I’ve got the household budget all sorted out for the fiscal year starting May 1^st. It looks like I’ll be able to put about $45,000 into paying off bills and saving for retirement, which is a lot better than last year, when the amount was less than half of that.

Of course, I’m factoring in a few extra things. For example, I’m assuming that the economy will grow by 4% next year, so my business will grow accordingly. I’m also assuming that income for all my clients will ALSO increase by 4% and they will spend a proportionate amount on me. I’m also assuming that the house will appreciate by at least 4%, and adding that to my income. But housing went up an extra 10% in our area last year, so maybe I better make that 14%.

Finally, I’m assuming that I’ll spend $10,000 this year on the lottery. While it would be reckless to assume that I will actually win any particular amount, I happen to know that the lottery pays off at the rate of 38%, and since the money that is going into the lottery is investment toward future growth, I don’t have to list it among my expenses, but can assume that the $3,800 the odds say I’ll get back can be counted in my expected income.

Maybe I should invest $50,000 in the lottery. Then I could retire two or three years earlier.

I hate to think what my finances would look like without Dynamic Scoring. And to think I scoffed at the notion that Republicans would make me rich!

Dynamic Scoring is the new method by which the Congressional Budget Office calculates the deficits or surpluses of the proposed federal budgets. It’s an old newfangled GOP idea, inflicted just this year, and it mandates that when the CBO calculates revenue, it assume that Putsch’s trickle-down economic theory will work, and cause the economy to boom.

Like most GOP ideas, this is based on the fact that it didn’t work the last time they tried it. "Reaganomics" was a disaster, one that tripled the national debt and caused the great divide between the super-rich and the rest of us that is the root of so many of our national problems today. But the GOP rationale is that if it didn’t work the first time, that means that it will work twice as well the next time they try it.

So the CBO has to pretend that the tax cuts that Putsch rammed through for the super-rich will benefit all of us so much that the economy will boom, and that will lead to enhanced revenues.

Even though nearly every economist in the world is saying the exact opposite will occur.

Even though when Reagan lowered taxes, the economy tanked, and when Bush, and then Clinton raised them, the economy recovered, and then boomed. I’m not saying the tax cut caused the recession, or that the tax hikes caused the Clinton boom, but it blows a huge hole in the so-called "Laffer Curve" theory, which postulates a straight-line inverse relationship between tax rates and economic growth. (Even Laffer himself doesn’t believe in the Laffer Curve any more).

Republicans know Reaganomics was a colossal failure, even though they are forbidden from admitting it. You can tell this by listening to the dog that didn’t bark; Republicans DON’T try to justify the Putsch tax cuts by saying they are just following in the giant footsteps of their deity Reagan. When even Republicans can’t credit something to Reagan, who they claim overthrew communism and saved America from something or other, then you know that Reagan must have screwed up pretty good.

So the CBO, forced by law to pretend that Putsch’s tax cuts will cause an economic boom, is forecasting deficits of $287 for FY 2003 and $338 for 2004. Both set new records for single annual deficits. That doesn’t count the $80 billion allocated for the first MONTH of the war. It also assumes that the war will end on April 19^th, and that we’ll promptly leave Iraq and not have to spend another dime on the place. (The admin is seriously proposing that income from Iraqi oil can be used to defray the expenses of "nation building" – in other words, we are generously offering the Iraqis the opportunity to pay for the damage we did. No word on whether the war damage is being appraised through Dynamic Scoring or not.)

In fact, for 2003, a year in which Dynamic Scoring says revenues will rise slightly, by $3 billion dollars over 2002, the first six months have seen a DECLINE of $180 billion. Oops.

Don’t be surprised if those deficits turn out to be closer to $500 billion and $800 billion respectively. Supply side has never been anything more than snake oil medicine, given as a rationale for turning over the national treasury to the undeserving rich.

But the forecast deficits, bad as they are, have one element that Republicans can cling to. The dynamic deficits, as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product, aren’t as high as the ones created by supply side economics under Reagan and Bush. And so Republicans who just a few years ago declared any and all deficits to be bad, bad, bad, are pointing out that these deficits, huge as they are, aren’t as bad as the ones that occurred, um, before. Between the Carter and Clinton administrations. You know. Back -between- those Democratic Big Spenders.

Gosh. Good thing those guys didn’t get that Balanced Budget Amendment added to the constitution. They would be in a real bind right now. Instead, we all are.

Not that I’m defending the BBA. It was a hideously bad idea then, and it would be now. But I bet that a few years from now, assuming America survives this junta, we’ll have outraged Republicans in Congress glaring at a Democratic white house and again demanding a BBA to control "out of control liberal spending."

Being a right winger means never having to be consistent. Or to think.

Given that this is the party that came up with Dynamic Scoring, it really shouldn’t come as any surprise to learn that their military planning and foreign policy is being conducted, in part, based upon the crackpot religious notion of Bible Coding. The admin had the latest author to pump out this old notion, one Michael Drosnin, in to lecture the Pentagon brass and top defense officials, including Paul Wolfowitz. The meeting was set up so Drosnin could explain to our military and defense elite how seeking out hidden codes in the bible could help them locate Osama bin Laden. Drosnin was happy to report afterward that those assembled took him "very seriously". Unfortunately, Osama didn’t take it as seriously, and hasn’t been found.

If we can have Dynamic Scoring for our budgets, and Bible Coding for foreign policy, perhaps its time we started considering phrenology for military intelligence, alchemy for the Centers for Disease Control, and astrology for NASA.

In fact, I just did a little Bible Coding of my own. I pulled out my bible, which I had been using as a lid on the cat box to keep the dogs from snarfing Pick ‘O the Litter Almond Rocas, and, looking in Exodus, I discovered the letters "A", "D", "E", "G", "H", "I", "N", "O", "R", "S", "T", and "W". I put them together in just the right order, using some more than once, and discovered there really is something to this Bible Coding.

I came up with the phrase, "Right Wingers are Idiots."

Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to explain to my creditors that Dynamic Scoring means that I can get a lot richer if I don’t pay my bills. I’m sure they’ll understand if I tell them it’s Republican economics.