Bush tax cuts present big problem for Demos Deseret News (Salt Lake City) Newspaper Find Articles at BNET
In the back of every Washington politician's mind is this sobering fact: Unless Congress acts, the temporary tax cuts it passed when George W. Bush was president will expire at the end of next year.
If the Democrats who control Congress do nothing and let the tax rates on the highest income brackets return to their pre-2001 levels, their Republican rivals and many Americans will slam them as tax hikers.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Facts and figures, myths and mantras - The Boston Globe
Facts and figures, myths and mantras - The Boston Globe
There is a sense that we don’t need science or editing or fact-checking as long as we have crowd-sourcing. We don’t have to build opinions on facts; we can build facts on opinions.
This is not just common on blogs but on right-wing talk shows where hosts have gone rogue. What price exactly has Glenn Beck paid for playing loose with facts? Did only Jon Stewart catch Sean Hannity using video from one (large) teabag rally to illustrate another (small) rally?
This fact-free standard is held up (or down) by politicians who follow their lead. Former House majority leader Dick Armey, for example, isn’t about to challenge those “death panel’’ believers who rally to his FreedomWorks flag: “If people want to believe that . . . it’s OK with me.’’ Whatever.
I’m not suggesting that newspapers - once defined as the first rough draft of history - are without errors. But there are prices to pay and corrections to be made and standards to be met. When was the last time an Internet birther ran a correction or lost his job?
There is a sense that we don’t need science or editing or fact-checking as long as we have crowd-sourcing. We don’t have to build opinions on facts; we can build facts on opinions.
This is not just common on blogs but on right-wing talk shows where hosts have gone rogue. What price exactly has Glenn Beck paid for playing loose with facts? Did only Jon Stewart catch Sean Hannity using video from one (large) teabag rally to illustrate another (small) rally?
This fact-free standard is held up (or down) by politicians who follow their lead. Former House majority leader Dick Armey, for example, isn’t about to challenge those “death panel’’ believers who rally to his FreedomWorks flag: “If people want to believe that . . . it’s OK with me.’’ Whatever.
I’m not suggesting that newspapers - once defined as the first rough draft of history - are without errors. But there are prices to pay and corrections to be made and standards to be met. When was the last time an Internet birther ran a correction or lost his job?
Op-Ed Columnist - The Copenhagen That Matters - NYTimes.com
Op-Ed Columnist - The Copenhagen That Matters - NYTimes.com
But I didn’t. How long are we Americans going to go on thinking that we can thrive in the 21st century when doing the optimal things — whether for energy, health care, education or the deficit — are “off the table.” They’ve been banished by an ad hoc coalition of lobbyists loaded with money, loud-mouth talk-show hosts who will flame anyone who crosses them, political consultants who warn that asking Americans to do anything important but hard makes one unelectable and a citizenry that doesn’t even ask for optimal anymore because it believes that optimal is impossible.
Sorry, but there are no good ideas proven to work in other democratic/capitalist societies that we can afford to shove off our table — not when we need to build a knowledge economy with good jobs and everyone else is trying to do the same.
But I didn’t. How long are we Americans going to go on thinking that we can thrive in the 21st century when doing the optimal things — whether for energy, health care, education or the deficit — are “off the table.” They’ve been banished by an ad hoc coalition of lobbyists loaded with money, loud-mouth talk-show hosts who will flame anyone who crosses them, political consultants who warn that asking Americans to do anything important but hard makes one unelectable and a citizenry that doesn’t even ask for optimal anymore because it believes that optimal is impossible.
Sorry, but there are no good ideas proven to work in other democratic/capitalist societies that we can afford to shove off our table — not when we need to build a knowledge economy with good jobs and everyone else is trying to do the same.
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