Well, if we put aside the Immigration Reform Bill and an unwillingness on the part of Bushco to adequately defend themselves against years of unrelenting falsehoods and misimpressions, that is.

Still, from Bloomberg News:

Among the markets that say President George W. Bush is doing “a heck of a job,” the one he can take the most satisfaction from is U.S. Treasury bills.

That’s because the unexpected surge in tax receipts may pare the budget deficit by 39 percent to $150 billion this fiscal year, causing a relative scarcity of four-week, three-month and six-month bills. The result is the biggest bull market for Treasury bills since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 drove investors to the safety of the securities.

Individual and corporate income tax revenues are growing for a fourth straight year in spite of five rounds of Bush tax cuts totaling about $2 trillion from 2001 to 2006. With less need to borrow, the government has cut sales of bills. The supply, which peaked in March 2005 at $1.06 trillion, fell to $919.1 billion at the end of May and will drop by about $160 billion this quarter, a record.

Hmm. This must be taking place in that other America, the one where the rich eat quail liver pate off the scrubbed and shaved abdomens of the comely homeless people, hired to act as human buffet tables for $6 an hour and a bottle of Ripple…

Treasuries “are among the best liquid assets in the world, and low deficits keep them scarce, and yields low,” Robert Mundell, a professor at Columbia University in New York and winner of the 1999 Nobel Prize for economics, said in an e-mailed response to a question.

Yields on three-month bills tumbled last week to a 16-month low of 4.53 percent, about three-quarters of a percentage point lower than the Federal Reserve’s 5.25 percent target for the overnight lending rate between banks. The last time bill yields were that far below the federal funds rate was after the terrorist attacks in New York and Arlington, Virginia, in 2001.

[…]

Along with record highs in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index of large-company shares and the smallest yield premiums on the riskiest corporate bonds in the past month, low bill yields are a sign of confidence. Bush’s approval ratings are at record lows because of the Iraq war. Bush drew a 32 percent approval rating in an AP-Ipsos poll on June 7 and 28 percent in a Newsweek poll on May 5.

Well, let’s not underestimate the constant drumbeat about a horrid economy for some of the disapproval of Bush.

After all, Herbert Hoover wasn’t too popular, either.

Financial markets say the voters are wrong. Three-month bill yields averaged only 13 basis points lower than the federal funds rate in September 2005. The S&P 500 is up almost 25 percent, and high-yield bond spreads are almost a percentage point narrower, according to Merrill Lynch & Co. The average yield premium was 266 basis points as of June 21, compared with 354 in September 2005. A basis point is one one-hundredth of a percentage point.

[…]

“Treasury bills, more than anything, reflect” the smaller supply of government debt, said James E. Glassman, senior U.S. economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York. “Because this year was such a blowout for Treasury, to prevent cash from piling up they offer fewer Treasury bills.”

Bills rallied in the past month even as longer-maturity Treasury notes and bonds were routed by traders paring bets that the Fed will lower rates this year. The benchmark 10-year note’s yield touched a five-year high of 5.32 percent on June 13.

Yields on 10-year notes fell almost 4 basis points last week to 5.13 percent, according to bond broker Cantor Fitzgerald LP. The price of the 4 1/2 percent security due in May 2017 rose 8/32, or $2.50 per $1,000 face amount, to 95 4/32. Treasury yields, which move inversely to prices, declined further today, pushing the 10-year yield down 5 basis points to 5.08 percent at 9:55 a.m. in New York.

“This is not over,” said Eric Diamond, who trades Treasury bills and notes maturing within 18 months at Goldman, Sachs & Co. in New York. “I predict pressure to continue in the bill sector for at least another two weeks.”

[…]

Assets in U.S. money-market funds rose to a record $2.499 trillion in the week ended June 19, according to iMoneyNet, a Westborough, Massachusetts-based company that tracks the funds. Money-market funds invest in short-term debt securities and maintain a constant share price of $1. Their average yield rose to a six-year high of 4.77 percent in the week ended April 3 and was 4.72 percent last week.

Through June 21, the government had collected $1.59 trillion in individual and corporate income taxes, an increase of 7.7 percent from the year-earlier period. Income tax revenue increased 16 percent in fiscal 2006, 21 percent in fiscal 2005, and 7.9 percent in fiscal 2003.

Notes Don Surber:

Earlier this month, Martin Crutsinger of AP reported:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal deficit is running sharply lower through the first eight months of this budget year as growth in revenues continues to outpace the growth in spending.

The Treasury Department said that the deficit through May totaled $148.5 billion, down 34.6 percent from the same period a year ago.

That improvement came even though the deficit in May increased to $67.7 billion, up 57.8 percent from May 2006. However, analysts attributed this big increase to the fact that the Internal Revenue Service was more efficient in processing tax returns this year, meaning more revenue was collected in April with fewer tax collections left to be counted in May.

For the year, revenue and spending are both at record levels. Revenue gains are up 8 percent while outlays are up at a slower pace of 2.5 percent, compared to the same period a year ago. Growth in spending has been slower this year in part because of the absence of last year’s huge outlays for hurricane relief.

The increase in revenues has been supported by continued strength in corporate profits and low unemployment, which has helped to push individual income taxes higher.

For the 2007 budget year, which ends on Sept. 30, the Congressional Budget Office is projecting a federal deficit of $177 billion. That would be down 28.7 percent from last year’s imbalance of $248.2 billion, which had been the lowest deficit in four years.

The federal budget was in surplus for four years from 1998 through 2001 as the long economic expansion helped push revenues higher.

In the budget President Bush sent Congress in February for 2008, he projected that the government can return to a surplus by 2012 even if his first-term tax cuts are made permanent.

Democratic critics, however, contend that Bush’s spending blueprint was based on unrealistic assumptions and left out major spending items such as the full costs of the Iraq war. They also argue that the current improvement in the deficit will be only temporary as the 78 million baby boomers retire, pushing spending on Social Security and Medicare up in coming years.

[my emphasis]

Of course, the Democrats fought tooth and nail against Social Security reform — so it’s rather queer to see them now using their own obstruction of reform as a life jacket to keep afloat in the rising waters floodwaters that threaten to permanently drown their hopes of using the economy and the deficit against Republicans in 2008.

Quips Surber:

I get the feeling if Bush fixed [social security], then Democrats would say, well, what about that meteor that will destroy the Earth in 25,000 years? Minorities, women and the poor will be hardest hit.

Sure. But you forgot the fact that the deadly meteor made it through the hole in the ozone layer brought about by Bush’s refusal to support Kyoto.

That, and because his God has forsaken him for his crimes against humanity.

****
(h/t Jules Crittenden)