When the president repeats his mantra "cut the deficit in half by 2009", one could reasonably assume that the downward trend in deficits would continue past 2009 - as if "half in 2009" was a milestone of sorts. But, au contraire! The "half in 2009" is not a just a milestone but a turning point - the point where deficits start growing again. It’s right there in black and white in the president’s FY2007 budget, but it’s starkly absent in his speech. From page 223 in the Analytical Perspectives document of the President's FY 2007 Budget: (click on image for expanded view)

While the Bush administration likes to say that their fiscal policies are good for the economy and therefore good for all Americans, the facts reveal otherwise. This week’s EPI Snapshot focuses our attention on the racial income gap. While African-American median income had been growing as proportion of white income since 1995, the latest data indicate that there has been a reversal of that trend. Compared to the full-employment job market of the latter 1990s, the weaker post-2000 labor market has reversed significant progress in racial income gaps.

The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has estimated in a new report that the overall cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since Sept. 11, 2001 will top $500 billion next year (the fiscal year ends September 30). The latest addition to this spending, of course, was the $69 billion allocated in the supplemental spending bill signed into law earlier this month.

The Senate voted yesterday (twice) to keep low-wage workers in poverty.* The first vote was on a Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) plan to increase the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 per hour over two years. The measure was an amendment to the FY2007 Defense appropriations bill. The second vote to keep the minimum wage at the 1949 level** was on a Republican bill, introduced by Sen. Mike Enzi’s (R-WY), and would have increased the minimum wage to $6.25 per hour.