The following image keeps recurring in my dreams:

In a BIG room of a BIG house, there is a BIG chair behind a BIG desk on top of which is a BIG checkbook. On a BIG booster seat in the BIG chair, there is a child with a BIG smile and he is wielding a BIG pen.

The child is writing check after check after check after check with no amount entered on any check just the names of the payees: Health Care; Clean Air; Shovel Ready; Better Education; Katrina Victims; and other names that I do not recognize. As I approach the desk, images appear of adults supervising the check writing; each individual has a name tag that simply reads:

"Hi, I'm with the majority".

The check writing image reminds me of a chapter in Uncle Miltie's Free to Choose on the 4 Ways to Spend Money (the PBS TV series was great) which were:

"1. You spend your own money on yourself. 2. You spend your own money on someone else. 3. You spend someone else's money on yourself. 4. You spend someone else's money on someone else."

The thrust of the segment was that individuals were much more attentive to the costs and benefits of spending under Option 1 and became progressively less careful as they chose each higher numbered option until they reach Option 4 at which point their spending could only be described as profligate.

Seems to me that the child and his "majority" have gotten Options 3 and 4 down pat.

When will this nightmare end!