Proud Conservative Liberal Republican?

It doesn't really make sense to say conservative liberal--its not like there are Machiavellian-Kantians running around are there (now knowing the blog-o-sphere someone is bound to enlighten me on such an entity but I digress).

I think a better definition of McCain is that he is progressive on issues like immigration and (at least in votes and legislation--if not as a candidate) campaign finance reform. He is progressive on some issues, conservative on others. I've always respected applauded the fact the McCain has stayed away from the more xenophobic "America First" rhetoric that comes from a portion of the Republican party.

Kingston Slams Obama for Flag Pin w/o Wearing One Himself

Classic... Conservatives up to their old tricks. Don't let them get away with it. Vote 2008!

Makes me proud to be from GA! Why by the way is Jack Kingston all over the place attacking Obama? I keep seeing him...

By the way I'm starting a tag called: Obama attacks

So keep me informed on any smear's you see out there and I'll be compiling them through out the campaign this year.

headed to work...

So I'll pass on part of my morning meditation.

In any events, however seemingly dire, there is nothing to prevent us from searching for its hidden opportunity. It is a failure of the imagination not to do so. But to seek out the opportunity in situations requires a great deal of courage, for most people around you will persist in interpreting events in the grossest terms: success or failure, good or bad, right or wrong. These simplistic, polarized categories obscure more creative--and useful--interpretations of events that are far more advantageous and interesting!

The wise person knows it is fruitless to project hopes and dears on the future. This only leads to forming melodramatic representations in your mind and wasting time. --Epictetus, The Art of Living

Trying to catch up to a busy economist...

I'm going to throw all of Dean Bakers recent posts into one post cause they are all really good.

First he hits on the changes that the Congress is trying to make so that bankruptcy judges will be able to rewrite the terms of mortgage loans for people. In his post Changing Bankruptcy Rules and the Sanctity of Contracts he says

The banks are very upset over the possibility that Congress may change the law to allow bankruptcy judges to rewrite the terms of mortgage loans as they can other loans when a person declares bankruptcy. Naturally they are pulling out all the stops in making their case. The Washington Post quotes a Bush administration spokesperson saying that the proposed change "is interfering with contracts."

This is an interesting charge to come from the Bush administration and to be associated with the banks. Those old enough to remember may recall the bankruptcy reform of 2005. This bill altered the enforcement of loans in the opposite direction, making it easier for lenders to collect from debtors. It was applied to loans that had already been contracted not just future debt yet to be incurred, in that sense, it interfered with contracts.

Clearly, neither the Bush administration nor the banks, both of whom eagerly supported the bankruptcy reform bill, have any principled objection to interfering with contracts. Their objection seems to be based more on whom the interference is favoring. The reporters covering this issue should have provided readers with this background.

He then moves on to energy spending in his post Energy Spending and Taxes: One Year, Ten Years, Who Cares? he points out something many people don't know about gas prices

In the short-term, supply is almost entirely fixed. This means that the tax increase will come almost entirely out of producers' profits.

We finally end back where we started on the mortgage crisis. This time in his post Arithmetic on Mortgage Bailouts he talks about whether homeowners will benefit from these bailout plans...

There are two questions that will determine whether these homeowners will benefit. First, whether they will accumulate equity and second, how much they will pay in housing costs in their current home as opposed to renting elsewhere.

The numbers imply that most homeowners are almost certain to lose from the bailouts that are supposed to help them. House prices are falling rapidly due to a deflating housing bubble. Since most moderate income homeowners will only be in their home a relatively short period of time, it is very unlikely that they will be there long enough to pay down enough of their mortgage to offset the plunge in prices. In other words, most of the subprime mortgage holders are likely to sell their home owing money to the bank.

