Pretty much every day for the past month President Obama has held a press conference explaining how he’s going to fix yet another massive problem with the economy. Usually the solution is something like, “Print more money!” But today, he’s floating a novel new plan: “Save more money.” Bwaaah? MORE »

Man, you know what costs gazillions of dollars of taxpayer money? Executin’ people! With appeals and increased housing costs, the tab to house a prisoner and eventually carry out the death penalty can run upwards of $3 million. Conversely, just keeping somebody in jail forever costs a mere $1.1 million or so. MORE »

• CALIFORNIA SURVIVES, FOR NOW! The Calfornia state Senate has ended a 45.5-hour gridlocked session by finally passing a budget! This required convincing a THIRD Republican senator that a couple of modest, temporary tax increases was better for the state than the immediate loss of 90,000 jobs, debt default, and revolution. “The taxpayers of California are going to view this as a loss,” the Republican minority leader said after a deal was reached. [Sacramento Bee]

Just the other day we were wondering, “What areas of the job market flourish in depressions?” and the answers were, “Repossessions, Netflix, economic analysis, and state unemployment offices, of course,” but it turned out that unemployment offices are all closing. Still, it seemed plausible that economists might have a pretty good lock on a job for a while, as there is no shortage of economic information these days, and who is going to mull that shit over for the masses, bloggers? But no, economists can’t get jobs any more, either, because all of the universities that hire them are going broke. [Wall Street Journal]

Not that anyone really *uses* the Post Office anymore, which we suppose is part of the problem, but the Postmaster General popped into the Senate today, exchanged pleasantries, and then told the Senators, “So yeah um, funny thing… we’re broke too. Ha…?” The Senators rolled their eyes, sighed, reluctantly took out the golden checkbook with its goosefeather pen and responded, “Alright, goddamnit, fine, how much Obama Money do you want?” But the Postmaster General didn’t want their money — he wanted to cut his own budget! Congress does NOT like this “attitude.” MORE »

• RAISE TAXES ON ALL VAGUELY RICH PEOPLE ASAP, SRSLY: “For the first two months of the fiscal year, Treasury reported a record deficit of $401.6 billion.” And all because of… Obama. [Marketwatch]

Once upon a time there was a congressman named John Boehner, and everybody made fun of him because his name looked like “boner.” And then day somebody sent one of his local offices a Mysterious Package, which was leaking an Oily Substance, and everybody panicked because of the Terrorists. But! Turns out it was just bacon in the package: the sly prankster’s symbol for pork-barrel spending, or maybe how John Boner’s “package” is always “leaking oily substances.” [WLWT Cincinnati]

George W. Bush is so callous. Not only is he having a War and all those other things we don’t like about him (we’ve forgotten because of the election!), but now he is taking oxygen away from old people with his precious “budget cuts.” MORE »

Remember old what’s his name, that guy who did the Iraq deal, way back when? Well, he’s still apparently in the White House and still apparently trotted out for a photo op now and then for the people who have the worst job in journalism: White House correspondents during an election year in which nobody wants anything to do with George W. Bush. But he’s still the president, kind of, and he submitted his own budget that his staff wrote. And instead of, say, sending the PDF over to Congress, he submitted an entire laptop computer. MORE »

Acting President George Walker Bush revealed his new budget today for FY2009, and it’s the first to top $3 trillion! To put “$3 trillion” in perspective: that’s $30 billion times infinity, plus several billion more dollars. MORE »

* John Edwards will make a “serious” announcement today at noon, but will continue to resent Elizabeth Edwards for life. [WP, NYT]
* “Partisan witch hunt” is on! House subpoenas K. Rova, Albeady Gonzales, JoBo, Blanche Miers and more! [WP, NYT]
* Al Gore comes back to Capitol Hill just as “shrill” and “accurate” as when he left. [WP, NYT]
* Anti-war protesters at the Capitol feel safe under the “impressive bulk” of John Murtha. [WP]
* Several of the fired attorneys were the top seed in their divisions. [USAT]
* Justice Department really has the black lung. [WP]
* Congressional budget processzzzzzzzzz. [WP]
* FDA moves to trim payola. [NYT, LAT]
* Iraq funding bill has more farm aid than Willie Nelson. [USAT]