Can Bush count?

The Congressional Budget Office predicts that the government will end 2003 with the biggest budget deficit in American history: $300 billion. Some private analysts have painted a grimmer picture, putting the figure at $425 billion. Next week, Republicans will try to ram through legislation in the Senate--already passed in the House--that will raise the government's borrowing limit by $984 billion to $7.38 trillion.

And don't forget: 60 million Americans find themselves uninsured during a year, 2.7 million people who had jobs when Bush took office now don't, and the unemployment rate recently jumped to six percent. The president's solution to these woes--a plan shot down by Alan Greenspan: give $550 billion in tax cuts, primarily to the rich.

"Yes, I'm worried about the deficit, but I'm more worried about the fellow looking for work," said the president, preposterously, on his tax-cut campaign stop in Omaha. "I'm more worried about the single mom who's worried about putting food on the table for her children so she can find work."