The second issue is their annual cost of owning compared to renting a comparable unit. As a result of the unprecedented run-up in house sale prices (rents have increased only slightly more than inflation), the ratio of house prices to rents on comparable units (e.g. different houses in the same development) is about 20 to 1. If a homeowner gets a 6 percent mortgage, and has to pay 1 percent of the value in property taxes and another percent in annual maintenance costs, then the cost of owning is 8 percent of the sales prices. This compares to being able to rent at 5 percent of the sales prices. In this scenario, ownership costs are 60 percent more than the cost of renting. (This is likely a conservative estimate, since subprime mortgage holders are not likely to get a 6 percent mortgage.)

For the population as a whole ownership/rent take up 30 percent of their income. The share is higher for low and moderate income families, but even this 30 percent figure would imply that the 60 percent excess housing costs associated with ownership implies paying an amount equal to 16 percent of family income. In other words, keeping moderate income families as owners given current house prices is equivalent to imposing a 16 percentae point surtax on their income. This is not likely to help their financial situation or their ability to move into the middle class.

It would be helpful if reporters occasionally included some simple analysis of this sort in discussing the various bailout proposals being put forward. This would make it clearer to readers who these proposals are likely to benefit.

update on last weeks fear-mongering

NYT's article on the wiretapping law that just expired

Even with the law lapsed, intelligence officials continue to be able to put wiretaps on terrorism and espionage suspects under directives that were approved before the expiration of the six-month law, the Protect America Act, which gave the government a freer hand in deciding whom to wiretap without court approval.

Theoretically, intelligence officials would have to revert to older — and, they say, more cumbersome — legal standards if they were now to stumble onto a new terrorist group that was not covered by a previous wiretapping order. But that has not happened since the surveillance law expired, administration officials said.

One lawyer in the telecommunications industry, who spoke on condition of anonymity because wiretapping operations are classified, said he had seen little practical effect on the industry’s surveillance operations since the law expired. Most operations appear to have continued unabated, the lawyer said.

Democrats have been arguing for days that the administration has exaggerated the actual national security harm.

A group of former intelligence officials chimed in Tuesday in a letter to Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence. The administration’s recent comments about wiretapping tools “have distorted rather than enhanced” the debate over the law, said the letter, signed by Rand Beers, Richard A. Clarke, Lt. Gen. Donald L. Kerrick, retired, and Suzanne E. Spaulding, all of whom have served in senior intelligence capacities in recent years.

The expiration of the temporary law “does not put America at greater risk,” the group said, adding that “America’s security cannot be captive to partisan bickering and distortions.”

Barack Obama Responds to John McCain

This is the kind of stuff he's going to have to do constantly until november. The toughest fight Obama will have is in getting elected. The toughest fight Clinton will have is the day after--when you actually have to persuade the people to support policy. I'd rather work on the Obama fight than be fighting for the next four years for Clinton to get policy...

This will be my youtube of the week...

jumped in where I don't belong!

Go jump over here

There is some great stuff going on by some college students out in California. Makes me want to dust off my Habermas!

Good point...

So I've never thought about this... but Sophistpundit has a good critique of Richard Dawkins

You are going to tell me, on the one hand, that we live "In a universe of blind physical forces and blind genetic replication", and that religion is the cause of most of the violent acts of history, on the other?

Anyone who will spit on what someone else holds dear, but lacks the backbone to see through to the consequences of the ideas he develops, is not in the end a serious person.

great blogginghead post

Philosopher Joshua Knobe of University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill on Experimental Philosophy. Very good...

Protectionism in the NYT's

Economist Dean Baker laments protectionism for health care industry in the NYT's

Just yesterday the NYT editorial board was complaining about the threat of protectionism in discussing Senator Obama and Clinton's trade policies. Today, the editorial board discusses Medicare's financial problems and never once mentions the extent to which this is caused by protectionism.

The basic point is very simple. Every other wealthy country provides high quality health care at a far lower price than in the United States. If we want to lower cost then an obvious way would be to try to take advantage of these lower cost systems. It is easy to develop mechanisms that would allow for Medicare beneficiaries to take advantage of lower cost systems.

The argument for the gains from trade in medical services is exactly the same as the argument for gains from trade in cars and clothes (we can even use the same graph, we just have to relabel the axis), except the benefits are likely to be much larger in the case of medical care. It is inconsistent for the NYT to be so committed to eliminating trade barriers in manufactured goods but willing to tolerate much costly barriers to trade in medical services.

Congrats...

Well done goes out to blogger Josh Marshall over at TPM. He has hit the big-time--for the mainstream media at least. It was great to be reading the NYT's and see an article about a blogger doing well and being appreciated for it.

Of the many landmarks along a journalist’s career, two are among those that stand out: winning an award and making the government back down. Last week, Joshua Micah Marshall achieved both.

On Tuesday, it was announced that he had won a George Polk Award for legal reporting for coverage of the firing of eight United States attorneys, critics charged under political circumstances. The “tenacious investigative reporting sparked interest by the traditional news media and led to the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales,” the citation read.

Also last week, the Justice Department put him back on its mailing list for reporters with credentials after removing him last year.

Mr. Marshall does not belong to any traditional news organization. Instead, he is creating his own. His Web site, Talking Points Memo (www.talkingpointsmemo.com), is the first Internet-only news operation to receive the Polk (though in 2003, an award for Internet reporting was given to the Center for Public Integrity), and certainly one of the most influential political blogs in the country.

I've been reading TPM for a while now... and hit it more often than the NYT's website in fact! Good for Josh, good for blogs, good for increasing information in our society, and good for old fashion business model:

he seems to have followed a business model unlike the founders of many of the dot-coms: Begin as a tiny operation. Manage to gain a following. As the audience grows, ask readers for donations and accept advertising. As the advertising and donations grow, add reporters and features. Repeat as often as needed.

quote...

"One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal." --Bill Moyers *

I'm gone...

I'm going to Disney World. Be back next Thursday.

Strike all the bad things I said about the Speaker last week

This is good news and good policy:

House Speaker Glenn Richardson opposes the bill [right to life amendment] and has said publicly that he will not allow this bill to pass out of committee,"

Now don't get all bent out of shape... I'm not striking anything else... just last weeks comments... [don't go looking through my blog... I'm talking about things I say quietly to myself and/or those around me]

good question from the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer

Could the governor who made fishing tourism the centerpiece of his legislative agenda last year really be a vice presidential contender?

It appears the good Gov-uh-nuh of Georgia is on the short list (at least the media's short list).

But then again politics has often times been about promoting bad leadership up--all to bring in new/better. So who knows...

not really so big... not really so scary...

Turns out the American public is not so scared by the Hobgoblin of "Socialized Medicine" in fact I just noticed on Ezra Klien's blog that there is a new poll done by the Harvard School of Public Health on public opinion about socialized medicine.

Here is a graph from Ezra Klien's blog:

Just a question?

Economist Dean Baker wants to know:

Isn't there anyone in the WSJ's Rolodex who thinks that raising taxes on nurses and firefighters to give money to millionaire and billionaire bankers is not a good idea?

Its kind of a theme of this blog...

"The cognitive structure of social and political discourse is an enormously complex problem and can only be addressed through team effort." --George Lakoff *

Why the Clinton era needs to be over...

From TPM's Greg Sargent

But here's the real point: When it comes to the Clintons, many pundits have simply stopped requiring themselves to adhere to the most basic evidentiary standards. It has become acceptable, even normal, to say whatever the hell you want about the Clintons, and if you insist on anything approaching real evidence, you're just a party-pooper. The "Clinton rules" governing punditry about them are that there are no rules.

his point is that the Clinton's aren't getting a fair shake. And I agree. I don't have time to dig in... but on an issue by issue frame of Clinton vs. Obama many say Clinton is more progressive, liberal... and well gosh wise. That Obama is the "feel good" candidate for a bunch of kids and middle of the road people who know nothing about politics or what it takes to make things happen. And to that too I agree. Would Clinton make a better President? Possibly.

