Another 200k+ jobs created last month as unemployment falls to a 6 year low. Jobless claims continue to fall. And now they say the economy - which supposedly was in trouble in Q4 though few serious people believed it - will grow by as much as 5% in the 1st quarter. That is, after raising the 4Q rate from 1.1% to 1.7%.

What does all this mean?

• More Americans paying taxes and fewer collecting payments.
• Deficits falling from huge levels to very sustainable levels.
• More Americans preparing for their own retirements and fewer who will be in need.
• More Americans with health care coverage and fewer at municipal hospitals needing expensive (free) care for routine illnesses.
• More Americans building their own pride and self-esteem and fewer beaten down.
• More wealth generated to continue the economic expansion

And in the middle of all of this, inflation is staying very low.

These are the kinds of numbers that would get a Democratic President canonized.

So I'll say it here: President Bush has been responsible for the biggest economic boom in our lifetimes.

Credit where credit is due.

sharptalk

Nobody knows the references in the post below?

C'mon, give it a shot. It won't hurt a bit. Take the challenge below.

sharptalk

...a moment in the sun Well it's gone and you can tell that one goodbye.

 Here's a seasonal challenge. Identify the baseball references:

Back, back, back, back, back....

Say, hey!

"People don't start playing ball at your age, they retire!"

That ball wouldn't have gone out of a lot of parks." Ricky says, "Name one." Jakes pauses and says, "Yellowstone."

Say, it ain't so!

It might be. It could be. IT IS!!!!! A home run!

"There's no crying. There's no crying in baseball!"

This is the old left-hander. Rounding third and heading for home.

"I can't believe what I just saw"

Tinker to Evers to Chance

A sticky nickel to the first one to name them all.

sharptalk

Not much...how about you?

Sorry, the old songs still get me.

I've been swamped from one end to the other with events and work and family and commitments.

But it's good to be back.

Let's see what's happening....

Tom DeLay is DeGone. Not surprising at all and, as happens in Republican scandals, it was inevitable that he would lose support and be gone. I can't help but think that new leadership is a good thing every few years anyway as power corrupts.

Katherine Harris is in trouble in Florida. Also, not surprising. I never knew much about her, but I lived in Florida when the 2000 chad search was on and I was impressed with her toughness. She did what the law prescribed despite the calls of partisanship. Not sure she's Senate material, though.

Senator Santorum will soon be an analyst as well, it seems. And Republican Senator Talent from Missouri is trailing early. Also, the always-in-danger Senator Burns from Montana looks - once again - like he will lose.

But here's the good news for Republicans (unless you're ready for a clean sweep - as I know some are):

Tom Kean (son of the former Governor) is leading in New Jersey - a state where corruption is a profession and Duke Cunningham looks like the church lady. I predict a Republican pick up there.

Harold Ford in Tennessee can't get past his family's corruption issues. He is very polished and will present a strong challenge, but can't win. Republicans hold onto that one.

In Minnesota, retiring Senator Mark Dayton leaves Democrats very vulnerable for another loss in a state that has been trending more Republican. It's very early, but Democrats hold a small lead there.

In Ohio, Mike Dewine has been behind, but has pulled ahead in the latest polling and is in a generally safe state for Republicans. He holds this seat.

In Montana, Burns pulls a DeLay and steps aside just in time for popular former Republican National Committee chairman Mark Racicot to step in and hold on to that seat. Republicans hold.

In Maryland, Republican Senate candidate Michael Steele cuts into Ben Cardin's 14 point lead and makes it interesting. But he won't have enough to win in this bluest of states. Long gone are the Republican heydays of Spiro Agnew (dripping with sarcasm). Those nattering nabobs of negativism will do in the elephant party in Maryland.

In West Virginia, Bob Byrd wins his 66th term (actually 9th) as Senator. I used to live in South Carolina and the frailty of Senator Byrd reminds me very much of Senator Strom Thurmond in the last years. He had no business running into his 90's either. The citizens against government waste have a recent post on Senator Byrd that reads:

http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=news_byrddroppings

"They call me 'The Pork King,' they don't know how much I enjoy it." - Sen. Robert Byrd

In 2005, Senator Robert C. Byrd managed to claw $399 million in pork for West Virginia, or $220 for every single resident, using his privileged position as ranking chairman of the Appropriations Committee. After he secured $97 million in fiscal 1999, Byrd became the first person in CAGW's Congressional Pig Book history to obtain more than $1 billion in pork for his state. In honor of this fiscal incontinence, we dedicate this page to Senator Byrd.

Final thoughts:

Allen wins in Virginia
Democrats pick up a Senate seat they already own in Vermont (independent) and another one in Rhode Island (liberal Republican).
Lousiana will have two Republican Senators in two years.
Jeb Bush will be appointed to an ambassadorship in 2007.
The house will become Democratic in January of 2007 and will bring a vote to impeach President Bush, but the vote will fail.
The Senate will remain Republican and will confirm a conservative Supreme Court justice in the ugliest confirmation hearings in history.
Terrorists will strike again in the next two years and the Republicans will win the White House in 2008 with Mitt Romney and his VP Condaleeza Rice.

Sorry for the long post. Good to be back.

sharptalk

(continued from prior post).

So here's the problem. If they win in 2006 and take over the House and Senate (first look for the media to change the language from "control" to "leadership"), then they will be in a rather uncomfortable box of their own making.

They have complained about the deficit, Hurricane relief, the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act and cold sores on warthogs.

Let's take them one at a time.

The Deficit. The Democrats became true believers in deficit reduction when, without them realizing it, the deficit went away under President Clinton. This is a wholly unmanageable position for them. First, it happened after a Republican congress swept in with the 1994 elections and then wouldn't give the President anything he wanted. With the lack of military spending (dramatically cut under Clinton) the faux boom in the stock market and the continuing Reagan economy, the deficit went away. Even after the Republican leadership in the House and Senate starting dreaming of every way they could spend money in the last 2 years of the Clinton administration, the deficit went away. So, what do they do about it now? The deficit is huge because of heavy military spending, a huge Medicare bill and continuing huge spending increases by the Congress. Will they cut programs? Only to create other new ones, for sure. How long will they be able to blame Bush for the deficit?

Hurricane Relief. The new Congress will rush in with abandon and blank checks just to prove they're more 'compassionate' than the last Congress (remember that spending our money = compassion). This will further disable the deficit-reduction thing and will reach a point where abuse of government money and a lack of responsibility on their part will become the story.

The War in Iraq. Debating whether we should have gone or not was fine 3 years ago. Once in leadership they'll have to vote on funding. And if they vote to cut off funding, they'll look responsible for what happens next. And it won't be pretty. My guess is that they'll outspend Bush on that score to 'prove' their foreign policy sturdiness. But then there's Iran, North Korea and Syria, not to mention the Palestinian situation. And do they continue to fund Afghanistan? To what level? There are those who make decisions and those who mock those who make decisions. It's much easier to mock. With the other one, you also are held accountable.

Finally, the Patriot Act. The real major downside here is anything at all happening on U.S. soil that the Patriot Act might have prevented. Harry Reid said they had "killed the Patriot Act". Well, only Russ Feingold really tried to do that, but just the same, they used it as another battering ram against the President. Now it will be aimed at them.

All of this, of course, assumes that November will look like today and that the Democrats will gain control of both houses of Congress. November is a long way away, but I think they might have been better off to have led a little more and attack a little less - it might have left them a bigger box.

sharptalk