Comments on: Here’s Hoping He Means It

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 03:09:15 +0000

I don’t know, Steve, any tax hike at all is going to be hard to justify while this recession is raging…

By: Ryan

Ryan — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:15:55 +0000

Partially the was just tongue-in-cheek, but yes, I do believe we have no need for an independent Air Force, especially given that the Army and Navy still maintain their own air power. I guess it’s efficiency through redundancy… or just inefficient.

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:12:11 +0000

Entitlements – Medicare, Medcaid, and Social Securtiy – are going nowhere, they are, if we are talking about reducing them, politically untouchable. If we are talking about raising taxes to pay for the expected growth in these programs, well, that is doable.

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:08:15 +0000

Obviously, you’re not saying we don’t need air power – I assume you mean rolling the Air Force into the other three services.

Well, I’m with you there – that’s NOT going to happen…

By: Ryan

Ryan — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:08:51 +0000

No, but there’s also no place for an Air Force at a time like this. We’ll see how fast he gets on that particular piece of wasteful spending.

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 23:44:26 +0000

But earmarks are symbolic, nonetheless – Obama also said he intended to tackle entitlements. Again, good luck on that – but he’s not dumb enough to think earmarks will end the budget crisis…but absolutely, there’s no place for pork barrel provisions at a time like this…

By: Ryan

Ryan — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 15:49:02 +0000

More importantly, is he ready to wield the veto pen to prevent spend on all of the programs he wants in the name of a bunch of spending that contributes a virtual drop in the bucket?

The real problem with the anti-earmark crusade is how utterly pointless it is. The DoD essentially spends the entire cost of earmarks every time it builds a boat. Ending earmarks is a monumentally silly way to cut spending.

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 15:34:25 +0000

Good luck to him on ending earmarks. Is he ready to wield the veto pen?

By: Jacques Distler

Jacques Distler — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 07:05:05 +0000

I thought I was writing a period piece about the 1980s in America. Not for a moment did I suspect that the financial 1980s would last two full decades longer or that the difference in degree between Wall Street and ordinary life would swell into a difference in kind. I expected readers of the future to be outraged that back in 1986, the C.E.O. of Salomon Brothers, John Gutfreund, was paid $3.1 million; I expected them to gape in horror when I reported that one of our traders, Howie Rubin, had moved to Merrill Lynch, where he lost $250 million; I assumed they’d be shocked to learn that a Wall Street C.E.O. had only the vaguest idea of the risks his traders were running. What I didn’t expect was that any future reader would look on my experience and say, “How quaint.”

Add two zeros to every dollar figure in “Liars Poker” and it seems as fresh and timely as if it had been written yesterday.