News of the morning

[elfs]

George W. Bush, who was the first president to propose a $2 trillion budget, back in 2002, will leave office as the first president to hit $3 trillion with a spending plan.

Wow. Can I just say how pleased I am with the way my party managed to keep spending down between 2002 and 2006, and I suppose I should be happy that the Democrats have learned to emulate that fiscal responsibility, and that we American people continue to elect represestatives with a strong sense of fiduciary responsibility!

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A high school in Ponce de Leon, FL, has banned all gay pride symbols, including simple rainbow stickers, from the school on the grounds that such symbols were "indicative of membership in an illegal organization." It just gets weirder and nastier from there.

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Giggle! Wait, "Lolita" means what?

Comments

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

OK, that Lolita story has been running a few days, amd I'm not sure it's that big a deal in the UK. Most people haven't heard of the book. Having said that, try Google or Wikipedia.

I can believe that a lot of people just don't know. Even the people who came up with, and signed off on, this name for a bed.

[shunra.livejournal.com]

How can it be that most people haven't heard of the book? Nabokov's writing is sublime, and the controversy over Lolita was enormous, so that people should have heard of it either in English classes or in the social studies units about the limits of free speech.

[rhonan.livejournal.com]

But I thought cutting taxes for the rich, and enriching the military-industrial complex was as American apple pie.

[elgatocurioso.livejournal.com]

A 2 trillion to 3 trillion increase in budget sounds like a lot, but it isn't truly that significant.

As an example: at 10 percent compounded growth a portfolio will double in size in about 7 years (and the average stock market growth over the long run has been about 11%). The country isn't a stock market of course, but the same idea of compounding growth occurs.

The economic spending of the country went up 50% in 6 years. This is almost exactly a 7% annual growth over each previous year (1.07^6). Assume a 4 percent growth in spending just to keep up with inflation, and then another 3% to deal with a generally growing economy and population. It's not really that outrageous.

However, now that we know that 7% annual growth in spending is fairly "reasonable", just think how many things that normally got spending aren't now that so much money is going into a war effort.

The next president, democratic or republican, will probably be dealing with a 5-6 trillion budget before their first term is out- certainly 6 trillion if they get two terms. 2-3 trillions sounds like a lot, but that's because they are nice round numbers that make a nice media sound bite. Almost every president before Bush hit a high-water budget also, in numbers that sounded just as outrageous to people living at that time.