Year: 2008

McCAIN UNSURE HOW MANY HOMES HE OWNS

Really. John Sidney McCain III (who is on a 100% disability pension at taxpayer expense – $58,358 tax-free last year, thank you very much) doesn’t know exactly how many homes he owns. True story.

EISENHOWER FOR OBAMA

I don’t usually read The National Interest, published by The Nixon Center, but this piece by Susan Eisenhower bears note. Ms. Eisenhower – not unlike her grandfather – is a serious person . . . for example, now serving her fourth term on the standing Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academy of Sciences.

And here is her take on current affairs:

Reflections on Leaving the Party
by Susan Eisenhower
08.21.2008

I have decided I can no longer be a registered Republican. For the first time in my life I announced my support for a Democratic candidate for the presidency, in February of this year. This was not an endorsement of the Democratic platform, nor was it a slap in the face to the Republican Party. It was an expression of support specifically for Senator Barack Obama. I had always intended to go back to party ranks after the election and work with my many dedicated friends and colleagues to help reshape the GOP, especially in the foreign-policy arena. But I now know I will be more effective focusing on our national and international problems than I will be in trying to reinvigorate a political organization that has already consumed nearly all of its moderate ‘seed corn.’ And now, as the party threatens to trivialize what promised to be a serious debate on our future direction, it will alienate many young people who might have come into party ranks.

My decision came at the end of last week when it was demonstrated to the nation that McCain and this Bush White House have learned little in the last five years. They mishandled what became a crisis in the Caucusus, and this has undermined U.S. national security. At the same time, the McCain camp appears to be comfortable with running an unworthy Karl Rove-style political campaign. Will the McCain operation, and its sponsors, do anything to win?

This week, I changed my registration from Republican to independent. The two political parties as they exist today, and the partisanship that they foster, reflect the many fights of the cold war, the Vietnam era, the post-cold war and the 9/11 periods. Today we are in a different place altogether, where our security as a nation is challenged not just from abroad but also close to home. The energy, health-care and financial crises threaten our national prosperity and well-being, just as surely as any confrontation overseas or an attack by radical terrorists.

As an independent I want to be free of the constraints and burdens that have come with trying to make my own views explainable in the context of today’s party. Hijacked by a relatively small few, the GOP of today bears no resemblance to Lincoln, Roosevelt or Eisenhower’s party, or many of the other Republican administrations that came after. In my grandparents’ time, the thrust of the party was rooted in: a respect for the constitution; the defense of civil liberties; a commitment to fiscal responsibility; the pursuit and stewardship of America’s interests abroad; the use of multilateral international engagement and ‘soft power’; the advancement of civil rights; investment in infrastructure; environmental stewardship; the promotion of science and its discoveries; and a philosophical approach focused squarely on the future.

As an independent I will now feel comfortable supporting people of any political party who reflect those core values.

It was not easy taking this step, since politics, like religion, is something learned on the knee of one’s parents and grandparents. And like anything else inherited, it is imbedded in one’s own identity. This makes leaving even harder.

But there will be some joy for me in my new status since I will be able to speak for myself, and not as a member of a party that has, sadly, lost its way.

Susan Eisenhower is president of the Eisenhower Group, Inc., and chairman emeritus of the Eisenhower Institute.

☞ Susan is not alone among lifelong Republicans in supporting Obama (beginning with her sister-in-law Julie Nixon Eisenhower). If you’re a moderate Republican, I hope you’ll consider joining her.

But first . . .

ECONOMIC SWIFT-BOATING

Dean Baker, author of The Conservative Nanny State: How The Wealthy Use The Government To Stay Rich And Get Richer, sees it this way:

. . . Tarred with the most dismal record of job creation and income growth of any president since the Great Depression, it would be reasonable to expect that Senator McCain would be defensive on the economy; but not in Swift boat America.

Instead Senator McCain is filling the airwaves with commercials telling the public that Obama’s tax increases will slow growth and cost the economy jobs. It’s pretty scary stuff to anyone who takes it seriously.

