corrente

I speak of the divine Ms. Ivins, of course.

First she reminds us of this:

When Bush took office, the national debt was $5.7 trillion and his first budget proposed to reduce it by $2 trillion over the next decade. Today, the debt is $7 trillion.

And then this:

Last year, Bush predicted a deficit of $262 billion. According of the CBO, the deficit is currently $480 billion.

Which leads her to ponder, in her typically well-mannered, decidedly non-hate speecifying way, this perfectly reasonable question:

It is unclear to me why anyone would believe anything the president says about our fiscal situation. Keep in mind, this is a man who took three Texas oil companies into bankruptcy.

I anticipate a painful skewing of the statistics on jobs, but there's not much even the finest spinners can do with the basic problem. Under Bill Clinton, the economy gained an average of 236,000 jobs every month. Under George W. Bush, the economy has lost an average of 66,000 jobs a month. Nor is the news getting better. Last month, the economy, supposedly in full recovery, added 1,000 jobs. The economy needs to generate 150,000 jobs a month just to absorb new workers.

This stark picture was part of what I thought was a pretty effective Democratic answer to the President's SOTU address. Molly may be right that these numbers are almost spin proof, but when the transcript from last night's Hardball becomes available, I'll tell you how Chris, and Howard and Peggy found a way to skin that pesky camel inching it's nose under that tented catered Washington party of theirs.