Something To Think About Archive

Regarding the big Army parade in Washington a few weeks ago, Republican Senator John Kennedy said: “I think the United States of America is the most powerful country in all human history. I mean, we’re a lion, and a lion doesn’t have to tell you it’s a lion. Everybody knows it’s a lion. So why spend the 40-plus million dollars to tell people that we’re a lion?”

Following Ukraine’s successful drone assault on the Russian Air Force, Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich notes: “In some ways, the drone attack reminded me of Israel’s complex pager and cell phone attack which crippled Hezbollah’s organization in Lebanon. We are in a new world, with new dangers. Artificial intelligence, robotics, low-cost manufacturing, and long-range planning are going to destroy all our traditional assumptions about warfare.”

Author and positive psychology coach Diane Drehr says: “Leaders must have the courage to follow their vision, to believe the invisible, to work for something that’s still only a possibility, while others often wring their hands in despair.”

According to educator and author Edgar Z. Friedenberg, “What we must decide is how we are valuable rather than how valuable we are.”

Writer Kurt Vonnegut believed that “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”

The so-called Dean of American Sportswriters Grantland Rice wrote: “A substitute for hard work is worth about one-tenth the real thing.”

Writer Edmund White claimed that “At certain crucial moments – an emergency, an opportunity – one must act first and think later.”

As Elon Musk recently noted, just prior to his break up with President Trump, “A bill can be big and it can be beautiful; but I doubt it can be both.” If you want proof, the budget bill sent to the Senate, where we hope sanity my reside, adds $2.7trillio to budget deficits through 2034. That’s certainly not beautiful. And, if it’s such a win for the taxpayer, why did we have to raise the debt ceiling by $4 trillion?

Poet Sylvia Plath once observed that “If you expect nothing from somebody you are never disappointed.”

It’s been said that “One flies with one’s own wings.”

According to Garrison Keillor, “Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function.”

On average, the California Legislature passes between 1900 and 2600 bills every year. While only about half are signed into law, we have to ask: Are there that many things wrong requiring that many new laws every year? If so, maybe we should look at the source of the problem: Ineffective Government.

Former Marine Corps officer Jill Schulman says: “You don’t build strength by avoiding discomfort. You build it by seeking it.”

The insanity of zealots was made clear a few weeks ago when a gunman shot and killed two Israeli Embassy staffers outside the Capital Jewish Museum as a “protest” against the war in Gaza. The problem, is, one of the two victims was actually working to get aid to Palestinians affected by the war. We will never understand violence and discrimination, like this and that occurring on many Ivy League campuses, as a protest against, that’s right, violence and discrimination.

“If you think you can do better,” says choreographer Bob Fosse, “then do better.”

Dwight Eisenhower said: “When you are in any contest, you should work as if there were, up to the very last minute, a chance to lose it.”

Boxer Joe Louis claimed that “I don’t like money, actually, but it quiets the nerves.”

Author and marketing consultant Steve Rivkin once noted that “The more unpredictable the world becomes, the more we rely on predictions.”

Mark Twain said: “Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of the Congress; but I repeat myself.”

Given the current budget deficits and continued profligate spending, why does Congress’s latest tax bill include exclusions for certain income, specifically taxes on tips and overtime? ALL and ANY earned income should be taxable at the same level as any other. By not simply lowering rates to encourage work and investment, these exclusions fail to be pro-growth. Instead, they are likely to distort behavior by favoring one action over another. Excluding taxes on Social Security might be considered as reasonable as the money that was paid in to the program was originally confiscated from the employee and their employer. At least they’ve tried to eliminate some scams like tax credits for electric vehicles.