In a post questioning the feasibility of "pay[ing] off our debt" by only raising taxes on those earning more that $250,000, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) tragically confuses "the economy" with "people." The answer to their query, by the way, "can Only Taxing Income Over $250,000 Pay Off Our Debt?" turns out to be "yes, yes we can pay off our debt."

An article published Wednesday by ProPublica examines a recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) report on the government's insurance coverage of overseas contractors. Known as the Defense Base Act (DBA), the program is also the only tool for the government to keep track of contractor deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. As ProPublica notes, the number of contractor deaths over the last six months is staggering, but, because DBA chronically undercounts fatalities, the true total is unknown.

Over on Fedspending.org, our government spending database, we just updated our Recovery Act tab to include the fourth quarter 2009 recipient reports. Users can now search through reports from February through December 2009, and can sort, sift and download it to their hearts' content. And be sure to check out some of our pre-cooked searches, including congressional districts ranked by Recovery Act spending and a list of the top 100 prime recipients.