If the president of the Chamber of Deputies Alfredo Pacheco’s reaction is anything to go by, the 2004 budget will not get a smooth ride through Congress. Yesterday, the president of the Chamber of Deputies met with Technical Secretary to the Presidency Carlos Despradel and budget director Ernesto Perez Cuevas, who presented him with a draft document and asked that it be approved by the lower house of Congress as soon as possible. Pacheco complained that he and his colleagues had not been consulted in the budget’s preparation process, and therefore he could not guarantee that it would be approved automatically by Congress. Those who failed to carry out the necessary consultations would be to blame if the budget is rejected by legislators, said Pacheco. He reassured that they would “exercise (their) Constitutional right, without losing sight of the fact that formalization of the IMF agreement depends on the approval of the budget.” Nevertheless, Pacheco also protested that the budget was “strangling” the Chamber, which applied for a sum of RD$1.1 billion but was only allocated RD$600 million in the 2004 draft proposal. Despradel asked legislators to avoid “politicizing” the process. The Diario Libre’s main editorialist is not impressed by the situation: “Next comes blackmail, negotiation of personal interests, the obscene spectacle of power exercised for advantage. Meanwhile, the country can go to hell.”