And So Can You American Public Media's Marketplace has produced an on-line game called Budget Hero, which allows players to try their hand at balancing the federal budget. Pick your policy priorities and fund them with real-life pay-fors. Or don't pay for them and see what year your budget goes bust.

Citing inflated profit margins, a recent report by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee criticized providers of federally mandated insurance to the Pentagon of sticking taxpayers with exorbitant bills. The Defense Base Act (DBA) requires that all contractors working for the federal government overseas purchase workers compensation insurance for its employees. The cost of the insurance is then passed on to the government. But unlike other federal agencies, the Pentagon has the authority to negotiate its own contracts.

When the House approved the domestic spending amendment to the war supplemental spending bill, it approved not only a $52 billion expansion of the GI Bill, but a 0.5% surtax on income for millionaire couples (individuals earning more than $500,000). According a recent Citizens for Tax Justice report, the tax would affect about 0.3% of all taxpayers.

Tax Policy -- W&M Approves Extenders; Rejects AMT Patch: By a mostly party-line vote of 25-12, the House Ways and Means Committee approved at $57 billion tax package of an assortment of tax breaks yesterday. The committee also voted down a Republican-offered unpaid-for one-year AMT patch. The bill is expected to be on the House floor next week.