Glenn Beck’s people have it totally wrong
More than a century ago, William Jennings Bryan’s populists saw government as the protector of the little guy. Today, Glenn Beck and his followers see government as the peoples’ oppressor.
Bryan’s people got it right. Becks’ don’t.
GOVERNMENT PROTECTS THE LITTLE GUY
Tags: conservatives, Democrats, Glenn Beck, politics, populists, Republicans, Wall Street, Washington
John Kerry, his yacht, and his taxes
John Kerry’s example offers several lessons for makers of tax policy — though not the ones Republicans intended.
REPUBLICANS OVERBOARD ON YACHTSMAN KERRY
Tags: Democrats, Massachusetts, Republicans, Rhode Island
Raise taxes to cut government?
So much for the starve-the-beast theory whereby cutting taxes leads to smaller government. Our two leading tax-cutting presidents, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, advocated that theory, then expanded government with borrowed money. Clever fellows.
Another theory based on the “fiscal illusion” effect holds that raising taxes is a more effective way to contain government than cutting them.
I discuss that thinking in my new column:
RAISE TAXES TO CUT GOVERNMENT?
Tags: Democrats, economics, Republicans, taxes
I get it, Rush Limbaugh doesn’t like me
There are too many things to do on this glorious Sunday for me to linger on a response to an exchange on Friday’s Rush Limbaugh Show that questioned my honesty and work ethic, not to mention my intelligence.
To country boy, all I can say is, “Aw shucks.”
Anyone wanting to know what I wrote can read it here.
BTW, 2000 is not a great year to assess the revenues raised off the dot-com bubble. The dot-com market crashed that March.
Tags: media, Rush Limbaugh, taxes
Government pensions to face the music
When it comes to pensions in the United States, private-sector workers live in America. Government workers live in Europe. One can be pro-union and pro-labor and still resent lavish public-employee retirement deals, as I write in my latest column:
GOVERNMENT PENSIONS FACE THE MUSIC
Tags: France, labor, politics, retirement, states
The phoniness of the Tea Party
After spending months trying to engage the Tea Party people on the policy level, I’ve plum given up. The movement hides its self-serving positions in a haze of self-contradiction. My new column:
TIME TO CALL TEA PARTY’S BLUFF
Tags: Medicare, politics, right wing, taxpayers, Tea Party
