DEFUND KENTUCKY
Kentucky is home to Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, who are horrified by federal spending. Yet Kentucky also takes $1.51 from Washington for every $1 it sends in taxes. So Paul Begala proposes that we give them what they want: a sharp cut in federal spending. Specifically, take them off the Federal dole. Cut them back at least to par, where they get no more from Washington than they contribute. It’s time, Paul says, for New York and California to stop subsidizing Kentucky.
ASKING TO SPEAK TO THE WRONG PERSON
Jean MacMillan: “Your story about the call from the funeral home hit a familiar note. A good friend’s father died some years ago—he had run a successful family business. The IRS auditors descended in droves on the business after his death, of course. After going through the records for days, they showed up in my friend’s office to say, ‘Everything seems in order, but we have a few questions for Mr. D—-’ (her father). To which she replied, ‘If you reach him, I have a few questions of my own.’ ”
Actually, Charles is still very much here. Only now I generally get my way. (Though not always.)
CHARLES’S RELATIONSHIP TO MONEY
Charles and I were quite different. I spell reasonably well; he thought there was only one R in SURPRISE and asked how to spell FLORIDA. He could sketch anything; my repertoire begins and ends with a smiley face. I live for punctuation; he had no clue in that regard – and yet read five times as fast as I do, and voraciously (the complete works of Trollope, for example), and with greater insight. (At movies, he’d always figure out what was going to happen, while I would just be surprised along with the rest of the audience.) I’m good with numbers; he was not. When he first mentioned this, 16 years ago – “I’m not good at math,” he said – I said, “Well, I’m not talking about math, I’m talking about arithmetic. What’s six times seven?” To which I assumed he would respond, “forty-two,” making my point. Instead, he hit me. Only in the arm, but hard. I had never previously met a seriously bright, successful person who could not multiply six times seven.
He cooked magnificently; I Cook Like a Guy™. Clothing? I only learned last week, from one of our friends, that it was when Charles noticed my pants were two inches too short – and that he didn’t care –that he knew he loved me. Flowers? . . . Sun glasses? . . . The list goes on.
And then there was our relationship to money.
Come back tomorrow.
