Look, I know, it’s bad form to kill two birds with one stone by combining Lenten sacrifice with weight loss, and I already griped about the joy that some Catholics take in telling everyone else that they should be doing positive things like prayer rather than giving things up. But at the same time, here’s my experience: For most of my life, I haven’t had any problems with my weight; I’m not especially thin but have been somewhere in the... Read more
Everyone seems to think that the Lee/Rubio tax plan is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and I think it’s all rather silly. No capital gains tax? Immediate expensing of capital purchases for businesses? Two brackets, with a big jump between them? A gimmicky rationale for a child tax credit? No thank you. Here’s what I’d do instead: Basic tax rates Income to $10,000 0% to $30,000 ... Read more
Too many open browser windows, so it’s time so share some of the links that I’ve been accumulating. From the Center for Retirement Research, a briefing on the retirement age. Despite Americans’ general lack of preparedness for retirement, the retirement age, after a significant trend of increasing, has leveled off over the last decade, at about 62 for women and 64 for men. From Slate, an article pushing back on the notion that the solution to one’s lack of preparedness... Read more
I said yesterday that I didn’t find it persuasive that parents pay a “penalty” in the tax code that needs to be compensated for, though, I should add, I’m all for per-person exemptions that truly reflect basic living costs, so that one pays taxes only on one’s “disposable” income, defined fairly sensibly. But the bigger question remains that I haven’t addressed: are parents engaged in service to society for which they should be compensated in some manner? Should parents receive... Read more
Senators Mike Lee and Marco Rubio have a piece in the Wall Street Journal today previewing their tax plan proposal, which they will formally unveil tomorrow. But I’m going to get a start on commenting on it now, even without the full details, because, well, I’m just impatient, I guess. I commented on their proposal for an increase in the per-child tax credit earlier this evening while my youngest son was practicing the piano; now he’s tucked into bed and... Read more
which is, apparently, the new terminology that supporters of an increased per-child tax credit are promoting, per a National Review article on a forthcoming “tax reform” plan. (And, yes, I’ve put “tax reform” in quotes because I hesitate to apply that label to any given set of tax changes, regardless of whether they improve the system or just favor a particular set of constituents.) Now, if you google “parent penalty” you’ll see that it was the subject of a... Read more
A week ago, I wrote about a house liturgy I had the privilege to attend, and contemplated my experiences with good, moving liturgy, observing that I’m pretty lousy about praying and that it’s the community prayer of liturgy where I can truly feel prayerful –that is, when I’m surrounded by people who are praying along with me, in song, rather than looking at their watches, waiting for their Sunday Obligation to be over. I’d been mulling this over since then.... Read more
That’s the unexpected data point from a Brookings study, as linked to by the Washington Examiner, which itself was linked to by Instapundit. The study is both poorly-reasoned and morally stunted, which I’ll get to shortly, after a look at their data itself. The study assembles various survey data, from the National Survey of Family Growth, To begin with, pregnancy rates are higher for poor single women than the better-0ff: 9.0% of single women, ages 15 – 44, with incomes below... Read more
It’s pervasive, really. Every time you read of someone joining the extremist Islamists, either by going to Syria to fight with ISIS (or to provide material support, in the case of young women), or by supporting them at home, we hear the same impression: so-and-so “was radicalized” or “became radicalized.” It implies that an outside force did this: “he was radicalized by an imam on the internet,” for instance, or by some particular figure, or glossy ISIS propaganda, or, in... Read more
Back a couple weeks ago, President Obama was in town to declare the Pullman Historic District a National Monument. And a couple days ago, Tribune columnist Ron Grossman wrote a great piece, “History mugged in recent Pullman coverage,” the gist of which is that the history of that site is being grossly misrepresented by Obama, the media, and the site’s cheerleaders in general. The site is, as you may know from your history books, the location of the former company... Read more
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