Thursday, May 18, 2006

House Budget Passage

The House of Representatives passed a new Budget for next Year calling for $2.7 trillion in Spending. The humor in it lies in the fact there is absolutely no attempt to curtail the Deficit. An aside in the internal Politics of its passage, was granting moderate Republicans some $3 bn in welfare programs, lest the moderate Republican draw the funds from the $869+ Defense Budget (remember that the Pentagon could save at least a Billion dollars by forcing Pentagon Employees to pay Retail Market price for Food and Beverages). These are your compassonate Republicans!

The Index of Leading Indicators dropped 0.1 to 138.9. Washington and Wall Street flies into a tizzy like the World has fallen in, because it shows an expected slowdown in the Third Quarter. No one much considered the increase of Unemployment Claims, though a jump of around 12% (I didn't do the Math, as it wasn't on a test) seems like there should be a murmur in the Economic community. The excuse about Government layoffs in Puerta Rico has got to be one of the lamest excuses this Author has ever heard. Let's see, about 2000 layoffs and new Unemployment claims over 48,000?--humm!

Bush is going to his political base, though, and all should be alright. Instead of hiring the necessary 50,000 more Border Patrol officers which the Situation mandates, he will grant some $2 bn in Contracts to the military/industrial complex to build a Security fence just like the one that SoD (the name escapes me at the moment) wanted to build in Vietnam in the 1960s to fence out the Ho Chi Minh Trail (all sensible estimations suggest this planned fence should work equally as well). This Author wonders what We are going to do in the 3 Years it will likely take to construct. Oh, It's a wonderful world We live in! lgl

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