According to legend, the 11th century King of England once rebuked his fawning courtiers by ordering the tide to stop in its course and not wet his robe and feet. Of course the sea didn’t stop, and the royal tootsies were soaked. By this, the King reminded his nobles there was a power greater than his, against which all the royal authority at his command was impotent.
The current deficit of the United States -the difference between the federal government’s expenditures and its revenues- is roughly 1.3 trillion dollars, according to the Department of Commerce. That’s how much the government has to borrow in order to finance crucial services, such as Barbara Boxer’s research trips. Members of the Statist Democratic Party tell us that the only way to close this deficit is to raise taxes, whether through higher levies on “the rich” (the definition of which is rather broad) or some form of a value-added tax on top of everything else, or a combination of both.
They aren’t the only ones. Via MSN’s Money page:
It’s annoying enough to have the government force employers to withhold money from one’s paycheck, but the new government in the UK wants to take it one step further. Under a new proposal, employers will send employees’ paychecks to the government, first. Then, when they’re done with it, the government will give what’s left to the employee:
A Q & A session President Obama participated in earlier today took a decidedly negative turn that I doubt our celebrity President was expecting:
