No one doubts that the House can consolidate two bills in a single measure; the question is whether, having done so, it may then hive the resulting bill into two parts, treating one part as an enrolled bill ready for presidential signature and the other part as a House bill ready for senatorial consideration. That seems inconsistent with the principle that the president may sign only bills in the exact form that they have passed both houses. A combination of two bills is not in “the same form” as either bill separately.Read more at online.wsj.com

President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and their allies, are cheerfully citing “ten year” costs of $940,000,000,000.00 — apparently believing this to be a far more palatable figure than $1 trillion.  But even this colossal tally is like the introductory price quoted by a cell phone provider.  It’s the price before you pay for minutes, fees, and overcharges — and before the price balloons after the introductory offer expires.  Read more at www.weeklystandard.com

One job of presidents is to educate Americans about crucial national problems. On health care, Barack Obama has failed. Almost everything you think you know about health care is probably wrong or, at least, half wrong. Great simplicities and distortions have been peddled in the name of achieving “universal health coverage.” The miseducation has worsened as the debate approaches its climax.Read more at www.washingtonpost.com

The government ran up the largest monthly deficit in history in February, keeping the flood of red ink on track to top last year’s record for the full year

The Obama administration is projecting that the deficit for the 2010 budget year will hit an all-time high of $1.56 trillion, surpassing last year’s $1.4 trillion total. The administration is forecasting that the deficit will remain above $1 trillion in 2011, giving the country thrree straight years of $1 trillion-plus deficits.

Through the first five months of this budget year, net interest payments totaled $86.5 billion, up 15.3 percent from a year ago. Read more at www.google.com

among the few sectors of the economy showing net employment growth over the past year is the federal government. The federal civil service is rapidly expanding as Obama increases the size of government, with 33,000 new positions being added in January alone. Only 9,000 of those new slots were for temporary census jobs. In other words, what we are seeing is good times for the public sector and the growing prospect of a continuing and perhaps even deepening recession for everybody else.

the drop to 9.7 percent unemployment does not reflect the creation of new jobs that normally accompanies an economic recovery. The number of new jobs is actually declining.Read more at www.washingtonexaminer.com

The House voted Thursday to allow the government to go $1.9 trillion deeper in debt, an increase of about $6,000 for every United States resident.

The accumulated debt already amounts to roughly $40,000 per person.

The debt increase, approved 217 to 212, is only enough to keep the government afloat for about another year as it borrows more than 40 cents of every dollar it spends.

Thirty-seven Democrats, mostly from Republican-leaning districts, voted against the measure. So did all RepublicansRead more at www.nytimes.com