AP: "With no fanfare, President Bush Friday signed the most sweeping rewrite of corporate tax law in nearly two decades, showering $136 billion in new tax breaks on businesses, farmers and other groups. Intended to end a bitter trade war with Europe, the election-year measure [grew] into a massive giveaway that will add to the complexity of the tax system and end up rewarding multinational companies that move jobs overseas. There was no ceremony for the bill-signing. White House press secretary Scott McClellan announced it on Air Force One as Bush flew to a campaign appearance in Pennsylvania.... The handling of the corporate tax bill was in contrast to Bush's action on Oct. 4 when he sat before television cameras on a stage in Des Moines, Iowa, to sign three tax-cut breaks popular with middle-class voters...." Rove hopes we won't watch sausage making or corporate pigs at the trough.

Washington Post: "Since 2000, the Census Bureau tells us, median family income has declined by $1,535, to $43,318. The poverty rolls have swelled by 4.3 million newly poor people. The number of Americans with no health insurance has risen to 45 million. If those mournful numbers may not seem like opportunity run amok, though, that's because our definition of 'opportunity' is too constricted. Think of the word, as the president must, as meaning the chance to do well, or poorly, or to crash and burn altogether. Think of it as a synonym for 'risk,' and the president's entire program falls into place. Once you comprehend that the president is peddling increased risk rather than opportunity as the term is commonly understood, Bushonomics becomes crystal clear."

As John Kerry said, "only George W. Bush could celebrate over a record budget deficit of $422 billion, a loss of 1.6 million jobs and Medicare premiums that are up by a record 17 percent." AP writes: "The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is predicting that this year's federal deficit will be reach $422 billion, the highest ever but less than the amount analysts predicted earlier this year." To all real conservatives... George Bush is NOT a fiscal conservative. He is a fiscal disaster.

Washington Post: "High oil prices, a stagnant labor market -- and the lack of a more forceful response from the Bush campaign -- have sparked worry among White House allies that the administration's economic team has been too content cheerleading instead of setting more detailed plans for a second term. [I]n New York, the Conference Board, a business research firm, reported a second straight monthly decline in its index of leading economic indicators. 'The latest decline in the leading index reflects a loss of forward momentum,' said Conference Board economist Ken Goldstein, citing 'worries about where economic growth will come from now that tax refunds have been spent.'"