So why is it still legal for Americans to send financial support to them?
And why do we still send Israel billions of dollars each year while they continue to thumb their noses at the international community and build more settlements?
So, President Obama wants to actually pay for healthcare reform (good idea)
All he has to do is suck it up and tax healthcare benefits:
Economists say taxing employer-sponsored benefits would help trim runaway health costs and force society to broadly share the burdens of reform. The idea also has bipartisan appeal. Former president George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the 2008 GOP presidential candidate, championed a form of the tax; so did Obama advisers Jason Furman and Ezekiel Emanuel before they joined the administration.
Think about it this way. You are comparing the costs and benefits of Health Plan A and Health Plan B to see which is the best option for your family. Health Plan B has trimmed $100 worth of some benefit that you can live without and offers you $100 off your premium. But if you choose Health Plan B you are not going to save $100, you are going to save $100 minus your marginal tax rate, because as soon as that $100 is not part of your health plan it is taxed. So, there is a disincentive to make common sense reductions in your health care spending because of the tax deductability of health benefits. If we decide to tax the money spent on tax benefits, this disincentive goes away.
And, oh by the way, we pay for healthcare reform, as we should.
So why doesn’t the Prez come out in favor of this? Because he made a big point of being against it during the campaign.
So, what will it be Mr. President? Level with the public and admit this is the right thing to do? Or keep spending our grandkids’ money?
E.J. Dionne has clearly lost his last marble:
For all the talk of a media love affair with Obama, there is a deep and largely unconscious conservative bias in the media’s discussion of policy.
Oh, so it’s an unconscious conservative bias.
It must be sooooooo unconscious that only elite moonbat lefties are able to detect it.
Not a lot of liberty at Liberty University these days. Founded by Jerry Falwell (and now run by his son), Liberty U recently decided that they can no longer allow a Democratic club on campus. They say their moral principles conflict with the Democratic party platform. Oh, and their donors were complaining. That too.
Another fine example of conservative Christianity blowing their own foot off with a shotgun.
Unfortunately, all of us non-crazy Christians take a few buckshot pellets in the ass whenever this happens, and that really pisses me off.
I propose we begin referring to these wingnuts as “Neanderthal Christians” in order to distinguish them from normal Christians, who believe that the Kingdom of Heaven is not a single party state.
Congrats to the Nats’ Ryan Zimmerman, who just extended his hitting streak to 30 games. Only 44 others have done this in the history of MLB.
The Criterion Collection is taking a poll on which of 5 movies they should release next on Blu-Ray.
Down By Law, by Jim Jarmusch, is on the list. It is one of my all-time favorite flicks. Hauntingly beautiful shots of New Orleans in Black & White, plus the comic genius of Roberto Benigni played off against hipster Tom Waits.
Go vote for it already.
Speaking of Tom Waits, I once walked by him pushing a babystroller on the campus of UCLA. There was something not quite right about Tom Waits pushing a babystroller. Sort of blew my image of him. I figured he would have been carting around his kid in an old beat up guitar case.
This quote, from a retired Pakistani general, pretty much sums up in one phrase what is so tragically wrong with his country:
Nobody has the guts to say that cutting off people’s heads is un-Islamic
Surprise, surprise. The Taliban has (again) violated their “deal” with Pakistan and has pushed within 60 miles of Islamabad:
“The Pakistani government is fiddling as the Northwest Frontier Province burns,” Pakistani representatives of the human rights group Amnesty International said Thursday in a statement. The organization said that hundreds of thousands of Pakistani civilians are “now at the mercy of abusive and repressive Taliban groups” and that the government has given no indication of how it intends to protect them.
Damn. You know you have serious problems when Amnesty International calls you a pussy.
I agree with Fareed Zakaria:
Much of the Pentagon budget is based on wish lists from the services,
which are often lists that were conceived during the Cold War. The Air
Force developed such a strong attachment to its F-22 fighter-plane program
that it failed to notice that the Soviet Union had collapsed and no
great-power rival was around to get into dogfights with the U.S. military.
We’re fighting two wars now, and not one of the 135 or so F-22s that we
have is being used in either theater. If you’re wondering why the program
is still around, here’s one reason: Its manufacture has been spread across 44 states.
(emphasis mine)
There is an un-named contractor in my little corner of DoD that is setting up an office in a particular un-named state (far from their present location), so that they can continue to get pork money from a particular un-named Congressman for an un-named software product we really don’t need.
This kind of thing happens all the time.
Sad comment on our society that this behavior is not only tolerated … it is considered normal.
