With one vote, members of Congress could help alleviate extreme poverty in Central America, open up export markets for U.S. companies, and perhaps even reduce illegal immigration to the United States.

That would be the likely outcome of passage of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), a trade deal that the Bush administration negotiated with Costa Rica, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua.

What's hotter than summer in the Southwest, more coveted than Red Sox tickets in Boston, and more popular than Bill Gates in Seattle?

The answer is a typical house in each of those markets. A slew of recent studies show that the U.S. housing market is not just hot but on fire. So much so that some experts are calling it a wildfire and warning that people might get burned.

Graduating college seniors traditionally wear black at commencement events, but nowadays they are also up to their necks in a different color: red. Nellie Mae, the federally backed student loan agency, reports that this spring's graduates will face a staggering and growing level of personal debt after they have walked across the podium to receive their degrees.

Imagine having a president who increases domestic spending faster than Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter combined; a president who pushes through Congress the largest new open-ended entitlement program in decades; a president who refuses to veto a single spending bill, even when Congress spends tens of billions more than he had requested.

No need to imagine: Conservative Republican George W. Bush is that president. Few presidents in history-not even the most liberal of Democrats-have embraced big government as enthusiastically as President Bush has.