Howard Kurtz of the Daily Beast echoes my sentiments on the cable TV coverage of Hurricane Irene last weekend.
Brian Domitrovic writes in Forbes that we should not be mired in economic malaise today; rather, we should be enjoying a fourth decade of prosperity on the heels of the roaring 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. He points to what caused the decade of decline.
Time magazine says former Vice President Dick Cheney is rewriting a little history in his just-released memoir.
Warren Buffett, chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, knows a thing or two about making money. And he has a message for the 12 members of Congress who will soon take on the crucial job of rearranging our country’s finances: Stop coddling the super-rich.
Writes Buffett in an op-ed piece for the New York Times:
While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks. … These and other blessings are showered upon us by legislators in Washington who feel compelled to protect us, much as if we were spotted owls or some other endangered species. It’s nice to have friends in high places.
Buffett said he paid just shy of $7 million in federal taxes last year, which he admits was only 17.4 percent of his taxable income – well below the rate of most Americans.
Buffett notes that the IRS has compiled data from the returns of the 400 Americans reporting the largest income since 1992. In 1992, the top 400 had aggregate taxable income of $16.9 billion and paid federal taxes of 29.2 percent on that sum. In 2008, the aggregate income of the highest 400 had soared to $90.9 billion — a staggering $227.4 million on average — but the rate paid had fallen to 21.5 percent.
Buffett also debunks the popular theory (in some political circles, at least) that higher taxes will mean fewer investments and, therefore, fewer jobs.
I have worked with investors for 60 years and I have yet to see anyone — not even when capital gains rates were 39.9 percent in 1976-77 — shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain. People invest to make money, and potential taxes have never scared them off. And to those who argue that higher rates hurt job creation, I would note that a net of nearly 40 million jobs were added between 1980 and 2000. You know what’s happened since then: lower tax rates and far lower job creation.
If by early next year President Obama’s re-election chances are looking as dicey as they do now, there is likely to be a growing clamor inside Democratic circles to drop Joe Biden from the ticket and replace him with Hillary Clinton. Click here to see why.
How does a GOP primary race between Rick Perry and Mitt Romney stack up? Click here for the analysis.
Many medical advances have saved lives and eased suffering for millions of people. Screening tests like mammograms can lead to early treatment of breast cancer, especially for women with hereditary risk or a strong family history of the disease. For cancer patients who report back pain, MRIs can prove invaluable for spotting tumors that have metastasized to the bones, allowing doctors to intervene before it’s too late.
The years between 1980 and 2004 saw a 50 percent decline in the death rate from coronary heart disease thanks to better treatments and drugs that reduce cholesterol and blood pressure. At least 7,300 lives are saved every year thanks to colonoscopies.
But as Sharon Begley reports in Newsweek, new research shows how some common tests and procedures aren’t just expensive, but can do more harm than good. And you will probably be surprised to learn what some of them are. Click here for the story.
Today marks the 40th anniversary of Bob Gibson’s only no-hitter during his illustrious Hall of Fame career, an 11-0 whitewashing of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Below is the radio call of the final out by Pittsburgh announcer Bob Prince.
Jack Buck made this call on the Cardinals broadcast:
“He takes off his cap. He mops his brow. He looks in and gets the sign. He starts the windup. Here’s the pitch and it’s…A STRIKE CALLED! A NO-HITTER FOR GIBSON.”
With Texas Gov. Rick Perry reportedly about to enter the 2012 Republican presidential race, two candidates who most expect will have short shelf lives — Michele Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty — spent most of Thursday night jabbing each other during an Iowa candidate forum.
Notes Alexander Burns of Politico: The simmering rivalry between Tim Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann erupted at Thursday night’s Republican primary debate here, transforming Iowa’s first 2012 forum into a full-blown slugfest. The Minnesota duo have been in a low-grade tug of war for months over the affections of Iowa conservatives. With a crucial test looming for both at the Ames straw poll this Saturday, the Pawlenty-Bachmann rivalry turned so intense that it threatened to crowd out the other candidates completely.
