Something To Think About Archive

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.

Goethe said: “Instruction does much, but encouragement everything.”

It’s been said that “Real motivation comes from within. People have to be given the freedom to succeed or fail.”

The Reverand Billy Graham believed that “Arrogance has its own built-in misery.”

As Andrew Jackson once noted, “More is lost by the long continuance of men in office than is generally to be gained by their experience.”

Historian Barbara Tuchman once observed that “War is the unfolding of miscalculations.”

According to tech entrepreneur and columnist Andy Kessler, when it comes to tariffs, “Self-interested politicians never hit on the right price to clear markets or pick the right industries to win. Because of self-serving cronyism for dollars or votes, government industrial policy always glitches. Capital gets misallocated. Prosperity suffers.”

It’s been said that “The world of achievement has always belonged to the optimist.”

“Fishing” was once described as “a delusion surrounded by liars in old clothes.”

Louis Armstrong once noted that “There are some people who, if they don’t know, you can’t tell ‘em.”

Swedish Diplomat Dag Hammarskjold said, “Never for the sake of peace and quiet deny your own experience or convictions.”