Although the Fed has just cut the interest rate down to 1%, the lowest level since 1958, Bush Administration officials are considering other ways to stimulate the economy out of fear that the latest rate cut may fail to give the economy the boost it so desperately needs. The Bush team is accordingly considering pushing a bill that would allow the Fed to cut the rate below zero.

"What could stimulate the economy more than actually paying people to borrow money," said Karl Rove, in a candid interview yesterday. "I mean, the tax cuts have done well, but we want the Fed to have every opportunity to assist these mammoth tax cuts for the rich to stimulate the economy -- stimulate it like a 30-volt blast from a cattle prod in the rear."

Other ideas for stimulating the economy include giving the economy a lube job; taking it out for a really fine steak dinner; and giving the economy a three martini-lunch. Some members of the Bush Treasury Department want to take the economy to a Japanese massage parlor. "That's always worked for me, " Dilbert Herrington Pump IV said anonymously.

Some government officials think the key is to align the country more closely with conditions in 1958. Measures might include:

• Republishing Leon Uris's Exodus;
• Relaunching Sputnik;
• Doing a remake of Gigi; and
• Exhuming Eisenhower.