It’s Wednesday and it’s open thread time again! I know you’re probably going through withdrawal because we didn’t have one yesterday. Well, your wait is over!
“As I’ve watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war. He seems to think if he has a low-key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gives terrorists the rights of Americans, lets them lawyer up and reads them their Miranda rights, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if we bring the mastermind of Sept. 11 to New York, give him a lawyer and trial in civilian court, we won’t be at war.
“He seems to think if he closes Guantanamo and releases the hard-core Al Qaeda-trained terrorists still there, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gets rid of the words, ‘war on terror,’ we won’t be at war. But we are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe. Why doesn’t he want to admit we’re at war? It doesn’t fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn’t fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency — social transformation — the restructuring of American society. President Obama’s first object and his highest responsibility must be to defend us against an enemy that knows we are at war.
Is this from the Dick Cheney who tried attempted shoe bomber Richard Reid and wannabe terrorist Zacarias Moussaoi in U.S. courts? These terrorist supervillains are now quietly serving their time in U.S. supermax prisons. I guess these terrorists are saving their superpowers for later then.
Of course, we all know the proper response is to wet our pants and wiretap some more Americans or something.
Ahhhh…the fruits of reconciliation. On January 1, the estate tax (dubbed the “death tax” by Republicans) goes to 0%. On January 1, 2011 it resets back to its 2001 number, 50%. This tax only applies to very wealthy estates, roughly 5,000 per year.
Eight and a half years ago, when I dubbed the first Bush tax cut the Throw Momma from the Train Act of 2001, I didn’t really think that we’d get to the point where there would be strong financial incentives for wealthy heirs to bump off their parents before the legislation expired, and the estate tax was reinstated. I expected one of two things to happen: Democrats would restore a sensible estate tax, or Republicans would achieve the political dominance needed to permanently abolish the tax. As John Belushi would have said, however, But NOOOOO. Instead, it’s really happening.
Just to be clear, the source of this craziness is fiscal fraud: way back when, the Bush team used sunsets that were never intended to take effect in order to hold down the official cost of their tax cuts. Their assumption was that at a later date they’d be able to make the thing permanent.
Hooray for Congress for going for the least sensible route. That takes talent!