EAU!
Irwin
Gerstein: “You
mentioned tap
water Friday. It isn’t tap water. It’s eau de faucet
(foh-SAY).”
YES!
Bob
Ceremsak:
“Something I just received: Be the kind
of man that when your feet hit the floor each morning the devil says, ‘Oh
Crap, he's up!’ ”
TAX
NOTE
Dan
Stone: “Re
yesterday’s column,
I think the fact that these tax increases are marginal gets lost on much of the
public. I listened to right wing radio host Dennis Prager and his
audience discuss this issue recently. They were commenting that many
people making $250K are not wealthy. No one bothered to mention that as
the tax is marginal, it minimally effects all but the truly wealthy, as
you suggest. I think the more important example is the couple that
makes $260K. They pay an additional $90. [Or $380 if it’s
investment income.] But their fear of being over the $250K limit pushes
them to do the heavy lifting for those making millions. The
Republican party will always defend the very wealthy by misidentifying
their interests with those that are prosperous/upper middle class but
not truly wealthy.”
OBSTRUCTING
TREASURY
This
is truly nuts. We are crippled at Treasury because one Republican Senator
is trying to help tobacco farmers addict more Canadian children? Or
because another Republican Senator wants the federal government to prohibit U.S.
citizens from gambling on-line? (I agree with him that gambling is a bad idea;
but so is adultery. Should the federal government get involved? And even if
it should, is gumming up the works at Treasury the right way to do it?) Read
it at the Washington Post.
HOW
the HEALTH CARE thing PLAYS FOR REPUBICANS
The New
York Times quotes
conservative David Frum: “The political imperative
crowded out the policy imperative, and the Republicans have now lost both. .
. . Politically, I get the ‘let’s trip up the other side,
make them fail’ strategy. But what’s more important, to win extra
seats or to shape the most important piece of social legislation since the
1960s? It was a go-for-all-the-marbles approach. Unless they produced an
absolute failure for Mr. Obama, there wasn’t going to be any political
benefit.”
☞
I’m not looking for a Republican Waterloo. I’m looking for a
Republican return to the party of Eisenhower and (when he was not giving in to
his demons) Nixon and Ford and trust-busting Teddy Roosevelt and
minority-rights-espousing Abe Lincoln . . . moderate Republicans comfortable
separating church and state, uncomfortable with Swiftboating, and
willing to engage in thoughtful dialog on how best to meet our challenges.
I’d still vote Democrat most of the time, but I wouldn’t be nearly
so fearful for our future.
Tomorrow:
Magic Formula Investing