The White House and Congressional Democrats have been trying to recover from assertions that they have wasted hundreds of billions of dollars on unproductive stimulus programs that failed to stimulate. Yet now, in face of a second year with negligible inflation, the President and Speaker Pelosi are promising to give a $250 check to seniors to over-ride the Social Security law that provides a cost of living increase (COLA) for recipients only if there there really is a cost of living increase in the economy. The point of the law is that people on fixed incomes cannot accommodate to inflation, so a cola is warranted in such times. However, we are in an economy with little or no inflation, and where, on the other hand, our future is burdened with ever-increasing federal deficits--now $1.3 trillion.

Reckless U.S. spending is contributing to a weakening of the dollar worldwide. Eventually, with further Fed paper manufacturing expected, the effective devaluation of the dollar will lead to inflation in American prices. Oddly, the President and Speaker Pelosi are causing the very kind of problem they supposedly would like to compensate for.

Candidates this fall who have been had a born-again conversion to fiscal integrity should think hard before they get behind this latest boondoggle. "Rather than pluinge $14 billion deeper into debt, Congress should get to work to save Social Security, averting painful across-the-board cuts for those in an near retirement as scheduled under current law, " is the way Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) puts it.

Some liberal voices already have been raised again the latest cyncial election campaign pander. "On this the president gets a failing grade," says a Washington Post editorial this morning.