Crippled At Treasury

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 REPUBLICANS

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