Economy -- CPI up 4.3 percent, Year-on-Year: Per the Washington Post this morning: On the day after oil closed at a record high of more than $100 a barrel, new federal data show that... The consumer price index was 4.3 percent higher last month compared to January a year ago. Budget -- Discretionary Battle a War of Choice: After the battle of the Bush budget's maginot [top]line of $933 billion last year, Democrats will be deciding in the coming weeks whether or not to engage in another struggle to add funds to the president's FY09 discretionary cap of $990 billion... Markups in both House and Senate Budget committees are expected the week of March 3, with floor action in each chamber likely the following week. Social/Insurance -- Does it Make a Difference? All the difference in the world, say Stuart Butler of the Heritage Foundation and Maya MacGuineas of the New America Foundation in Rethinking Social Insurance, a new idea whose time may have passed... Social Mobility Study -- Brookings' Getting Ahead or Losing Ground: Mobility in America, released yesterday, concludes that "a growing difference in education levels between income and racial groups, especially in college degrees, implies that mobility will be lower in the future than it is today."