AP reports that the theoretical debt ceiling was elevated to just under $9,000,000,000,000 today by the Congress. The government expects that it will reach the debt limit “sometime next year”.

Let’s do a quick regression:

Ceiling Adjustment Request Date
$6.584 trillion November 2004
7.384 trillion December 2005
8.184 trillion March 2006
8.965 trillion ?

When the dates are converted into Excel date integers and the data is run through a linear regression, I get a date of December 2006. So if it is sometime next year, we’re talking January rather than December. I guess they were smart enough to give themselves enough room to get past the 2006 elections. The Bureau of Public Debt reports today’s Debt to the Penny at $8.2701 trillion.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., appears poised to win an increase of $7 billion in new and real funding for education and health research. The $7 billion would effectively be used to break Bush’s $873 billion budget cap for 2007, which represents the most significant vestige of fiscal discipline remaining in Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg’s budget.

The underlying Senate budget plan is notable chiefly for dropping Bush’s proposed cuts to Medicare and for abandoning his efforts to expand health savings accounts or pass legislation to make permanent his 2001 tax cut bill.

Unlike last year, when Congress passed a bill trimming $39 billion from the deficit through curbs to Medicaid, Medicare and student loan subsidies, Senate GOP leaders have abandoned plans to pass another round of cuts to so-called mandatory programs.

I know two-party advocates say we’re throwing away our vote if we vote third party. Perhaps it’s better that we throw away our vote rather than let Congress do it.