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Federal Income Taxes, as a Share of GDP, Drop to Lowest Level Since 1942, According to Final Budget Data, 10/21/03: "The final budget figures for fiscal year 2003 were released on October 20 by the Treasury Department. They indicate that income tax receipts (including receipts from both the individual and corporate income tax) equaled just 8.6 percent of the Gross Domestic Product. This is the lowest level of income tax collections, as a share of the economy, since 1942. "

The Troubling Medicare Drug Agreement, Revised 11/21/03The conference agreement on the Medicare drug bill would cost an estimated $400 billion over ten years, and much larger amounts in succeeding decades as drug prices continue to rise. Because the legislation is not “paid for,” it would substantially worsen the nation’s long-term fiscal problems, which already threaten to be the most serious in the nation’s history.

This raises a fundamental question: is the legislation sound enough policy to justify substantially worsening an already grim long-term fiscal outlook? Examination of the legislation strongly suggests the answer is no. The legislation contains a number of features that do not represent sound policy, either because they would change Medicare in troubling ways or because they fail to incorporate measures to curtail spiraling drug costs that ought to be an essential part of any legislation to establish a Medicare drug benefit.

Congressional Leadership Pushes For Extending Expiring Tax Breaks, But Ignores Expiring Unemployment Benefits, 11/25/03When Congress returns from its Thanksgiving break on the week of December 8, it will be under pressure to complete action on legislation that would extend more than a dozen tax breaks scheduled to expire at the end of the year. The House passed a tax-cut "extenders" package before the break, but the Senate did not. Despite efforts to ensure that an “extenders” package is enacted before the end of the year, Congressional leaders have shown no willingness to consider extending the temporary federal program to help the long-term unemployed, which, starting December 21, will not provide any benefits to those who newly exhaust their regular, state-funded benefits.

here's another tid-bit:

According to the Congressional Research Service, only one “temporary” tax provision has been allowed to expire in the last 25 years.[1] As a result, the official estimate of the cost of extending these tax breaks for six months to a year substantially understates the true cost of these tax breaks over time, and hides their long-term effects on a federal budget that already faces large deficits for the foreseeable future.

The New York Review of Books: Health for Sale