For anyone who thought the term “budget surplus” had been exorcised from the U.S. government’s lexicon, the Treasury Department offered up some interesting news today. 

For the first time since September, 2008, the government’s monthly receipts outpaced its expenditures, resulting in a $59 billion budget surplus in April. The end of the 42-month drought does not mean Washington has solved its budget problems. Indeed, for the first seven months of this fiscal year, $720 billion in cumulative deficits have been racked up.

But you’ve got to start somewhere and April’s result hinted at a slowly improving economy. Other such bits of evidence surfaced in government data released on Thursday: New applications for jobless benefits fell last week and March trade figures showed consumers gobbled up foreign goods at a fast clip while U.S. exports surged to a record high.

House Speaker John Boehner, the highest ranking elected Republican, wasn’t convinced that it was “Morning in America” for the U.S. economy (to steal a phrase from the ever-optimistic Ronald Reagan). “The American people are focused on the economy and they are asking the question, ‘where are the jobs,’” Boehner said at a press conference.

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Never ones to shy away from a budget fight, the current crop of House Republicans pushed ahead with their latest deficit-reduction ideas – ones that weren’t exactly designed to win bipartisan support. 

By throwing last summer’s delicately-crafted budget deal overboard, this updated plan mandates deeper cuts to social programs for the poor while adding money to military accounts. Food stamps, child tax credits and Medicaid healthcare would all feel the knife, while the Pentagon would escape all of the cuts that otherwise would begin triggering in January.

Nobody is under the illusion that Democrats will let this fly in the Senate. But the House Budget Committee maneuvering is an important exercise anyway as it gives an early glimpse at how a spending-cut debate could be waged at the end of this year – after the Nov. 6 presidential and congressional elections.

That debate will be shaped by the outcome of the vote. In the meantime, get ready for a lively conversation throughout the U.S. over how best to shrink the government’s economic footprint and tame huge budget deficits.

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A bright spot of Barack Obama’s presidency – foreign policy – all of a sudden was taking some hits as the White House struggled to deal with a crisis involving a Chinese dissident. 

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney blasted away at Obama, talking of a “day of shame for the Obama administration.” Charges – vigorously denied by the White House – swirled that Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng may have been persuaded to leave his protective shelter at the U.S. embassy in Beijing so that high-level U.S.-China talks could go more smoothly. Another scenario being floated was that Obama’s team naively accepted Chinese assurances that Chen would not face government harassment if he rejoined his family at home.

The drama only escalated when Chen himself made an appeal, by telephone to a congressional panel, to come to the U.S.

Obama’s bid for re-election on Nov. 6 is thought to hinge on matters far from China: mainly whether he can convince voters that he is best suited to improve a U.S. economy that has been slow to add jobs in the aftermath of a deep recession. And that’s where Romney and his fellow Republicans are sure to keep most of their focus between now and November.

But today, Obama might have seen Romney’s attacks coming, as well as Chinese officials’ complaints of meddling in the Chen affair. He just may not have expected the stinging criticisms that emerged from some human rights groups.

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The sharpest debater in the 2012 field of Republican presidential candidates exited the race touting a hodgepodge of initiatives that made his failed race so colorful. 

“Suspending the campaign does not mean suspending citizenship,” Newt Gingrich warned in his long-awaited announcement that he was quitting. He then ticked off the vision of America he will continue to pursue as a private citizen:

His fabled U.S. colony on the Moon, holograms in houses, cures for diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, not to mention a national energy policy/balanced budget that would free the United States from “radical Islam, Saudi kings and Chinese bondholders.”

The bombastic former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives brought an element of unpredictability to the Republican presidential nominating contest. His come-from-behind victory in South Carolina in January briefly led some to wonder whether Mitt Romney really could be knocked off.

Not so. As primary defeats began to pile up, Gingrich’s  campaign became less about his big ideas and more about the St. Louis zoo penguin who had the nerve to peck at the hand of this notorious animal lover.

“It was a truly wild ride,” a tired-looking Gingrich said as he bowed out, refusing to answer reporters’ questions.

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One year ago, President Barack Obama was secretly holed up in the White House Situation Room monitoring what turned out to be the successful U.S. military operation to kill Osama bin Laden.

A year later, he spent the day on another secret mission: flying aboard Air Force One to Afghanistan, the country from which bin Laden hatched his Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

With journalists in tow (they had agreed not to report anything about the trip until after Air Force One landed and Obama was safely in Kabul), Obama signed a “U.S.-Afghan Strategic Partnership Agreement” and was set to deliver an address to Americans about the U.S. role after most NATO combat forces withdraw from the war-torn country by 2014.

The drama of the president of the United States arriving in the dead of night on an unannounced mission offered an early taste of what Mitt Romney is up against in his quest to unseat Obama on Nov. 6.

The Republican presidential candidate visited a New York fire station to mark the anniversary of bin Laden’s death. But the message of the campaign event, including Romney’s contention that the White House had politicized bin Laden’s capture, quickly was overshadowed by news flashes and video of Obama’s surprise trip.

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Today it was rising gasoline prices that have Republicans and Democrats at each other’s throats. Both parties realize they really cannot do very much about retail prices, but they’re scrambling in hopes that voters don’t blame them for a pocketbook issue in an election year.

“Every time prices go up, there’s some sort of ruckus,”  Marc Spitzer, an-ex energy regulator appointed by former President George W. Bush, told Reuters.

The current White House occupant seized on gasoline prices today, targeting potential oil market manipulators and calling on Congress to jack up civil and criminal penalties on those found to be messing with prices for their own financial gain.

“We can’t afford a situation where speculators artificially manipulate markets by buying up oil, creating the perception of a shortage and driving prices higher, only to flip the oil for a quick profit,” President Barack Obama said in the White House Rose Garden.

Republicans quickly dismissed Obama’s initiative. “It probably polls pretty well, but I guarantee it won’t do a thing to lower prices at the pump,” said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. While the Republican answer is more domestic oil production, Democrats argue that’s already happening and prices nonetheless have risen.

Look for this ruckus to only get louder if the average gasoline price breaches the $4-a-gallon mark this summer.