It’s not often we agree with New York Times hack and Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman. He has been a harsh critic of Team Obama’s policies. The problem is he argues for doing more, not less. However, in a recent New York Times article “The Krug” actually said something that made sense.

The U.S. Social Security and Medicare programs will run short of adequate funding faster than previously thought, according to a government report released earlier this week.  The Social Security Fund will be exhausted by 2037, four years earlier than previously thought. And the Medicare hospital trust fund will be insolvent by 2017, two years earlier than projected, the report said.

Yes folks, it’s the “fiscal responsibility summit,” not to be confused with the “fiscal wakeup tour” chronicled in I.O.U.S.A.

I was reading Doug Noland’s Credit Bubble Bulletin at PrudentBear.com and I gulped in surprise and fear as he quotes Market News International as reporting that “The Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday that the fiscal year 2009 deficit will be $1.186 trillion” which, as bad as it looks, is actually on the low side of projections! Yikes!

With contests in both Indiana and North Carolina, today (Tuesday) probably marks the last of the crucial Democratic presidential primary election contests between senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.