David Broder has a good column today about the bipartisan housing trust fund, which passed the House with little notice by the press. Worth a read. Let it be known that the BudgetBlog holds no grudges or biases. You write a good column, you will be praised. You write a bad one, well...

Last night, the Senate approved (75-19) the veto-threatened Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations bill. Next up: Labor-H October 17, 2007 House Senate Conf. Cmte. President Cmte. Floor $ Agriculture 18.8 18.7 $ Commerce-Justice- Science 53.6 54.6 54.6 Defense 459.6 459.6 459.6 $ Energy & Water 31.6 32.3 Financial Services 21.4 21.8 $ Homeland Security 36.3 37.6 37.6 $ Interior & Environment 27.6 27.2 $ Labor-HHS- Education 151.4 149.2 Legislative Branch 3.1 4

From the good folks over at Angry Bear and Econospeak, a little common sense about the deficit: it's not really going down. The general fund deficit, that is. You see, Social Security revenues are in surplus, and a whole lot of money is being taken out of the flush Social Security trust fund to pay for current government services. This surplus has tremendously contributed to the declining unified deficit, the figure that gets most media attention. See this graph for a good representation.

Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-OH) is circulating a letter among her 45 Republican colleagues who voted for SCHIP expansion criticizing Democrats for failing to give into the president's demand that more children go without health insurance. Matthew Yglesias is right on here: Thus Pryce et. al. get to signal to their child-hating paymasters that, despite their [yea] vote, they have big businesses [sic] back and are doing the very most they can within the confines of objective political constraints to make sure that working and middle class families get no help with their health care.