But like Pyschoanalyist DW Winnicot talked about being and having the "good enough mother" I think its a case of Obama being the "good enough candidate" for my policy diferences I can say I'd much rather have Obama than another Republican. And some are saying Obama is just plain old fashion beating the Clintons at their own game: winning

The Big League...
As I said, it's only the fact that Barack Obama is a superb candidate running a superb campaign that is keeping Hillary Rodham Clinton's good campaign from being good enough...

True as it may be the important thing is Clinton and the Clintons as an entity aren't given a fair shake by even Democrats at this point. The Conservative media machine of think tanks and radio hosts bombarding middle america with hobgolins and hit pieces has made it so.

Is it fair... no. Its is creating a situation where a Clinton victory is impossible... no. Do I feel the need to beat Republicans with what they hate most... inspiring conservatives to vote in local elections in droves even if they don't like McCain and then having Conservatives do everything in their power to spend the next 4 years blocking everything the President does cause their name is Clinton... no thank you.

Lets win in Nov and use some of the resources and fight we'd need to get Clinton elected and put it towards organizing for the toughest day in politics: the day after you win and actually have to start implementing the policy you advocated.

Health Care coverage... now thats gonnna be a fight!

I'm not on an ego trip to beat Conservatives so that I can feel better--which I sometimes feel some Clinton supporters are wanting. I want health care for my next door neighbor... I want books for our schools... I want good enough policy (if not always the best). I want middle America to be able to hear what the Democratic Party is saying again. I understand the frustration from some insiders and polico's they were in the midst of the 90's taking the brunt of Conservative politic attacks. And they did an amazing job of holding things together when you start digging around the history of Conservative efforts...

But Obama gives us a chance--a chance to talk about issues. The Clinton era needs to be over. If Obama is another Jimmy Carter it'll be as much our fault(I'm saying this to fellow active Democrats) than to Obama or his band of inspired supporters.

But ladies and gentlemen: we have inspired supporters again and a chance to make it about issues again! Knowing conservatives it won't last long... lets not waste it.

As an Edwards supporter I am actually proud to say "Obama 2008!" and you know what? I mean it too!

Its an Obama piece!

Obama showing in Henry spurs local Democrats

She didn't even ask me about the Presidential race! I didn't see that coming....

So yeah at the very least I'm involved door-to-door because Republicans lack leadership!

Things that make you go... "ehh?"

So I spoke with a reporter from the Henry Daily Herald today asking me questions about the Henry County Democratic Party. For those who don’t know we are in the process of reorganizing the party–our Chair stepped down for personal reasons and we are trying to use this opportunity to expand the party structure so that we can grow to meet the needs of the growing County.

It seemed to go over well. She was very nice and I hope I was able to help her in some way with her article. Its supposed to be out tomorrow. Since I’m a nobody in local politics I can’t have given her very much context. I mean gee what do you say? I’m a Neighborhood Leader for the DNC! Yeah... we knock on doors and throw house parties to get Democrats organized and motivated. I'm a blogger! Yeah we write posts that connect readers to articles by people who know what they are talking about... and point out those who don't!

In the back of my mind I’m waiting for a hit piece... or somehow my “uhh....’‘s And ‘ummm’’s to come out in some manner that is fodder for the tell-all among local conservatives. Heck, probably won’t even make the piece. But at least people are asking around about what Democrats are doing! For too long in this state Republicans have had strong holds in communities that are natural Democratic voters.

Maybe this is a sign of better things to come!

Probably the best quote all election year...

From Clintonite Paul Begala on CNN SUperTuesday

Nobody is more conservative than Huckabee. He don't believe in evolution or gravity or photosynthesis or anything.

McCain...

Iraq withdrawl date: 12008

Rockridge on Faith and Liberalism...

Ask Rockridge: O Ye of Little FaithIf some of those who share our values and beliefs happen to tie them to their religious faith, should other progressives look askance?

