Columnist.
The conventional wisdom among the geniuses who are paid to tell us what to think about and how to think about it has been that the National Rifle Association's Wayne LaPierre had lost his mind when he proclaimed, after the tragedy in Connecticut, that the way to stop a bad guy with a guy is with a good guy with a gun. LaPierre went on to suggest that schools hire armed guards to protect the children against some nut showing up with a weapon and an agenda. The popular press and the social elite went bat -- well, they disagreed.
The big hoo-hah over taxes we had to suffer through last month had to do with income tax rates and some specialty items that largely attached to corporations. As you may know if you've ever made the mistake of saying "about half of those who work pay no taxes at all" in front of a Liberal, everyone who shops pays sales taxes, everyone who drives pays gasoline taxes, and everyone who works pays ... payroll taxes. Payroll taxes, as the term is typically used, are those you pay into the Social Security system (officially known as *Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance* and Medicare (officially known as Medicare's *Hospital Insurance* program -- Part A). Taken together, these are known as "FICA" taxes for the Federal Insurance Contributions Act that authorized them.
Earlier this week I was whining about having what I declared to be "the fluh" which was the flu without the fever. I am over it. But, the flu -- the real flu -- is on a tear and this year may be the worst for "seasonal flu" in more than a decade. Yesterday the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta has upped the ante and announced that this flu season is starting earlier, the virus is infecting more people, and this year's main strain (H3N2) may kill as many as 50,000 in the United States. Let's do that again. As many as 50,000 people may die from the flu this year in the United States. It would be better if you were not one of them.
I was not surprised by the number of readers who emailed to wish me a speedy recovery from my very, very tough case of the fluh. I have the best readers since Gutenberg. Thank you each and every one. I was a little surprised by the number of readers who sent in cures for the fluh, many of which included things like flying to Bali and looking for the little bush just to the left of the tree at the entrance to the Hilton resort; picking only the ripe brown berries; boiling them in concert with the fruit of a tree that only grows in Nepal for exactly 37 seconds, draining it through a cloth tatted by a Scottish maiden, and drinking it all in one gulp.
I am good about getting my shots. At my advanced age I was supposed to get a pneumonia shot and a shingles shot, so I got them. I also got a flu shot. I didn't get a flu shot in Tanzania or Kenya. I got it at my Doc's office on K Street so I can only assume it was full strength. Next year, I'm going to ask for super strength, because if I don't have the flu, I have a really, really bad cold. I am generally pretty healthy. Other than the occasional cardiac bypass surgery and a minor hernia procedure, I mostly stay out of hospitals and only go to the myriad of specialists as is warranted by my advancing age.
In the deep dark days of 1994, I was out of politics. I was actually running the Middle East for the company then known as EDS out of Dallas. In the Fall of that year, I got a call from my good friend Joe Gaylord -- Newt Gingrich's political guru -- asking me to fly into Atlanta for election night because they were certain they were going to take control of the U.S. House for the first time in 40 years and Newt wanted me to come in and help oversee the press operation. I was in Abu Dhabi or Qatar or somewhere, but flew in and, indeed I was there for election night. It was well after midnight when the 218th Congressional District was officially called for the GOP and Republicans would, for the first time since Eisenhower's first election, be in the majority in the U.S. House.
New Year's day 2013. Football games? No. Parades? No. Hangover cure? No. I spent the entire day watching the Chasing Classic Cars marathon on USA as background noise while focused on Twitter following the U.S. House Republicans wringing their hands over what to do about the Senate-passed bill to crawl back up the fiscal cliff. Without getting into the weeds about things like (according to CNN.com) extending the excise tax carry-over on rum produced in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands; a federal tax of which most is paid back to the islands, the big talking point in the Senate bill is increasing the income level on which Federal income tax rates will rise from the President's long-held position of $250,000 for a married couple filing jointly to $450,000 for couples.
**Editor's Note:** This is an edited version of the column from Christmas 2003 which was written from Tikrit and Baghdad. At the time, according to the Congressional Research Service, there were 130,600 U.S. troops in Iraq alone when this was written. This Christmas, most of them are home. But, as we close 2012 we still have American 174,000 military personnel plus tens of thousands of American civilians stationed in almost every country of the world. They won't be home for Christmas this week. Let's not forget they are still out there. On post.
Boy, I'm good. I finished Wednesday's column with, "Plan B might not pass, but Plan C or D, or Q will find its way to the floors of the two Chambers before December 31 and will pass." Plan B is not going to pass as last night the House Republican Conference ...