Of course, there’s no truth to Senator McCain’s Swift boat economics. During the eight years of the Clinton administration, when rich people paid the same tax rates proposed by Senator Obama, the private sector added 15.8 million jobs. By contrast, in the seven years and six months of the Bush administration, when rich people paid the Bush-McCain tax rates, the private sector has added just 3.5 million jobs. And, it is losing jobs at the rate of almost 100,000 a month as President Bush prepares for retirement. . . .

. . . The typical family’s income rose by 15.3 percent under Clinton, it fell by 1.6 percent under Bush. . . .

In short, it is easy to show McCain’s ad is utter nonsense. The economy had its most prosperous period in 30 years with the tax rates Obama is proposing. President Bush then cut taxes for the rich, and the economy turned in its worst performance since the Great Depression. While the tax rates are hardly the whole story behind the prosperity of the Clinton years or the economic deterioration of the Bush years, the record makes a mockery of the scare story in the McCain ad.

So why would Senator McCain make an ad that is so obviously false? In Swift boat country, there is no place for truth. McCain knows he can say anything he wants, regardless of how untrue it is, and his claim will be treated seriously by the media.

Reporters will now treat it as a debatable point whether the tax rates proposed by Obama will stifle growth and cost jobs. They will act as though Senator McCain has raised a serious point – perhaps Obama’s tax plan really will hurt the economy. Reporters would actually have to know something about the economy, or at least arithmetic, to know that McCain’s claims are utter nonsense.

The public will have to teach the media. This is not a he said, she said. The economy has performed very well taxing rich people at the rates proposed by Senator Obama. Any reporter who suggests it is plausible to claim these tax rates will stifle growth and job creation is simply too ill-informed to be covering economic issues. Reporters should be telling the public Senator McCain’s ads are contradicted by the facts, not pretending that they raise plausible concerns about the economy.

IF ECONOMICS ISN’T YOUR STRONG SUIT . . .

‘It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a ‘dismal science.’ But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.’ – Murray Rothbard

YOU HAVE MY VOTE

So here’s what you do:

1. Copy this into your word processor (or anyplace):

http://www.thelopezfamilyonline.com/play.php?first=FIRSTNAME&last=LASTNAME

2. Replace the red parts with your real first and last names . . . or your kid’s

3. Copy the result into your browser, follow the link, and be amazed.*

*If you are as hopelessly childish as I am, you will not stop there. Astonish your nieces and nephews (or whomever) by sending them an email with the URL you’ve created for THEM and let THEM be amazed. (To keep them from noticing their names in the URL, you might want to use snipurl.com to compress it first.) Is this a great century, or what? (THANK you, Alan!)

But first . . .

SPEAKING OF WARREN BUFFETT

You can watch a movie with him this Thursday night, as described yesterday. (Click here.) But you’ll be in one of 400 movie theaters and he’ll be in a TV studio someplace.

Or you can pay $120,000 to buy a share of his stock and thus be invited to his annual meeting. (Click here.) But you’ll be in a stadium with him and thousands of others.

Or you can contribute a small fraction of that to the Obama Victory Fund and get your photo with him at a business roundtable discussion in Washington in a couple of weeks. Just me-mail me.

What does it say about Obama that the best-respected businessman in the world keeps doing fundraisers on his behalf? Especially when you consider that, up until this cycle, he has steered clear of the political nitty-gritty.

And now . . .

Proud Boyfriend Dept.
LOUIS VUITTON, CHARLES NOLAN, AND CHANEL

All about hoop skirts, from Sunday’s New York Times:

The Belle Curve
BIG HIPS ARE IN – IF YOU’RE A SIZE 2
CAROLINE WEBER ON A NEW FERTILE CRESCENT.

It’s a tricky thing, desire. Why do we want what we want? The 17th-century French philosopher Blaise Pascal, for one, had no idea, concluding simply: ‘The heart has its reasons of which reason can know nothing.’ This principle governs not only love but fashion, which is also best defined as a perverse and willful denial of logic. Elizabethan starched ruffs? Sure! Psychedelic hot pants? Why not? Knee-high gladiator sandals? A bargain at $7,000. Ever since the first gladiators charged into the Coliseum with miniature metal beasties on their helmets, style has partaken more of caprice than of common sense.