Progressives are bound together by values. We believe in acting empathetically and with responsibility. We value cooperation and community. We model nurturance. We promote inclusion over exclusivity. We exalt the attitude of "we are in this together" over "look out for number one." Like Gandhi and King, we keep the faith that we can make the world a better place. If some of those who share our values and beliefs happen to tie them to their religious faith, why should other progressives look askance? Why shouldn't secular progressives embrace the countless thousands of religious progressives in this country? Who are we to say that secular teachings represent the only legitimate path to progressive attitudes? And ultimately, doesn't turning our backs to people of faith amount to the very intolerance that we decry?

Tax Reform: A Reality Check 3 of 6 (HiRez)

Former Superintendent Henry County Schools Comments on Tax Reform

go read hilzoys post on Clinton...

Can this be true? Here is the tail-end teaser of a good blog post on Obama and what appears to be the end of Clinton dominance in the Democratic Party?!?!?!

I'm also struck by how dysfunctional the Clinton campaign sounds. When a campaign organization is set up well, a campaign manager does not discover that the candidate is making multi-million dollar loans to the campaign third hand, nor does that campaign manager fail to tell the candidate that they have serious money problems. You certainly don't have staffers not being sure who's in charge. And you probably don't have what sounds like a whole lot of people on the inside talking off the record about the various strains and divisions that led up to the firing either.

I missed it...

Friday's numbers from One Pissed Off Veteran

Friday by the Numbers
Total American dead in the Iraq Illegal Occupation: 2500 2513 2532 2540 2546 2558 2571 2585 2597 2605 2619 2641 2710 2737 2758 2788 2809 2826 2865 2888 2906 2959 3006 3018 3025 3067 3087 3118 3132 3151 3166 3189 3210 3233 3245 3266 3299 3316 3337 3358 3387 3409 3444 3504 3519 3546 3577 3592 3611 3631 3683 3705 3725 3738 3760 3780 3795 3823 3830 3838 3845 3866 3875 3881 3886 3891 3896 3908 3921 3932 3943 3952

Total coalition forces dead: 307
Total Iraqi Dead: 700,000+

Number of days since Baby Doc said he'd get Osama Bin Laden "dead or alive": 2340
Number of days since the illegal occupation of Iraq began: 1801
Number of days since "Mission Accomplished": 1743
Number of days between Pearl Harbor and the end of WWII: Only 1347

A big thank you goes out to anyone who promoted the idea that a house was an investment to make money off of rather than a place to sleep at night...

Calculated Risk predicts recession into 2009

For the last 6 recessions, housing bottomed 2 to 9 months before the end of the recession.

Given the current fundamentals of housing – significant oversupply, falling demand – it is very unlikely that housing will act as an engine of growth any time soon. We need to see a significant reduction in supply before there will be any increase in residential investment.

So, for those expecting a 2nd half recovery in the economy, I believe they need to look elsewhere for growth – and they need to argue this time is different, i.e. that the economy will recover before housing this time.

More likely the economy will remain sluggish well into 2009 and the effects of the recession will linger. It is possible that fiscal and monetary stimulus will provide some 2nd half boost to GDP, but if that does take the economy out of an official recession, then I believe a double dip recession (or something that feels like one) is very probable.

Housing is still the key to the economy. And the housing outlook remains grim.

Krugman follows up and says 2010

A lot of what we think we know about recession and recovery comes from the experience of the 70s and 80s. But the recessions of that era were very different from the recessions since. Each of the slumps — 1969-70, 1973-75, and the double-dip slump from 1979 to 1982 — were caused, basically, by high interest rates imposed by the Fed to control inflation. In each case housing tanked, then bounced back when interest rates were allowed to fall again.

Since the mid 1980s, however, we’ve had the “Great Moderation,” with inflation quiescent. Post-moderation recessions haven’t been deliberately engineered by the Fed, they just happen when credit bubbles or other things get out of hand.
And while they haven’t been as deep as the older type of recession, they’ve proved hard to end (not officially, but in terms of employment), precisely because housing — which is the main thing that responds to monetary policy — has to rise above normal levels rather than recover from an interest-imposed slump.

That’s why I think our current problems will last a long time. CR says 2009; I say 2010.

