CBO estimates that the federal budget deficit for FY 2007 was $160 billion, or 1.2 percent of the size of the overall economy. This figure represents about an $87 billion decline from the FY 2006 deficit of $248 billion, which was 1.9 percent of the economy. CBO's Monthly Budget Review, October 2007

NEWS ITEM: 8. Which political party, the (Democrats) or the (Republicans), do you trust to do a better job handling The federal budget deficit? Democrats: 52; Republicans: 29. [This Washington Post-ABC News poll was conducted by telephone September 27-30, 2007, among a random national sample of 1,114 adults.]

The American people made their views on ending the war in Iraq abundantly clear on Nov. 7, 2006, firing the president's party's congressional majority. Later that week, President Bush proposed a "surge" of 20,000 additional American soldiers to be deployed in Iraq. Today, a majority in Congress supports withdrawal of almost all American military forces in the next year, two years, whenever is most immediately practicable. Now, President Bush is preparing us for the possibility of a permanant presence in Iraq.

Donny Shaw at the invaluable OpenCongress.org had an interesting interpretation of the SCHIP vote in the House: When the Democrats took over Congress in January, they passed new, hardcore budgeting rules known as PAYGO that require them to account for any spending increase by creating an equal increase in revenue elsewhere. With SCHIP, their fiscal heroism proved bittersweet; the revenue increase proposal they agreed upon ended up costing congressional Democrats the critical Republican votes they needed to get their proposal enacted.