For the first time since the Carter administration, homeownership in the United States is set to decline over a president’s tenure. When President Bush took office in 2001, homeownership stood at 67.6 percent. It rose as the mortgage bubble inflated but is projected to fall to 67 percent by early 2009, which would come to 700,000 fewer homeowners than when Mr. Bush started. The decline, calculated by Moody’s Economy.com, is inexorable unless the government launches a heroic effort to help hundreds of thousands of defaulting borrowers stay in their homes.

An overwhelming majority of 72% of American troops serving in Iraq think the U.S. should exit the country within the next year, and nearly one in four say the troops should leave immediately, a new Le Moyne College/Zogby International survey shows. 

The poll, conducted in conjunction with Le Moyne College's Center for Peace and Global Studies, showed that 29% of the respondents, serving in various branches of the armed forces, said the U.S. should leave Iraq "immediately," while another 22% said they should leave in the next six months. Another 21% said troops should be out between six and 12 months, while 23% said they should stay "as long as they are needed."

Qatar's energy minister said crude oil prices, which have surged recently to record levels above 80 dollars a barrel, should be more than 100 dollars.  

"If we take into account inflation from 1972 to the present day, the real and fair price for oil should be more than 100 dollars," Abdullah bin Hamad Al-Attiyah said in remarks aired by Al-Jazeera television on Tuesday.  

He said such a price was justified by rising inflation, a fall in purchasing power and the weakness of the dollar, which has dropped about 10 percent in value against the euro over the past year.  . . .  

Attiyah, whose gas-rich nation is an OPEC member, said the dollar could remain the unit of reference for oil despite its slump. "But I cannot predict what will happen in future. Anything is possible," he said.

Calling President Bush insulting and detached from reality, top congressional Democrats said Thursday they will not compromise with him on a children's health program that Bush vetoed. 

The unusually harsh remarks underscored the tense relations between Bush and Congress's Democratic leaders, who are frustrated by their inability to change his Iraq policies, and by his intransigence on a popular state-federal health program for children.

Democratic lawmakers say they hope the House will override the veto on Oct. 18, even though members of both parties privately call that a long shot. Regardless of the override outcome, top Democrats said Thursday, they are uninterested in further negotiations. 

"We're not going to compromise," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told reporters in the Capitol. He called Bush's compromise overtures "an insult." 

"You cannot wring another ounce of compromise out of this," Reid said. "The president, what he has done with his macho pen, is really hurt children. He thinks he can waltz in here with his secretary of Health and Human Services, and sweet talk us -- he can't. This is a man who is out of touch with reality."

Bush and his allies have expressed much outrage that the SCHIP bill would "subsidize" rich families — that is, it would let children in households earning up to three times the poverty level — about $64,000 for a family of four — participate in the program. Well, try to raise two children in New York or San Francisco on $64,000, and also buy health coverage for them.

Funny, but the Medicare drug benefit (and Medicare in general) extends taxpayer-subsidized health care to retirees earning 2,000 times the poverty rate. Billionaires qualify if they're over 65. And that was just dandy with the president.

In a similar vein, one may question Bush's repeated worry that access to a government program will prompt some working Americans to drop their private coverage. Yes, that happened when the Medicare drug benefit went into effect, but the president didn't seem to lose sleep over it.

Given Bush's hearty support of the Medicare drug benefit, why won't he get behind expanding SCHIP? Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., offered this short, clean explanation at a National Conference of Editorial Writers meeting here in Kansas City:

"The difference between the SCHIP program and Medicare Part D is the private businesses were cut into Medicare Part D."

Bingo.

You see, the writers of the SCHIP legislation worked on the simple-minded idea that the taxpayers could help uninsured children by just picking up their medical bills. They didn't understand the subtle thinking of the Bush administration, which can't support a government program that doesn't also enrich private interests.

The Medicare drug law gave insurers and drug makers a big piece of the action. In return, they: a) supported a giant new government program that Bush wanted; and b) generously rewarded obliging lawmakers with money, campaign and otherwise.

The Democrats writing the SCHIP legislation apparently forgot to hire their own Billy Tauzin to, so-to-speak, grease the wheels. Rep. Tauzin, the Louisiana Republican who wrote the Medicare drug law, did such a great job for the pharmaceuticals industry that its lobbying group immediately offered him a reported $3-million-a-year job — which he took.

Had Bush and his Republican Congress followed the Democratic proposal — that is, simply let the federal government negotiate drug prices on behalf of Medicare beneficiaries — the program could cost $300 billion less over eight years. SCHIP is really small change next to the Medicare drug benefit, whose price was clearly no object for the president.

So here's what Democrats must do to get Bush's blessings on children's health coverage: They should spend 30 percent more on it than necessary to keep private businesses happy. And once they have the corporate lobbyists on board, all the complaints about socialized medicine, subsidizing the well-to-do and big government would vanish.

That's how health care is done in Bush's Washington.

In the land of great wealth, families must not live in hopeless poverty. In a land of healing miracles, neighbors must not suffer and die unattended. In a land of learning and scholars, young people must be taught to read or right.

We were told four years ago that 17 million people went to bed hungry every night. Well, that was probably true. They were all on a diet.

Unemployment insurance is a pre-paid vacation for freeloaders.     

If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president. It's kind of a pipe dream, it's a personal fantasy of mine, but I don't think it's going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women.

It also makes the point, it is kind of embarrassing, the Democratic Party ought to be hanging its head in shame, that it has so much difficulty getting men to vote for it. I mean, you do see it’s the party of women and 'We’ll pay for health care and tuition and day care -- and here, what else can we give you, soccer moms?'