Conservatives want to win...

Its distrubing to read something like this from Jim Wooten in todays AJC

We are a nation of rationalizers, skeptics and negotiators best defined by Rodney King: “People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along?”

The opinion piece was about John McCain and being the right guy to fight terrorism. Why bring up a black man who was filmed being beaten by cops, and the cops acquittal stirred up the largest mass scale riots this country had seen in many years?

Why do conservatives continue to play on race? It had nothing to do with what he was talking about; aside from the fact that his arguments about the war on terrorism lack a lot of coherency to many foreign policy experts. If the experts don't buy conservatives foreign policy views on fighting terrorism the average man on the street might not either. Unless you play on race... since more and more studies by neuroscience are showing that racism blocks many peoples higher brain processes--might that have to do with reason and logic as well??

Which might explain why latent racism tinges the edges of conservative politics? I don't know... but it was disturbing to read this shoddy writing on my Sunday. And it makes a guy like me who is interested in the whys of social science to ask one question. why?

Why does Wooten feel the need to bring Rodney King into an opinion piece about Foreign Policy and John McCain?

Blade Loki--No Pasaran (Made in Poland)

I have no clue what this is but I love it... this is why I love the internet. Beautiful!!!

My (ever so late) post for last weeks legislative session...

I ramble too much...

A moment to pause...

"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. --Ludwig Wittgenstein"

"I choose the beaten path. I've been to where it leads. Why I keep coming back?--a mystery to me." --Nofx "Pump up the valium"

"Happiness is love, nothing else. A man who is capable of love is happy." --Hermann Hesse

So last weekend my Dad flew in for a brief stop-over. He lives in the Philippines and works as a consultant in the energy field, the firm he founded focuses on the Philippine energy sector and to quote his site

provides comprehensive advisory and support to utilities, power producers, retail suppliers, and large retail customers in the Philippine electricity sector.

Some of you may know his blog Mamutong that I link to everyonce in a while.

Sitting here at home with my fiance after dropping him off from the airport I can only sit and feel good. Nietzsche in his twilight of the idols has a maxim that says

Once and for all there is a great deal I do not want to know.--Wisdom sets bounds even to knowledge.

I don't want to communicate how much pleasure and pure joy I've felt over the past three days. If I were to try to communicate these feelings of joy and love I'd be wasting my time. Its something you experience not something you can learn.
Living on the other side of the world from someone you love is very hard to learn how to adapt to. And often times I say that to people and they think that I'm speaking of my own circumstances and can't really relate. But its not necessaryially space or literal distance that divides. I've known far to many people who see each other every day; and yet both can have a divide that seperates them. In a way they very might feel as if the other is on the other side of the world. Luckily I don't have that with my dad. I've always had a connection and bond with him that makes me feel connected no matter how far apart we may be in this world.

I've had lots of ups and down in my life. During that time my Dad wasn't always able to be around; because of work obligations and a market that didn't allow for such conviences--as millions of migratant workers across the globe know, you go to where the demand for your work is. Many times in the midst of chaos my own life my Dad has appeared and given me a place where I felt acknowledged if not always understood.

In my Dad I had a kindered spirit who never was phased by the minor points of diversion and indulgence that sent many a head a twrilling around me. He was never phased... no matter what color hair... or new philosophical path I was strolling down. He was able to jump right in and share my excitiment, sadness, or anger. When you're a teenager and you look around and see intolerance, deprivation, and inhumanity of such magnitude that it seems incomprehensible to want to engender some place of comfort and progress--and is mind boggling how others can just go about their business. My Dad was always able to listen and share the same baffelment with man's inhumanity towards other man. But he kept plugging away, and would share his little places of joy and moments of beauty.
But to get to have him swing by and for us both to take a moment to pause and be with each other. For me to get to finally introduce him to my future wife, my dog; the little pieces of my life that can only be experienced not told.