We're now within 10 legislative days 'til the Fiscal Cliff -- assuming the Members won't be decking the Halls of Congress with boughs of holly on Christmas Eve and Day. There is movement in the positions coming from either end of Pennsylvania Avenue. The President campaigned successfully on the idea of raising taxes on the wealthy -- with the wealthy being defined as any family earning $250,000 or more annually. This is an untenable position with many union workers as with most government employees -- two huge portions of President Obama's coalition. In the modern era of two working adults in a typical household, that $250,000 threshold isn't as lofty in major cities like Our Nation's Capital as it might be in places like Marietta, Ohio 45750.
There is nothing good about the Newtown, Connecticut shootings. President Obama said what I thought my President should have said and the way I wanted my president to have said it in his remarks there last night. I am no longer worried about my son. But my son is worried about his two little girls. They are not yet old enough for school, but sending a seven-year-old to school should not be a cause to worry all day that he or she will come home safely. Unfortunately, the level of untimely deaths in America may lead those who are, at a minimum misguided, and at a maximum mentally unstable, to believe that violence is an acceptable way to show one's unhappiness.
Article II, Section 2, paragraph 2 of the U.S. Constitution: >[The President] ... **shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors** ... One of the officials that requires Senate confirmation is the United States' Permanent Representative to the United Nations. As this person generally holds Ambassadorial rank the common shorthand is Ambassador to the U.N. The person who currently holds that position is Susan E. Rice. Ambassador Rice was, as we say, "floated" as the next Secretary of State when the current Secretary, Hillary Clinton resigns -- perhaps to prepare to deliver the next Jefferson-Jackson Day speech in Des Moines.
I've got nothing for today. DO NOT READ THIS. If you've been awake for anything more than 13 minutes, some toothy, giggly anchor dressed in a sleeveless dress on your local news channel has already told you that today is 12-12-12 and he then added that the next time there can be three numbers the same in a date will be January 1, 2101. Of course, there won't BE an 01-01-01 because why? Because the end of days is 12-21-12 which is almost a palindrome. More to the point, it is also my 66th birthday.
Here's how you know a country has been around for a while. When BBC.com's "Timeline" starts at 7000 BC with "Settlement of Nile Valley begins." For the next 9,000 years, it's mostly downhill from there...
I am in desperately searching for something to write about that doesn't include the words "fiscal cliff." Maybe we'll just cruise around the net and see what catches our attention. Here's one. Remember that unbelievable photo of the 13-year-old Afghan girl who was on the cover of National Geographic in 1985? It was taken by Steve McCurry. If you're old enough, you do. If you're not, it's worth looking at. The National Geographic folks recently auctioned off much of its photo library and that particular picture sold for $178,900.
It is now likely that a deal will not be reached between now and December 31 to avoid the fiscal cliff. Before you become an economic prepper and start stocking up on canned goods and extra Tequila, remember I also thought Mitt Romney would win the election. If we do tumble over, the automatic sequester -- spending cuts -- kick in and everyone is looking for the worst-case scenario of what services will be lost to old folks, young folks, sick folks, and all the other folks in the United States. As an example, in a Fresno Bee piece titled, "Automatic Cuts would hit California Hard," reporter Michael Doyle writes, "California is projected to lose $27 million in Community Development Block Grant funds ... a sizable chunk from a program that in recent years has funded better storm drains in Fresno County."
With the Redskins playing the Monday night game and the National's still not having made a deal with their 1st baseman, Adam LaRoche, there's not much to think about here in Our Nation's Capital other than that pesky fiscal cliff. Depending on what comes up in your Google search for "What will be the effect on GDP of the fiscal cliff" you get answers ranging from a drop of about 1.4 percent (NASDAQ) up to four percent (Washington Post). Most of the guesses fall in the 3 -- 3.5 percent range.
The good news about coming to the end of November is that we will soon embark on December meaning the clock will be clicking toward January by which time the Fiscal Cliff business will dealt with. Until the long scythe of the grim reaper signals the looming end of 2012, the parties to a potential solution will spend as much time posturing in public as parleying in private. I gotta tell you. I don't understand all this anyway. I know my taxes are going up next year -- one way or another. My rates will rise, my deductions will fall, or both. I'm not happy about that, but I've come to accept it.
Now that the biggest parlor game in the world "Who will be the next President" is over, the next parlor game that has us obsessing here in Our Nation's Capital is: Who is in and who is out in President Obama's second-term Cabinet and senior White House staff? Putting together the senior team for a second terms are far different from the first term. Typically -- unless the incoming President has been the VP -- no one has a clue as to where they're going and how they're going to get there. Oh, there are professional members of the Transition Team who have served in previous Administrations, but the boss is likely to be overwhelmed with the number of decisions that have to be made in the relatively few weeks between election day in early November and Inauguration Day on January 20.
Much was made over the weekend about cracks in Grover Norquist's "No Tax Pledge" dam by Rep. Peter King and Senators Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and Saxby Chambliss (R-GA). Before we go on, we all know there IS such a thing as the "No Tax Pledge," but until last night as I was writing this, I had never actually read it.
