It looks as though Congress will send the SCHIP revision to the President after all. He will veto it and Congress probably won't have enough votes to override the veto. So I wouldn't get my hopes up.

Paul Krugman's column today was a little off-base, I think. He basically calls out Sen. Barack Obama for not including a mandate in his universal health care plan, which he thinks will make insurance much cheaper. I think his claims are overblown. The best estimate I've seen puts health care cost overruns at $480 billion. About $100 billion was due to inefficiencies in the insurance system on its own, and administrative expenses and profits make up the bulk of those unnecessary expenses. And I haven't seen anything on how being uninsured significantly raises costs in the delivery system.

New, improved version of website to be released On its first anniversary when new features of OMB Watch's FedSpending.org site are to be unveiled, a story on big contractors receiving small earmarks appeared in Gov Exec. "Defense Bill Proves Lucrative for Biggest Firms demonstrates precisely the kind of databse search that helps citizens learn how the government is spending their money -- searches facilitated by FedSpending.org's upgrade.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has another important fact sheet up, this time on the Food Stamp program. Congress is considering leaving the program, which is up for reauthorization in the Farm Bill, unchanged. Work on the Farm Bill in the Senate has ground to a halt, and some folks in Congress are suggesting that they revisit the program the next time it comes up for reauthorization- 5 years from now.