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Thursday, May 29, 2003

Some Bad News and Some Good News   The bad news is about Social Security. Jagadeesh Gokhale, an economist with the Cleveland Federal Reserve and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and Kent Smetters, an economist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, in a report commissioned by former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, have calculated a $44.2 trillion long term deficit in future government obligations and revenues. This study was completed in time to be considered by Senators and Congressmen before the tax cut was passed. However, it was not made public until today, one day after President Bush signed the tax cut bill. Gokhale and Smetters suggest any of the following remedies to overcome the shortfall:   (1) boosting individual and corporate taxes 69 percent (2) raising payroll taxes 95 percent (3) cutting non-Social Security and non-Medicare spending 56 percent (4) eliminating all other federal government spending (5) or some combination of each of these four measures   The good news is that, even if you're a low-income family who will struggle after losing your child care tax credit under the new plan, the taxable rate on your stock dividends will be reduced from 20% to 15%! But that’s not the only good news! To celebrate his 100th birthday, Bob Hope will spend “a quiet day at home” and feast tonight on his favorite meal: lamb, roasted potatoes, and lemon meringue pie! 4:55:47 PM    comment []

Hope Is Not A Plan   Bob Hope turns 100 today. Appropriately, many old warhorse phrases will be trotted out. “Springs eternal” springs immediately to mind and “where there’s life” soon follows. It’s a cheap trick, a hack’s inspiration, the watermark of a fool, so I Googled through Bartlett’s in hope of finding some obscure gems about hope. There are 142 “relevant results. I like Bob Hope, always have, always will. He made me laugh. Here are a few selected quotes about hope that you might not see in the mainstream:   NUMBER:                        6107 AUTHOR:                        Robert Gilfillan (1798–1850) QUOTATION:            There ’s a hope for every woe,   And a balm for every pain, But the first joys of our heart   Come never back again! ATTRIBUTION:                        The Exile’s Song.   NUMBER:                        552 AUTHOR:                        William Shakespeare (1564–1616) QUOTATION:                        A high hope for a low heaven. ATTRIBUTION:                        Love’s Labour ’s Lost. Act i. Sc. 1.     NUMBER:                        1112 AUTHOR:                        William Shakespeare (1564–1616) QUOTATION:            True hope is swift, and flies with swallow’s wings; Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings. ATTRIBUTION:                        King Richard III. Act v. Sc. 2.       NUMBER:                        6657 AUTHOR:                        Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) QUOTATION:            Good critics, who have stamped out poets’ hope, Good statesmen, who pulled ruin on the state, Good patriots, who for a theory risked a cause. ATTRIBUTION:                        Aurora Leigh. Book iv.     …and with that one, I will abandon “hope.”     5:03:31 AM    comment []