TwentyFirstCentury

Federal government spending during the all-Republican era rose from a four year average of 18.7% during Clinton's last four years, up to 20.2% of GDP for the past four fiscal years. That's an increase of about $180 Billion a year, with nary a single veto by President Bush.

Now, President Bush is warning that he will "veto runaway spending".

Talk about closing the barn door after the horse escaped.

Federal debt is up more than $3 Trillion since Bush took office, and increase of 50%.

I propose a new national holiday, the day the SSA announces the Social Security trust fund has miraculously extended its depletion date by another year. Bruce Webb appreciation day honors the economist who identified this natural law of trust fund depletion.

In other news, I decided to change my home page from MSNBC.COM to NEWS.YAHOO.COM following last week's killer's press release, sent to NBC and dutifully reported as news. With accomplices like our national media, I fear for my still-young children's longevity.

The Drunk in Chief strikes again

White House likely to update Iraq war request .

Come on guys, your chain has been pulled for seven years now. Time to get a clue.

I like Richard Branson and Al Gore.

But I'm not convinced that sucking CO2 out of the atmosphere and binding it up for aeons is the way to go. We'd be fiddling with the basic balance of organic material. The planet has served pretty well for a few hundred million years for supporting life, and I'd hate to set a new experiment in motion involving the balance of organic materials in order to offset our choice to burn up most of the stored hydrocarbons on the planet.

I haven't studied the processes proposed or the organic balances, but I sure hope someone does before we embark on any sort of large scale experiment to bind up CO2 using anything other than photosynthesis.

Well, suprise, suprise.

In the US House of Representatives, the GOP does not favor a balanced budget, but Democrats do.

I guess the Pelosi congress has more backbone than I thought they might.

Message to Hoyer: until the Wall Street Journal agrees that the treasury bonds held by the Social Security trust fund are backed by the full faith and credit of the US government, there is no reason to either increase Social Security revenues or cut future Social Security benefits.

Right now, the primary problem is the general fund deficit. A fair amount of this will self-correct when the sunset clauses in legislation drafted by Bush and the GOP expire, and tax deferrals are phased out. But that won't happen for four more years, and might never happen if we increase Social Security surplusses in the short term.

The WSJ editors predictably rejoice in today's paper over the decline of the federal deficit.

The change? Down from $596 Billion two years ago, to $574 Billion this year. Woo Hoo!

But things aren't quite as rosy as they seem. It appears the Feds have run up $39 Billion more debt in the first 10 days of the new fiscal year. Quite a feat, at this rate, next fiscal year's deficit would reach 1.4 Trillion. It appears at least 32 Billion of the stated deficit was a result of end of year shell games.

The WSJ quotes the deficit at only $248 Billion, but doing so writes off the Social Security trust funds as worthless IOUs. Of course, the WSJ editors really would prefer that the excess taxes collected from workers for the past 25 and the next 13 or so years never would be repaid, and thus they cheer the net change of $557 Billion a year on the balance sheet since the fiscal year ended 9/2000.

Half a trillion bucks a year - that is how much the Bush administration is stealing from future taxpayers, compared with the balanced budget left by the Clinton administration.