Month: March 2003

Yes, Virginia, beginning this fall, you can have your own wallet of rainbow-colored twenties…
The new bills will be introduced on 27 March, and enter circulation in the fall.
(props to Jim)

A six-year-old boy has been suspended for having a plastic knife in his bookbag at school. A plastic knife he obtained in the school cafeteria. As the WSJ’s OpinionJournal states, “No doubt the Struthers [Elementary School] lunch lady will soon be indicted for arms trafficking.”
The six-year-old student wanted to take the plastic knife home to show his mom that he could butter his toast.
Donna Long, the boy’s mother, states that while she was essentially forced to sign a form that Kevin was “showing other students in class [the knife],” the principal never stated that this was the case. Ms. Long also wonders, if her first-grade son was such a threat, why the police weren’t notified.
School administrations need to wake up and smell the reality that not every student is a Colombine waiting to happen.

Asked by Andrew Cuomo to pen an essay for a book on the future of the Democratic Party, Peggy Noonan, former Democrat, has delivered in spades.
This essay is utterly brilliant. I honestly hope the Demos take heed. Really.
I believe we need the Democratic Party to be better than it is, to spur the Republican Party to be better than it is, and vice versa. Kind of like how the computer industry needs Apple to be at the top of its game to push the rest of the industry forward.
Unfortunately, if the Demos are true to form, Noonan will be attacked by leftist whackos who are not interested in honest, constructive criticism.
(major kudos to Rick)

It’s been floating around the ether for a while, but it bears repeating:
Let’s put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand. Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner. The bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh $7.
The eighth $12.
The ninth $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that’s what they decided to do. The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. “Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20.”
So now dinner for the ten only cost $80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about the other six, the paying customers? How could they divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his “fair share?”
The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being “paid” to eat their meal. So the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay. And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead $59 (16% savings).
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. “I only got a dollar out of the $20,” declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth. “But he got $10!”
“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than me!”
“That’s true!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!”
“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison. “We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!” The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore.
(with thanks to Ricky for the email)