But every now and then, a trend comes along whose sheer, unalloyed improbability startles even fashion’s strictest devotees. A case in point: the return this season of the amplified hip. From panniers at Louis Vuitton and Charles Nolan to crinolines at Alexander McQueen to peplums at Chanel, the fall/winter looks encourage women to channel PJ Harvey, who in ‘Sheela-Na-Gig’ sang of her shapely charms: ‘I’ve been trying to show you over and over / Look at these, my child-bearing hips.’ Incongruous as it may seem in an industry better known as an enemy than as a friend of female curves, today’s designers are bringing back the hourglass shape in all its bulging, bottom-heavy splendor.

I should probably confess that by characterizing this vogue as a new high (or low) in the annals of fashion folly, I’m speaking as much from personal bias as from broad observation. When I was a child, a fading Southern belle named Sally conditioned me to decline caloric treats with the mantra ‘a minute on the lips, forever on the hips!’ So effective was Sally’s instruction that to this day I can’t contemplate, say, a large pepperoni pizza without first visualizing thick, cheesy slices affixed to my sacrum. (To me, ‘muffin-top’ likewise carries upsettingly literal associations.) In this light, the return of the hip should come as welcome news – and to look at the current collections, it does: they’re beautiful. Still, Rubens nudes are beautiful, too, and who wants to resemble them?

As the unchecked primacy of the pin-thin model attests, I’m scarcely alone in my fat phobia. Low-carb diets and liposuction are to today’s clotheshorse what bone-crushing corsets were to Scarlett O’Hara. Consequently, the wide-hipped silhouette may strike us as counterintuitive, if not downright undesirable. However, I’ve given this matter a lot of thought, and I can safely say that if you take the plunge, you won’t regret it. The hip, it turns out, has its reasons of which reason knows quite a lot.

Reason No. 1: Stop Traffic. At 18th-century Versailles, the panniered skirts of female court costume reached such vast widths that women had to enter rooms sideways. So great was the fear of getting stuck in doorways that young noblewomen trained for their first day at court with an exacting old gentleman who donned a ‘ridiculous, billowing skirt’ of his own to lead the tutorial, according to the memoirs of the Marquise de la Tour du Pin. But one woman’s challenge is another woman’s opportunity. Just imagine the figure you’ll cut wedging your way onto a crowded N train in your new McQueen tutu. ‘Stand clear of the closing doors, please!’ As the subway doors jam against your layers of stiffened tulle, all eyes will – I guarantee it – be on you. That’s what they call making an entrance.

Reason No. 2: Protect Your Personal Space. Because their skirts were so massive, the female grandees of the ancien régime required extra seats on either side while attending the opera. There is no reason why this shouldn’t work at the movies today: a chic updating of the coat-on-the-seat grab. But expanding your circumference by several meters can protect a girl in other ways, too. Wearers of the pannier and its 19th-century descendant, the crinoline, were often unable to reach the hands of the swains who clamored for their attention. I don’t know about you, but apart from my husband and my acupuncturist, there are very few people whose unsolicited touch I enjoy. Hoop skirt donned? Problem solved!

Reason No. 3: Skip the Gym. Obviously, if you gain weight in your hips (Sally?), then this is the look for you. When Charles Nolan strapped me into a sample pannier recently, I found to my joy that it hid a multitude of sins, including the steak I had just eaten for lunch. Under any other circumstances, hearing a designer tell his assistant, ‘I’ll need a tablecloth to cover all this’ wouldn’t do wonders for my self-esteem. But when he draped said tablecloth over my new, cagelike appendages, a miracle happened. Proportions shifted, my waist shrank, my chest grew… “Hot!” Nolan and I cried in tandem.  Such effortless transformation had me ready to swear off the gym for good — a decision I can further chalk up to the incompatibility of “hip improvers” (as the French aptly called them) and physical exercise.  In the 18th century, they were too cumbersome to wear on boating expeditions; a hundred years later, only women who traded them for bloomers could swim, fence and bicycle with the boys.  Barred from the StairMaster by my new Nolan, I’ll take fashion over fitness any day of the week.

