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President Obama should probably get a little bit dictatorial up in here. He's the only person in the U.S. unaware that we elected him dictator, giving him both houses of Congress and the major television networks whenever he wants them. Instead of ignoring people's objections until they get socialized medicine and realize they like it, as England's leaders did, Obama is worried about seducing Olympia Snowe so he can say his health bill is bipartisan. Do you know how long it takes to charm people from Maine? They're uptight white people coated with a hard exterior...
Washington's reading seems to be that we're not subsidizing housing enough. Congress, the Bush and Obama administrations and the Fed have been piling on new aid. For now, they may be correct to do so. With the banking system still shaky, further big declines in house prices could bring disaster. Slowing a price collapse is a reasonable aim of government policy. But as we dig out of this mess, we ought to ask whether the vast infrastructure of government support for homeownership that has been built up since the 1930s is really such a wise policy...
Then come the tax breaks. The stimulus bill approved in February included an $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers - at a cost of about $14 billion for the year. That's set to expire, but there's talk in Congress of extending or even expanding it. A much bigger deal is the income tax deduction for mortgage interest paid - which has been with us as long as there's been an income tax - at a cost estimated by the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation at $80 billion this year. The deduction for property taxes costs an additional...
...Thomas Paine, in Common Sense, called King George the "hardened, sullen tempered pharaoh." Samuel Sherwood, in The Church's Flight into the Wilderness, said God would deliver the colonies from Egyptian bondage. The Moses image was so pervasive that on July 4, after signing the Declaration of Independence, the Congress asked Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and John Adams to propose a seal for the United States. Their recommendation: Moses, leading the Israelites through the Red Sea as the water overwhelms the pharaoh. In their eyes, Moses was America's true Founding Father...
Jackie Selebi, the former South African ambassador to the U.N. and head of Interpol, finally went on trial in Johannesburg on Oct. 5 after nearly two years of court delays. A close ally of former President Thabo Mbeki, Selebi is the most senior member of the governing African National Congress (ANC) to go to trial on corruption charges, accused of accepting bribes from a tycoon murder suspect, Glenn Agliotti, and his associates in 2004 and 2005. The case is being seen as a critical test of South Africa's judicial system. Since being elected President in April, Jacob Zuma...