GUSTO: Rogue Reporter: Carla Costa's look at the week in politics.

Tuesday afternoon as I punched my way through a tedious spreadsheet I began rolling through the stream of numbers I encounter everyday. In a maniacal attempt to create logic out of my daily chaos, this is the bizarre tally I've calculated.

Tuesday night Mars was the closest it's been to Earth in 59,619 years, separated from the Earth by a mere 34,646,418 million miles, a distance that I can't even fathom. That same day, it was announced that more U.S. troops, 140 to be exact, have been killed since Bush declared an end to "major combat" than were killed while the war was still officially on. Since the war began 159 days ago, 278 U.S. troops have been killed. Of those still alive, how many will be looking at Mars at the same moment I am?

Right now there are 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, a number equal to the total population of Kansas' capital city, Topeka. Iraq's capital city, Baghdad, is 6,841 miles from Topeka, where the going price for a gallon of gas is about $2.09. An hour's earnings at the U.S. minimum wage would buy you about 3 gallons. The average car or truck gets about 27 miles per gallon, and if you could drive straight over land and sea to Baghdad you would need 273.64 gallons of gas -- not too far from the number of candidates entered in the recall-based California gubernatorial race, over 240.

Both numbers are sort of in the ballpark (if you add about nine zeroes) of the previous U.S. deficit record of $290.4 billion, set in 1992 by Bush Sr. However, George Jr. is about to break that record with a $480 billion deficit in 2004. That total does not include the cost of war in Iraq, which is currently at about $71 billion and growing. Also growing are the 22 million children who could have a year's worth of health care with those funds. That same money could also be used to build about 723,000 affordable housing units which, considering that the average rental is around $900, would undoubtedly be in high demand, especially with the current 6.2 percent unemployment rate.

But all those numbers pale in comparison to the most dangerous $170 million dollars in America right now -- the total funds Bush aims to raise in the primary campaign for re-election. That's more than double the $52.1 million that the 228 incumbent House Republicans have raised together between January and June. Speaking of double, those figures may have something to do with the new campaign finance law that upped individual contribution limits from $1,000 to $2,000 per candidate per election. The same law puts a $45 million dollar cap on primary campaign spending for candidates who apply for public matching funds. Those who don't apply for public funds are not subject to the rules. They can continue to be bought out by corporate interests composed largely of the 10 percent of Americans who possess the majority of our nation's wealth -- a bracket that my family, friends and I are unlikely ever to come close to inhabiting. Instead, we go to work everyday and punch numbers into a computer to create one of the few products in this world that we truly can control.

Carla Costa lives in Providence, Rhode Island, a city where mayors are indicted and incarcerated. More of her ranting nonsense can be found in Punk Planet, Women Who Rock and at The Rogue Reporter. Her Gusto politics column appears every Thursday.