Of all the things you know you shouldn't say in this world, is there any sweeter satisfaction than, "Told you so"? I'm also telling you this deficit is going to get a lot bigger.

As a Republican legislator remarked sourly several months ago, "I actually hope Bush loses just so he'll he have to be here to face the mess he's made."

Many and complicated are the ways of the Texas budget, and according to the state comptroller, we should get a $1 billion surplus out of state taxes, so the shortfall is covered for now. If the economy remains strong. If the desperately poor in our "soft-landing, slowing economy" so shrewdly planned by Fed chief Alan Greenspan don't decide to apply for the social services that they are entitled to.

The dirty little secret of Texas government is that the way we keep it solvent is by shorting the poor. We go to great pains NOT to let people who are qualified for Medicaid know they are qualified, and then we make it incredibly difficult for them to apply.

"Nader, Nader, what do we do about Nader? Of course, I agree with him; of course, he's right. But what about the court, what about Roe, what about the environment if Bush wins?"

I have a few modest suggestions that I think may help.

In the short term, support the heck out of Nader -- and I don't just mean progressives, either. Frankly, the Reform Party should nominate him instead of Pat Buchanan. Nader's an economic populist who doesn't much emphasize social issues, which I always thought was the original intent of Ross Perot and that party. Unlike most "liberals," Nader has lunch-bucket appeal. I know for a fact that at least one major union, in addition to the ones that have already endorsed him, is seriously thinking about endorsing Nader.

Here we sit, complacently listening to the finest minds of our generation (?) tell us that all we have to worry about is whether to include drugs in Medicare and how to fix Social Security, and that building this bonkers missile defense system is a dandy idea.

When the lights go out this summer -- now there's a dog barking in the night -- I suggest that you light a few candles and curl up with Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth Century World by J.R. McNeill (and you can skip the charts and graphs).

From coast to coast, some big newspapers have been scolding Ralph Nader lately. Why? Because he's running for president, and a lot of people -- according to a recent national poll, 7 percent of the electorate -- intend to vote for him.

Yikes! The outspoken foe of corporate power is really making a nuisance of himself. So, certain media heavyweights are now flailing at him with tons of rolled-up newspapers.

"Ralph Nader's long history of public service championing the causes of consumers, the environment and economic justice automatically commands respect," the New York Times declared in its lead editorial on the last day of June. "But in running for president as the nominee of the Green Party, he is engaging in a self-indulgent exercise that will distract voters from the clear-cut choice represented by the major party candidates."

Many millions of Americans are repelled by this "clear-cut choice" between Al Gore and George W. Bush. But the Times proclaimed that "the public deserves to see the major party candidates compete on an uncluttered playing field." (What did we do to deserve this?)

In his acceptance speech at the Republican Party’s presidential nominating convention, Bush delivered a message, which sounded at times more like Robert F. Kennedy than Ronald Reagan. Greatness is not defined by “wealth,” but “is found when American character and American courage overcome American challenges,” Bush declared. “We heard it in the civil rights movement, when brave men and women did not say, ‘We shall cope,’ or ‘We shall see.’ They said, ‘We shall overcome’.”

Bush recognized that contemporary America was challenged with fundamental social problems. “When these problems aren’t confronted, it builds a wall within our nation. On one side are wealth and technology, education and ambition. On the other side of the wall are poverty and prison, addiction and despair. And, my fellow Americans,” Bush concluded, “We must tear down that wall.”

Bush noted that “racial progress has been steady, if still too slow… We will continue this progress, and we will not turn back.”