Q Dana, there's lots of talk on the Hill about a second stimulus package, some conversations up there, we're hearing more news from the Hill about a desire for that. There's also been over the past few months periodically talk from here about considering the possibility of doing something else on the economy. Can you give us the state of play?
MS. PERINO: I think first where we should start is that the GDP numbers that we just saw have -- saw reported in the last week and the month before show that the economic stimulus package that we worked through in February is having its impact. And we're always willing to listen to new ideas. Growth is the goal, but growth with more expense that isn't stimulative to the economy would not be welcome -- I'm sorry, growth to the deficit.
One of the things that CBO just came out with today is their deficit projections, where the overall number is pretty much in line with the one that OMB put out before. And I'm sure there will be criticism of that number coming from Democrats. So I think that we have to be measured in what we consider for the economy because, on the one hand, you might want a second stimulus proposal, but on the other hand, you don't want to increase the deficit. One of the reasons that the deficit number did go up is because of the economic stimulus package from January. So we would walk into this in a very careful way, looking at the -- looking at what is actually truly stimulative. What we do think Congress could do in the next three weeks that would really help the economy is in regards to energy and trade; those are the two main issues. And then, of course, there's the housing downturn that we're dealing with. So if we can move forward on trade that would increase jobs, and especially because if you look at the numbers on exports, that's where we're seeing most of the growth in our economy. So we have free trade agreements that are there for Congress to work on: the Colombia free trade agreement, South Korea and Panama -- those are three things they could do right away. And then moving forward on energy legislation could help us with the economy overall in the long run.
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