Consumer confidence at highest level in over a year.GDP in third quarter revised up to 8.2 percent Up from the original 7.2 percent estimate.

November's employment numbers will be out December 5th.

If you have been tracking all the economic numbers, you will see that not only are they busting upward, but that when they go back and get more accurate numbers for earlier periods, they turn out to be higher than originally thought. This includes employment.

And yes, Virginia. It was the tax cuts.

And while economists worry about what happens when the "rebate effect" goes away, they seem to forget two things:

- Tax cuts mean that take-home pay and business profits are now consistently higher.

- Just wait and see what happens when next spring's fat refund checks hit the economy. KaPOW!

Now, if Bush and the Republicans (wherever they are) could just get a grip on spending, we might really see some progress. Not holding my breath, though.

If Bush gets reelected, and doesn't have to worry about reelection (which happened to Reagan) and kept a solid Republican majority in Congress (which did NOT happen to Reagan) we will see the first situation where Republicans could theoretically actually make a difference. If government keeps bloating right along under those circumstances (financially and otherwise), then maybe we are just too far gone towards the socialist ideal of the Infinite State.