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Yes, you read that right. The federal government ran a $21 billion budget surplus last month, the best January showing in four years, as both spending and tax receipts set records for the month.
Now this news will be shocking to many. After all it was only last week that George Bush's 2.7 trillion dollar budget was slammed by many as either a) not aggressively attacking the budget deficit, or b) slashing many programs for the needy.
The question is whether the surplus will be used to pay down the deficit, or whether senators will use it to fund more port-barreled projects. My feeling is that unfortunately it will be the latter.

I am reading Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins. Fascinating look at aid to the Less Developed Countries (LDC) and the roll that the Developed Countries (DC), including the US, play in running up the debt for the LDC. The book got me thinking about Iraq and the rebuilding that is going on there. The Iraq government is borrowing tens of billions of dollars from the DC’s to upgrade their infrastructure. The work (and a lot of the money) is going to American companies like Haliburton. So in essence it is a money transfer from the US government to US companies, with the Iraq government being saddled with the bills.

Great book. It will really open your eyes to the while foreign aid process.

Leaving in the Northeast I get the privilege of reading the Boston Globe on a daily basis. The Globe and their columnists often mention the 2003 Bush tax cuts as being the tax cuts of the rich. Can someone explain to me what that means?

According to the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, the effect of eliminating dividend taxation (part of the 2003 tax cut plan) is that the average benefit for those making less than $10,000 would be $6, and average benefit for those making more than $1 million would be $45,098. Molly Ivins asked “Quick, high-schoolers, let's practice up for the those SATs by figuring out by what percentage $45,098 is bigger than $6.”

Now why I hate to disagree with Ms. Ivins, but a tax cut is a tax cut for everyone. If I make $10,000 a year and Bill Gates makes $100 million a year and we both get a 10% reduction in taxes, I might save $1,000 while Bill will save $10 million.  The percent of savings is the same. You cannot say that this tax cut favored the rich just because Bill Gates would save $10 million and I would save $1,000. That is comparing apples to oranges. We both benefit the same.

So can someone please explain to me what a tax cut for the rich is?

Last week's unemployment figures were met with stoned silence in the media. You would think that the unemployment rate dropping to a 4 1/2 year low would be cause for celebration. But no. Why?
The unemployment report showed that the unemployment rate for blacks fell to 8.9%, the best since September 2001, while the rate for Hispanics dipped to a five-month low of 5.8%.
Since the Bush tax cits were implemented the US economy has created over 4 million jobs! And these jobs are not the hamgurger flipping kind. The average hourly earnings climbed to $16.41 in January, up 0.4% from December.