With a name like Robert A. Sunshine, you’re bound to end up working for the Congressional Budget Office, bringing in the good news.

Good news for some, at least. Now that more than ten percent of the country’s expenditures are on the Cheney administration’s misbegotten war in Iraq. The CBO estimates the war may cost American taxpayers a trillion bucks. But they’re being optimistic according to Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, the former a Nobel winner in economics now at Columbia, the latter a budget expert from Harvard, who predict that when all’s said and done, including all the health costs, borrowing to fund the war, and so on, it’ll cost us two trillion.

Which might have funded a hell of a single-payer universal medical care system, a bunch of new bridges, raises for teachers, and had some left over for public transit.

Instead, the wisdom of the marketplace has shown that supplying weapons to all sides in a civil war is good for business, if you’re in the weapons business.

Northrop Grumman’s information and services division showed 15% growth and its electronics division 7% for the second quarter compared with the same fiscal quarter last year.

General Dynamics’ combat-systems unit experienced 19% growth in sales due to continued demand for tanks and armored vehicles, while Lockheed Martin announced a 34% rise in profits to $778 million.

Lockheed’s newest revenue projections are now as high as $41.75 billion.