To whom do we complain?

I’m simply going to post two clippings and one graph here. Here’s one from 2000:

President Clinton announces another record budget surplus

From CNN White House Correspondent Kelly Wallace

September 27, 2000
Web posted at: 4:51 p.m. EDT (2051 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Clinton announced Wednesday that the federal budget surplus for fiscal year 2000 amounted to at least $230 billion, making it the largest in U.S. history and topping last year’s record surplus of $122.7 billion.

And, here’s one from 2008:

White House projects record deficit for 2009

updated 6:27 p.m. EDT, Mon July 28, 2008

WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Bush’s budget chief blamed the faltering economy and the bipartisan stimulus package for the record $482 billion deficit the White House predicted for the 2009 budget year.

Here’s the graph, which is based on U.S. Treasury data (linked). Note that the amounts on the left are in billions of dollars, so $1,100 equals $1,100,000,000,000 or “one point one trillion dollars.”

Increase in total indebtedness from 1998 to 2008

Gotta love it

In “Another Reason To Spike That Eggnog,” Flora Lichtman of Talk of the Nation seeks an answer to a question about whether the risk of contracting salmonella poisoning can be reduced by putting whiskey (or similar) into one’s eggnog. See it from the Science Friday page (with video link).

Also in “More Evidence That Eggnog Goes Better With Booze,” from the US National Public Radio pages:

It’s a question that many people have on their minds this season: Does spiking the homemade eggnog safeguard it against salmonella? Eggnog expert and microbiologist Vince Fischetti of The Rockefeller University in New York runs some tests to find out.