Obama's Katrina
Plus: Does McCain want a convention fight?
Backfill: On KCRW's Left, Right & Center, Matt Miller (center) and Amity Shlaes (right) were both alarmed by the high marginal tax rates produced by Obama's preferred Social Security fix (which is to subject over-$250,000 taxpayers to the 6.2% payroll tax). ... Tune in about 16:30 into the progam. ... Shlaes, like Biggs, supports an alternative self-contained Social Security fix:
[I]t is possible to fix Social Security without doing too much, you can fix most of it by adjusting the formula, so that each cohort gets just what the proceeding cohort got. adjusted for inflation, no more. What we have now is real increases and that's more than half of the problem in the Social Security system.
Again, this is easy to say if you don't also want a big, expensive health care addition to our welfare state, which I assume Shlaes doesn't. If you do though, and you don't want a counterproductively high tax burden, then you may eventually have to endorse a more drastic Social Security diet plan. ... 1:31 P.M. link
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Friday, June 20, 2008
Uckers-say: From the A.P.:
Republican presidential John McCain assured Hispanic leaders he would push through Congress legislation to overhaul federal immigration laws if elected, several people who attended a private meeting with the candidate said Thursday. ... [E.A.]
Hmm. If McCain is going to sell out his party's conservatives, renege on his primary campaign repositioning and return to his righteous push for "comprehensive immigration reform," wouldn't it be better to do it in public than in a closed-door meeting, where it looks like a guilty, furtive secret pander? ... P.S.: AndThe Corner stays silent! ... Backfill: Tapper has more, including a report from a Latina Minuteman who got into the meeting:
"Then he said, 'I bet some of you don't know this -- did you know Spanish was spoken in Arizona before English?'"
I bet they did! ... Update: AP's Espo notes that McCain "['a]ides ... had kept word of the event secret ...." 2:33 P.M.
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Photograph of Ann Coulter on Slate's home page by Brad Barket/Getty. Photograph of a wedding cake with two grooms on Slate's home page by Hector Mata/AFP Photo. Photograph of Princess Diana on Slate's home page by Georges De Keerle/Getty Images. Photograph of Barack Obama on Slate's home page by Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images.