Reason No. 4: Cool Off.  The hoop skirt’s genesis is shrouded in mystery, though historians trace it alternately to the bell-shaped gowns of ancient Crete and to the late-15th-century Spanish verdugado (“virtue guard,” which became the English farthingale).  Whatever its origins, the fashion historian Valerie Steele informs me, “it was not invented to hide a royal pregnancy.”  Between the fact that this claim has been made about both Queen Juana (15th-century Spain) and Empress Eugénie (19th-century France) and the fact that even barrel-size hips can’t fully disguise a baby bump, Steele’s comment rings true.  Just as unprovable, if more intuitively plausible, is the tale of two plump Parisiennes who, one sultry summer day in the 1720s or 1730s, decided to place hoops under their skirts to allow for greater air circulation around their thighs.  Fact or fiction, this is news you can use.  As we struggle with global warming, we all need a little more ventilation in our dress.  Isn’t it nice that we ladies now have such an elegant alternative to shorts?

Reason No. 5: Lie Back and Think of Darwin.  If yours is a straight-up-and-down figure like mine, you may have shared my alarm last year when a new scientific study revealed that women with hourglass figures tend to be more intelligent, bear smarter children and be more attractive to men.  Apparently, the flesh that gathers in the hips and derrière has a higher density of essential, brain-building acids than does fat concentrated elsewhere.  The result is greater brainpower of self and progeny and greater appeal to the opposite sex because, as one of the study’s authors observed, “it’s reproductively important.”  In other words, to modify Sigmund Freud’s famous dictum just a little, the waist-to-hip ratio is destiny.  Or, from a Darwinian perspective, Kate Winslet’s small waist and voluptuous hips trump Kate Moss’s beanpole physique.  But if nature has deprived you of an evolutionarily promising hip-to-waist ratio — research places the ideal somewhere between 0.6 and 0.7 — then this season’s clothes will allow you to fake it.  While the trick may not boost your or your children’s I.Q., it should at least nab you a few more free drinks at the bar.  Here again, the love/fashion analogy applies.  In both domains, a little fantasy — like a little folly — goes a very long way.

BUT LET ME LEAVE YOU WITH THIS . . .

Seriously: What does it say about Barack Obama that the best-respected businessman in the world keeps doing fundraisers on his behalf?

So if you’d like to help, and to hear Warren Buffett – and if you are blessed with the ability to max out to the Obama campaign and the time to get to Washington the second week of September – just me-mail me.

Friday’s column was titled A Video You Must See, but 93% of you were so traumatized by the real estate item that preceded it, you never got that far.

So . . . today, 6 minutes:

• That 4-minute clip showing how Fox misleads its viewers.

• A 2-minute financial trailer for I.O.U.S.A.

If the trailer grabs you, you can watch the movie with Warren Buffett this Thursday night at any one of 400 movie theaters around the country. Click here for details.

Not mentioned in this two-minute trailer is that 85% of America’s National Debt – red ink accumulated since 1776 – was racked up under Republican administrations . . . mainly: Reagan, Bush, and Bush . . . or that John Sidney McCain III offers us more of the same, vowing to make the tax-cuts-for-the-wealthy permanent, at the expense of our children.

Tomorrow: Louis Vuitton, Charles Nolan, and Chanel

But first . . .

ARE WE NEAR A BOTTOM? LEFRAK ON REAL ESTATE

A friend listened to one of New York’s top real estate moguls, Richard Lefrak, a couple of months ago, and took notes:

Lefrak said that the current crisis is likely to take about another THREE years (give or take one or two) for a few very simple reasons:

First – We have the highest inventory of unsold homes/condos/apartments nationwide in 20 years.

