Today's New York Times editorial, Faux Fiscal Discipline, makes an important point. As a candidate in 2000, George W. Bush boasted that, after accounting for inflation and population growth, he'd exercised fiscal displine as Governor of Texas. By his own standard, then, when "adjusted for inflation and population, Congress' proposed increases amount to zero." And yet he has seen fit to issue veto threats against every congressional spending bill that does not cut spending in real terms as much as he proposes. The editorial concludes:

An provocative article in this Sunday's post about food banking, a subject I got to be familiar with while doing a fellowship on hunger issues. The author's main point is that food banking is a distraction from the real problem of ending poverty with public policy. Point well taken, but I had a few objections. I felt like he generalized a bit too much about food banks. For example, the Oregon Food Bank, where I used to work, has a vibrant public policy department and sees policy work as part of its mission. Many other food banks do the same.

CongressDaily ($) is reporting that the two reauthorizations that have funding increases for human needs programs -the Farm Bill and SCHIP- aren't going anywhere anytime soon. Negotiations over SCHIP have broken down, and the Senate failed to close off debate on the Farm Bill. We'll have to wait until after Thanksgiving to try again.

This is kind of random, but check out this exchange between Paul Krugman and Robert Kuttner (with a little bit of Robert Reich's ideas mixed in there) from 1996. Krugman's ideas sound, shall we say, Hamiltonian. He's changed his outlook quite a bit since then. Why have the other Hamiltonians stayed the same? Update: Whoops, forgot the link- it's here.