to shut down. Or put air conditioning and textbooks in the public schools. Or found places for the homeless to sleep. Or upgraded the health care programs of veterans.

We could have made child abuse prevention programs meaningful, for once. Or enforced the Americans with Disabilities Act. Or done something about illiteracy.

We could have given our soldiers a pay raise instead of the Pentagon's proposed pay cut. We could have established community or in-home programs for older people who are not bed-ridden. We could re-opened all of those community mental health clinics we closed.

But now that we're about to put our hands on the windfall, we're going to use it to rebuild a country we blew up so that one man can repay the gigantic spenders that put him in office.

And that's compassionate conservatism.