Second – We know that home inventories will RISE for at least another year, due to a huge coming wave of foreclosures.

Third – Banks and mortgage companies do not have cash or credit available to lend to potential buyers. This won’t turn around until the real estate market itself turns around – so we have a catch-22.

Fourth – The high price of oil and food (which is largely being caused by growth in emerging markets: China, Russia, India, Middle East, South America) is putting even more pressure on over-indebted consumers in the US. Even if oil demand falls in the US, demand from overseas will suck it up. A 30% decline in oil (to $100 a barrel) will not solve the problem. It will still be too high to offer any significant help to the consumer.

Fifth – The US government will need to keep US interest rates low to try to help the consumer and real estate markets. Low interest rates will keep the US Dollar under pressure. Even if the dollar doesn’t fall much further, it certainly won’t be rising much anytime soon – and this will cause even higher consumer prices since we import almost all our consumer goods.

As for why NYC hasn’t yet been affected, but eventually will be (in a very big way):

For 30 years, the NYC real estate market has been largely driven by Wall Street profits. Until the beginning of this year, most Wall Street firms were actually MAKING money on the real estate and credit crisis, but that ended early this year. Mortgage and credit trading was the major source of income for Wall Street for the last 10 years – and that has now dried up. This doesn’t spell the end of Wall Street. Eventually, something will come along to replace real estate – but that won’t happen overnight. Nobody knows how low prices will fall in any given market, but the crisis on Wall Street is the worst in 20 years – so it’s hard to imagine that this will only have a minor or temporary impact on NY real estate. NY metro saw the biggest price rise in a generation over the past 5 years. A 10-15% decline does not correct a 300% price rise. Never has, never will.

The US real estate bubble took 10 years to build. Something that takes 10 years to build cannot be wiped clean in 6 months or a year. After the Gold bubble burst in 1980, it took 4 years for gold to hit bottom. After the S&L crisis of 1988, it took 5 years for banking to hit bottom. After the NASDAQ bubble burst in 2000, it took 3 years for the NASDAQ to hit bottom.

People are generally optimistic when it comes to economic issues because MOST of the time the economy is growing. But when a crisis does occur, it lasts a lot longer and goes a lot deeper than most people expect. During the good times, we tend to forget how bad things occasionally get. And financial advisors (and real estate brokers) are paid to give people good news, not bad news. Eventually, everything will work out fine. Real estate prices will rise again and Wall Street and the stock market will boom, but that’s years away.

☞ It should be noted that Congress in 1994 gave the Fed the authority to regulate the ‘non-bank’ mortgage originators, but – in classic no-regulation-is-ever-good Republican fashion – Chairman Greenspan chose not to use it. What possible harm could come from a real estate bubble fueled by the granting of massive credit to unqualified borrowers? (Greenspan is the author of the book that Senator McCain has promised to read to bone up on economics.)

Using the Fed’s regulatory authority would have required cracking down on, among other things, ‘liars’ loans‘ – where borrowers were not required to document their creditworthiness – and this would have significantly moderated the real estate bubble.

While it may be several years too late (horses, barn doors), Chairman Bernanke is planning to use this authority.

It should also be noted that, within the bounds of what’s possible, Congress and Treasury Secretary Paulson did a good job with the recently enacted housing bill. The overarching idea was to make it harder for people to get mortgages who can’t afford to pay them back – but easier for people to get them who can. One especially noteworthy provision: a $7,500 no-interest 15-year loan (in the form of a refundable tax credit) that Congressman Barney Frank insisted be included to help first-time home buyers get a foothold on homeownership. Another: a substantial increase in the ceiling on mortgages the FHA will insure, to over $600,000. For more about these and other homeowner benefits of the bill, click here. For the macro view, here.

(And what of the charge it’s all a bail out for the shareholders of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? When a former Treasury Secretary ribbed one of the principle authors of the bill with that charge, the author shot back: ‘Are you buying shares?’ To which the answer, perhaps instructive to us peons as well, was, ‘Umm, well, no.’)

