Members of New York's Congressional delegation are not exactly welcome here in the nation's capital these days, routinely written off as too brash, liberal and free-spending for the conservative ethos of this place.
Mr. Coen, senior vice president and forecasting director at Universal McCann in New York, a leading media agency that is part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, increased his forecast for domestic ad-spending growth for next year to $266.4 billion from a projection of $263.8 billion in June.
Mr. Coen, who has been tracking ad-spending trends for more than 50 years, is known for being optimistic.
And student debt is certain to reduce discretionary spending for decades ahead--not good news for a spending-starved economy.
Also, Reid is threatening to "keep the Senate in session until Sunday in order to vote on a $50 billion stopgap-spending bill for the Iraq War that also would call for a significant drawdown of U.S. troops in Iraq by the end of next year".
That's bad news for an economy that is dependent on free-spending shoppers for growth.
Democrats have complained that Mr. Bush and Congressional Republican leaders are trying to use the spending fight to make a political statement because the additional money sought for domestic programs is much less than the deficit-spending sought for the war and tax cuts.
Those that do try to balance the books are hard-pressed to win bidding wars for players against owners who want success at all costs: free-spending Manchester City, for example, is owned by Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, an Emirati sheikh.
Pat Toomey is a conservative Republican of rigorous doctrinal purity: anti-abortion, anti-taxes, anti-spending (except for defense); a fiscal hawk, appalled by big deficits, a crusader for school choice, tort reform, Social Security privatization, and a smaller federal government.
PAGE A17 SPENDING RISES FOR HEALTH CARE A government study found that national health spending grew in 2007 at the lowest rate in nine years, mainly because prescription drug spending increased at the slowest pace since 1963.