We got to sit around and talk. Its exciting for me to finally bring stories of a life worth living. I'm finally getting my footing in this world and am going off in a million different directions that are fruitful, productive, and exciting. It is wonderful to get to share such things with your father. One of a childs most fundamental impulses is to make their parents proud of them. He has tried so hard and in so many ways to tell me--even in the midsts of what seems to be such low points of my life how proud of me he was and how much he felt my gifts bring to the world. And I am forever greatful for his efforts and I see and hear what he was saying back then so much more now. I needed someone then telling me things I couldn't quite grasp or see.

But it feels wonderful to share the excitements and expereiences that I am busy working to accomplish. I have found a niche in the world. From the love of my life to the many many wonderful people I now surround myself with. I am a part of a community of people who actively work to be a exactly that--a community, look out for others, and take on the all too common challenges that used to make me rage as a child.

So yeah for short weekend trips from Dad... such are the blessing of life. They rejuvinate in ways that can't be explained.

Business depreciation in current stimulus package

Tax Policy Center has a post on tax write-offs for the purchase of equipment. The buiness write-off's that conservatives play off as helping increase economic productivity.

The bills moving through Congress would permit businesses to accelerate their tax write-offs for the purchase of equipment. This "bonus depreciation" was a favorite of Congress in 2002 and 2003 as well. The Senate Finance Committee version would also allow companies to use current losses to reduce their tax liability from as long as five years ago.

But this morning, at a TPC Forum on the stimulus effort, tax experts generally agreed that neither idea would do very much to accelerate investment.

Doug Elmendorf, a fellow at TPC and Brookings, says that he and former colleagues at the Fed struggled to find evidence that bonus depreciation enacted in response to the 2001 recession boosted capital spending. The Joint Committee on Taxation concludes that only 10% of businesses changed either the timing or amount of their investments as a result of the 2002-2004 tax breaks.

Plenty of other companies took the extra depreciation, all right, but they got it for investments they would have made anyway. Some call this "leakage," which is a polite way to say "boondoggle."

This time, we are creating the worst of all worlds. On one hand, the business breaks will increase the deficit by nearly $50 billion over the next two years. At the same time, they are too small to matter much to the real economy. If the 2002–04 changes, which were more than twice as generous as those on the table today, didn't do much, it is hard to see how the 2008 version will encourage investment. Besides, the Fed's huge cuts in interest rates will be far more important to a business' decision to invest than these tiny tax changes.

Doug Holtz-Eakin, senior economic adviser to GOP presidential front-runner John McCain, says using temporary tax incentives to manipulate investment timing is a fool's errand. He favors permanent tax changes that impact long-term behavior, rather than quick fixes to boost short-term investment. One solution: Full first-year expensing of all capital costs. This idea has been kicked around for years in the context of broad-based tax reform, but has never gone anywhere.

The second business incentive in the Senate Finance Committee bill, allowing companies to use today's losses to lower their taxes on prior year profits, is an even worse idea. It mostly would help bail out banks and homebuilders—firms that made staggering sums of money in recent years and are now suffering thanks to their own poor decisions.

Congress and President Bush may feel the need to throw a bone to K St. to get a stimulus passed, but there must be a better way than this to buy their support.

Chambliss... "We're a strong Military State..."

Isakson and Chambliss endorse McCain. But this quote gives me the willies...

“We’re a strong military state and we need a strong commander in chief,”

We're a strong military state? I can handle being a Republic with a strong military. I can deal with a Democracy with a strong military. But a Military state? To me thats a bad choice of words because I can't follow his principles... it leaves open the possiblity that one of our Senators supports a Military State. I don't believe thats what he meant. But still its a shockingly poor use of language. In a moment when our government currently supports policies considered torture by human rights organizations and does not shirk away from questionable dealings with other countries I am sensitive to how leaders in our State frame our role in the world. Anything with authroitarian leanings or frame-works that leave such roles open to discussion are bad juju in my book and speak of it because I feel conservatives are far too often inviting to frames and language used that can be seen as tolerant of authoritarianism. I'm not saying they are... it just can be precieved that way.

Thats just me...