Happy Birthday to Michelle Trachtenberg, 27. Dawn! Also, I'm quite fond of the ice skating movie, and watch at least a few minutes every time it's on. I've almost certainly seen more than half of it by now. And she was on a Clarissa, once. I'm afraid I never watched Gossip Girls, though.
I know, I should just get to the good stuff:
1. Gallup tweaked their methods on October 1; it's possible that Barack Obama's approval ratings apparent increase this month could be related. Alan Abramowitz noticed and analyzed; here's Gallup's statement. See also Mark Blumenthal's old post on why Gallup looked a bit off.
2. The House GOP as the gang that can't shoot straight, from Dana Milbank. See also Kevin Drum.
3. And Ezra Klein on the fiscal cliff. For what it's worth, I sort of like the name, even though I'm firmly in the camp of those who don't think it's even remotely cliff-like.
I was explaining to my teenager last night that there are some people (like her grandfather) who just hate paying taxes on principle. When taxes on the rich are high - and he was pretty wealthy - he would minimize his taxes by investing in tax shelters. Tax shelters, I told her, were often designed to benefit the community. My dad had bought and maintained a number of nice apartment buildings, in a good neighborhood, for low-income families.
ReplyDeleteThat's how higher taxes on the rich will stimulate the economy.
It's really not that hard to explain or understand.
They could also just hire more people and write-off their salaries or buy more equipment and write that off. Low taxes do NOT give them incentive to invest or hire only to horde.
DeleteIt's a "fiscal crack" not a cliff (as in a crack in a sidewalk). When you fall over a cliff, you plummet down to the bottom and disappear in a puff of smoke as anybody who watched Wile E. Coyote knows. A crack you just step over and keep going on your way which is almost certainly what will happen at the end of the year (see also: kick the can down the road).
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