Forgive me -- I know that there is a civil war of sorts brewing between "moderate" and "progressive" [sic] Democrats, but I can't take it seriously. They are going to reach a deal, because they are not going to lose the opportunity to spend trillions of dollars on their political donors and patrons. They are incompetent, which is why they failed to meet their own deadlines; and they are dishonest, which is why Joe Biden promised Republicans that the $1.2 trillion "infrastructure" bill excluded everything that he later included in the $3.5 trillion "reconciliation" bill. They are also radical, which is why Biden has now tacked his campaign slogan -- "build back better" -- onto the $3.5 trillion agenda, as if he had run as a socialist, which is what he actually turns out to be.
But none of this matters. We don't have $3.5 trillion, or even $1.2 trillion, to spend. Democrats are claiming that the bill will cost net "zero," which is absurd, and shows just how little they care about "truth over lies," another Biden slogan. The idea seems to be that taxing billionaires and "trillionaires" (we have none of the latter) can cover the cost, somehow. But even if raising taxes on the rich could, theoretically bring in something like several hundred billion dollars -- at best, if you assume economic growth (which is slowing down) and minimal tax avoidance by high earners (ha ha ha -- just ask Biden about filing as an S-corp to avoid paying his "fair share." ) -- we still won't cover $3.5 trillion. We won't even manage to do it if we raise taxes on the middle class (inevitable).
This is just a debate about how much debt to leave to future generations -- or how quickly to push us toward default. For Democrats, it's worth it: the goal is to hook the population on entitlements that will be too politically difficult to remove, so that when default does come, its own constituencies are protected and it's the private sector that has to pay the price. Of course, once the private sector can't produce, there's less revenue... see also, almost the entire Third World, and the history of socialism everywhere that it has been tried.
The story of Noah is familiar; the details, less so.
Noah is often seen as an ambivalent figure. He was righteous -- but only for his generation. What was his deficiency?
One answer suggests itself: knowing that the world was about to be flooded, he built an Ark for the animals and for his own family -- but did not try to save anyone else or to convince them to repent and change their ways (the prophet Jonah, later, would share that reluctance).
Abraham, later, would set himself apart by arguing with God -- with the Lord Himself! -- against the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, saying that they should be saved if there were enough righteous people to be found (there were not).
Still, Noah was good enough -- and sometimes, that really is sufficient to save the world. We don't need heroes every time -- just ordinary decency.
Hi all -- as I noted last month, I'm going to be closing down my Locals page, at least for tips and subscriptions -- I may keep the page up and the posts as well, but I'm no longer going to be accepting any kind of payment.
Look for cancelation in the very near future. Thank you for your support!
An interesting weekend -- one of the last of Daylight Savings Time -- in which there is much to celebrate, much to contemplate, and a bit to worry about.
The Gaza peace deal is shaky, but holding, after the living hostages returned; the shutdown is still going on, with no end in sight; the China trade war is heating up; and the confrontation with Venezuela continues to escalate.
The "No Kings" protest was a dud, despite the media's attempt to inflate it. What I find fascinating is that the Democrats have basically stolen the rhetoric and the imagery of the Tea Party protests, circa 2009. They claim they are defending the Constitution -- just like the Tea Party did.
On the one hand, this is good. How wonderful to have a political system in which both sides, bitterly opposed though they are, articulate differences through the Constitution -- and not, as in so many other countries, outside it.
On the other, this is sheer hypocrisy for the Democrats. Not only did they malign the Tea Party as ...
