Now Rush is in on the act. Does Bush think that Tony Kushner is going to vote Republican now that the NEA is getting more money? Or is this purely a favor to Laura and a tribute to the great work Dana Gioia has been doing? Who knows? All I know is that the Bushies seem to have lost their political touch to a worrying degree. But this quote is worth passing on:
There is not even the smallest thing “conservative” about tax cuts and spending increases as far as the eye can see. Republicans who pretend otherwise are selling a “free lunch” that wastes wealth, decapitalizes the country and burdens the next generation with a massive negative compound interest problem. All that is being done is a con job on public in which the people are fooled into thinking they and the country are wealthier than they really are – and that govenment goodies are a costless “free lunch”. Well, there is no free lunch. The classic “unseen” cost of this “free lunch” shell game is the cost which will be borne by later generations who will be burdened with the massive weight of government debt, rather than advantaged by the wealth stream made possibly by private sector capital goods investment.
My feelings entirely.
A KURTZ PARALLEL: A Reason reader comes up with an identical form of argument to the one Stanley Kurtz deploys in his recent Weekly Standard article. It’s worth throwing into the debate:
The rate of interracial marriage in the United States has boomed during the last thirty years. Over the same time period, rates of divorce and premarital sex have climbed, and marriage rates have dropped, abortion has surged, and the number of children born per couple has declined. Ergo interracial marriage is to blame for divorce, promiscuity, abortion, low rates of childbirth and the decline of marriage.
Of course! And if you had the existing prejudice against inter-racial marriage, you’d overlook the fact that no causation has been proved at all.
The Dish 