Random, occasionally rambling thoughts with links to interesting, scandalous, or partisan news of the day.

Fair and Balanced

Dead Heroes
• Thomas Paine
• Thomas Jefferson
• Benjamin Franklin
  

Living Heroes
We owe the liberty and freedom we take for granted to the enlisted men and women in the armed forces. They sacrifice family, ease, and even life laboring in service to all of us. The least we can do for them is honor their devotion with dignified pay scales, decent education for themselves and their children, and reasonable compensation for service away from their families and death on the battlefield. Flag waving politicians who praise the troops on one hand and cut their pay and benefits with the other should be deeply ashamed of themselves.

Blogs I Read Often
• Talking Points Memo
• Atrios
• FireDogLake
• Brad DeLong
• The Daily Howler
• Daily Kos
• Glenn Greenwald
• MyDD
• The News Blog
• Oliver Willis
• Political Wire
• The Volokh Conspiracy
  

Administration’s Use Of “Average” Tax Cut Figures Creates Misleading Impression About The Tax Cuts Most Households Would Receive, 1/9/03 The truth about tax cuts is always elusive, but this paper does a great job dispelling the fallacies that abound when the administration plays with terms like "average". My favorite quote from the article:
"Almost half of all tax filers — 49 percent — would receive tax cuts of less than $100."
There's no reason not to nickname this cut the Starbucks Weekly. The Bush plan for half of tax payers would buy them precisely one cup of coffee per week. A grande, to be sure, but still just a cuppa java. If you want a latte or a frappacino, you better be in that lucky middle one fifth of the population that gets a whopping $265 per year. With that you can get two cups of java or week or spring for one fancy Frap job a week. Enjoy it. In fact, according to Bush advisors, now that you have advance notice you should start planning how to invest your tax windfall. Here's my plan:

Monday, January 13. Starbucks
Monday, January 20 Starbucks
Monday, January 27 Starbucks...

Good luck with your personal tax planning. Feel free to copy mine if you run out of ideas, but just remember that Crispe Creme, McDonalds, and Burger King are scattered across the land. Nobody should let their tax savings languish unspent with so many healthy dietary choices.
Here's a final feel good passage from the same article: "Those with incomes of more than $1 million would get tax cuts averaging a whopping $88,900." Dudes and damsels, that's a serious cut. We're talking two new Z cars or a nice Mercedes or Jaguar. That's the cut I want.

posted by Dave on 9:26 PM | 0 comments link

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