MARY MATALIN PUBLISHES GARBAGE

I was on her radio show for an hour once and enjoyed it. But she long since began to grate – and now her imprint at Simon & Schuster has published this. It debuts the day after tomorrow at the top of the New York Times best-seller list:

. . . In its timing, authorship and style of reporting, the book is strikingly reminiscent of the one [the same author] wrote with John O’Neill about Mr. Kerry, ‘Unfit for Command,’ which included various accusations that were ultimately undermined by news reports pointing out the contradictions. (Some critics of Mr. Kerry quoted in the book had earlier praised his bravery in incidents they were now asserting he had fabricated; one had earned a medal for bravery in a gun battle he accused Mr. Kerry of concocting.) . . .

☞ So having done it to Vice President Gore and Senator Kerry, they now rev up the character assassination of Barack Obama. (Two websites to bookmark: fightthesmears.com and lowroadexpress.com.)

Speaking of which . . .

A VIDEO YOU MUST SEE

How Fox misleads its viewers about Obama – take 4 minutes to watch.

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COSTA RICA

So we have this little guest book, and here‘s Tuesday’s entry:

Hands-down this is our best vacation ever!

We had ten incredible days at Villa Exotica. We got to snorkel, zip line, horseback ride and go white water rafting. The best part of it was that every night we could relax in 5-star luxury in this beautiful villa. We have traveled all over the world as a family and hands-down this is our best vacation ever! The website made the place look nice but the reality is even better. It is like staying in the Four Seasons or the Ritz. I’ll miss waking up and drinking my coffee and seeing the beautiful landscape, watching the sunset over the ocean or relaxing in the hot tub. We’ll be back! / Finkel and Crew (Bethesda, MD USA)

OVOID MONOLITHICITY

Ken Doran: ‘That’s it! The name for my new punk-techno-rock band that I have been searching for. We will thank you at the Grammies. But I have already trademarked it, so don’t use it again.’

☞ The album cover.

McCAIN DISAPPOINTS

At least if the talk were really straight, the action really brave, I could admire the man while disagreeing with him and voting the other way. But give me a break. The Paris Hilton stuff is beneath him; the energy hypocrisy is far worse, as explained by Tom Friedman, here:

. . . Both the wind and solar industries depend on [tax] credits – which expire in December – to scale their businesses and become competitive with coal, oil and natural gas. Unlike offshore drilling, these credits could have an immediate impact on America’s energy profile.

Senator McCain did not show up for the crucial vote on July 30, and the renewable energy bill was defeated for the eighth time. In fact, John McCain has a perfect record on this renewable energy legislation. He has missed all eight votes over the last year – which effectively counts as a no vote each time. Once, he was even in the Senate and wouldn’t leave his office to vote.

‘McCain did not show up on any votes,’ said Scott Sklar, president of The Stella Group, which tracks clean-technology legislation. Despite that, McCain’s campaign commercial running during the Olympics shows a bunch of spinning wind turbines – the very wind turbines that he would not cast a vote to subsidize, even though he supports big subsidies for nuclear power. . . .

DO OUR KIDS HAVE IT AS GOOD AS WE DID?

Stephen Tumbas: ‘How does our daughter’s job offer of $33K per year compare to our first salary in 1972 of $10K?’

☞ Poor kid. To match your 1972 $10,000, adjusted for inflation, she needs to be getting $52K. Use this handy tool to see for yourself.

Then again, she gets 152 cable channels and has GPS and a camera built into her iPhone. It’s hard to measure true equivalence.

AN INCOME STOCK

I bought some CPNO at $30.45 yesterday. I like the 7.5% yield.

WHY LIBERALS LOSE

Here’s a theory for why Southern Democrats do better winning the presidency than the Stevensons, Mondales, and Dukakises (Dukaki?), Gores and Kerrys. (Hint: they fight back.) (Note: the writer has Vice President Gore having gone to Yale. Actually, it was Harvard.)