The New York Times points out that the dramatic shift in tone — by candidates who seemed suddenly unshackled from the timidity that had gripped them in two previous debates — foreshadowed the kind of nomination campaign that may unfold over the next year. It now seems clear it could be as rough and personal as the historic Democratic primary battle of 2008.
Opined Ezra Klein of the Washington Post: The losers in tonight’s debate were anyone who wants to see the sort of compromise necessary for the political process to work, and anyone who has been convinced that they can achieve their goals simply by restating their convictions. As for the winners? Well, I didn’t see too many of those.
Lois Romano offers a profile of Michele Bachmann, who has gone from a backbencher in Congress to a contender for the GOP presidential nomination, in this week’s issue of Newsweek magazine. Click here for the full story.
Frank Bruni of the New York Times offers a look at the vanishing act of GOP front-runner Mitt Romney, who has been described as “the missing Mormon, the phantom front-runner and (courtesy of Ben Smith of Politico) a denizen of the Mittness Protection Program.”
Couple his low profile with his history of reinvention and you wind up with a candidate who campaigns in disappearing ink. It’s tough to get a read on him, and he leaves no strong impression.
Click here for the latest polls.
Bill McClellan of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch admits he should have voted for Hillary instead of Obama.
With his usual wit, Roger Simon of Politico plays down the importance of the Ames Straw Poll, which is scheduled for Saturday.
The Ames Straw Poll is a delightful fraud, an amiable hoax, that most people in Iowa don’t care about, but the national media eat up because the event seems so charmingly “Iowan.”
Others, however, are saying that Saturday’s contest in Ames is the first big test of the 2012 campaign, especially for Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who has placed all of his presidential chips on Iowa. Anything short of a flat-out win will make it exceedingly difficult for him to claim momentum in a rapidly accelerating 2012 primary race.
But Lauren Ashburn reports that many ordinary Iowans are barely paying attention.
The 2012 presidential election is still nearly 15 months away, but most pundits believe the next couple of weeks could be make-or-break time for several Republican hopefuls.
Writes Molly Ball of Politico: “The most important week of the 2012 presidential race so far begins now. Whatever happens in Thursday’s debate and Saturday’s straw poll in Ames, the Republican field is likely to be narrowed. No candidate will come out of Ames the same as he or she went in. Some may not come out at all. And one will emerge as the top challenger to Mitt Romney, whose decision not to compete in the straw poll turned the voting largely into a contest between Tim Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann.
Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times weighs in: At the outset of a crucial week in the presidential campaign, the Republican candidates are increasingly turning on one another as they try to overcome their own weaknesses and capitalize on the vulnerabilities of President Obama.
Dan Balz of the Washington Post has this take: The contest for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, until now a sleepy, shapeless and uninspired affair punctuated by comedic interludes, turns serious this month. A debate, a straw poll in Iowa and the possible entry into the race of Texas Gov. Rick Perry are likely to make the coming weeks the most consequential yet in the campaign.
The Labor Department reported this morning that employers added 117,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate dipped to 9.1 percent. The mild improvement may ease investors’ concerns after the Dow Jones industrial average plummeted fell nearly 513 points Thursday, its biggest decline since December 2008.
Bloomberg reports that more than $4.4 trillion has been wiped out from equity market values worldwide since July 26, and all of 2011 stock gains have been erased. The bleak news prompted many analysts to warn that there’s a 50-50 chance the United States will slip into another recession this year.
Nate Silver points out that America has hit a wall. Its long-term growth trend faltered at the end of the last century and has flatlined and then collapsed in this one. It is not as bad as the Great Depression, but it is the next worst thing.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman suggests that to turn this disaster around, a lot of people are going to have to admit, to themselves at least, that they’ve been wrong and need to change their priorities, right away.
The point is that it’s now time — long past time — to get serious about the real crisis the economy faces. The Fed needs to stop making excuses, while the president needs to come up with real job-creation proposals. And if Republicans block those proposals, he needs to make a Harry Truman-style campaign against the do-nothing G.O.P.
