Well, I must admit it. I was shocked, SHOCKED, with what Jimmy's guy and the Wyoming Wing Nut came up with yesterday. Oh, it's a long way from being perfect but given the intensely negative reaction on the part of all concerned it was probably a better start than for which one could have hoped. Now I haven't really taken a close look at it but what I particularly liked was the identification of areas to be discussed such as that which is closest to my heart, a flat(er) tax code. Now give me what I have called for and I'll give you a VAT and then we are really on our way. But let us not be star-stuck by all of this: sometime, somewhere, we have to start talking about permanency of both tax levels and expenditures because future legislators will certainly move, when the spirit moves them, to muck with whatever is accomplished over the next few years and then we are right back in the soup. I'm out of action tomorrow but we shall return to it next week.
As for the UGH, The Leader, as predicted, got his head handed to him in the opening round over in the Land of the Morning Calm which proved to be anything but. I am constantly amazed by the...I'm looking for a word...oh hell, stupidity of the Talking Heads and the editorial boards in this country who search for a win for this guy when none is available. The fact that he is a badly wounded chief executive seems not to resonate with this mob and the effect this will have in his ability to play power politics with some of his battle-hardened counterparts around the world. He got absolutely stiffed by the Koreans--the Koreans for God's sakes--and got basically zip from the other 18 attendees other than some meaningless pap on how we all have to work together yada, yada, yada. Let's hope it gets better but these boys can smell blood in the water from further away than a Great White and after Nov. 2, there are gobs of it floating about. The Suit co-authored a completely meaningless if not flat unreadable op ed in the WSJ today and the Chairman is under unquitting attack from all sides and deservedly so IMHO for his foray into the world of politics--and make no mistake, that is what this is. I almost feel sorry for the poor guy to have to return home to the report of his hand-picked commission whose results he could never have predicted and fight the howls from his own party who, having just been told on two consecutive days that the "out of Afgan by 2011" pledge is no longer operative and any increases in taxes on the "rich" (to be defined) are off the table, now has figured that the "commission" decided the proper ratio for cuts in spending to new taxes is 75%/25%...and we haven't even gotten to the policy issues yet of what creates jobs and growth, like less regulation. In the old days "The Commission" just used to decide who got wacked and divided up the territory. Easy, but this is worse...this is SERIOUS!
See you next week.
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