WHY THIS REPORTER WAS EJECTED

Tallahassee Democrat senior writer Stephen Price on Friday was singled out and asked to leave a media area at the Panama City rally of presidential candidate Sen. John McCain.

Price was among at least three other reporters, and the only black reporter, surrounding McCain’s campaign bus – Gov. Charlie Crist and his fiancee, Carole Rome, were already aboard – when a member of the Arizona senator’s security detail asked the reporter to identify himself. Price had shown his media credentials to enter the area.

Price showed his employee identification as well as his credentials for the Friday event.

“I explained I was with the state press, but the Secret Service man said that didn’t matter and that I would have to go,” Price said.

When another reporter asked why Price was being removed, she too was led out of the area. Other state reporters remained. . . .

☞ The McCain campaign explained it was just a coincidence that the one reporter targeted for ejection was also the one reporter who was black.

As it happens, this incident took place just hours after McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said on the Today Show, ‘John McCain has fought his entire life for equal rights for everyone’ (not including people like me and Charles, whose equal rights, as noted Friday, he fights to suppress).

WHY EVEN A McCAIN BACKER THINKS McCAIN’S ALL WET ON TAXES

Because – advocating a third term for Bush’s tax policy – he is all wet on taxes (wetter still in proposing to cut the gasoline tax); but it’s rare to find a McCain backer who will make the case publicly, as Ben Stein does for the New York Times here:

. . . Mr. McCain wants to extend many of President Bush’s income tax cuts and to reduce taxes on corporations. But the facts of life are that we have a large budget deficit . . . [and] every category of federal spending is likely to grow. . . .

The question is simply this: Do we want to step up to the plate like responsible people – I hate to say this, but the last responsible people who actually did this were named Bill and Bob (Clinton and Rubin) – and shoulder our responsibilities? Or do we just kick the can down the road a bit and leave the mess for our children and their children?

And if we do raise taxes, should people who are barely getting by pay them or should people who are getting by very nicely pay them?

I don’t like taxing rich people or anyone I like. But our government – run by the people we elected – needs the revenue. Do we pay it or do we make our children pay it? Dwight D. Eisenhower – and Bill Clinton – knew the answer: You behave responsibly and balance the budget except in rare circumstances.

Somehow, Republicans (and I am a Republican) have forgotten this basic lesson of adulthood. . . .

SO TELL ME AGAIN WHY YOU’RE A REPUBLICAN?

I agree with a lot of what Ben Stein writes and admire the way he writes it. (And who didn’t love Ferris Bueller? Anyone? Anyone?) So, as I argue in the Harvard Business School Alumni Bulletin, people like Ben Stein may only think they’re Republicans. They are welcome on our side any time.

(One place I disagree with Stein: you don’t need to balance the budget, you just need to have our National Debt grow slower, in most years, than the economy as a whole. The borrow-and-spend Republicans seem not to get this. When Reagan/Bush took over, the Debt was a manageable 30% of our GDP. When this Bush leaves office, it will be a scary 75% – and headed higher. They have taken us trillions into hock . . . not to make investments that cry out to be made (like repairing our bridges or encouraging alternative energy research) but, rather, to give the rich a massive tax cut and to invade Iraq. There was no crying need to give the rich a tax cut. There was no crying need to invade Iraq. But we borrowed trillions to do both anyway.)

WHY ALL THE McCAIN BASHING?

Jason T.: ‘Please stop the political onslaught. I’m losing enthusiasm for someone who beats me over the head constantly with their politics.’

☞ I’m sick of it, too. But with only 13% of the country thinking we’re on the right track, it seems to me it’s worth our doing all we can to get back on the RIGHT track.

After 5 billion years of evolution, this miracle we call humankind faces its make-or-break century. I think we owe it to the thousands of generations preceding us, who had it far less easy . . . and to the generations we hope will follow and thrive . . . to be informed and make good choices.

Citizenship is hard work.

I know this sounds corny or sanctimonious or melodramatic or preachy or just way too serious. But too much is at stake not to participate.

Tomorrow: Why We Might Lose Anyway