FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- You'd think that a state knocked cold by the real-estate meltdown would invest in a future not based on housing bubbles. And that if the feds dangled a bag of money to help it address a serious economic drag -- a gridlocked highway system that turns off tourists, retirees and business travelers -- you'd think the state would grab it.
Are conservatives right that our government has become overbearing? Is it true that the rights of the individual, enshrined at the dawn of the Republic and cried over by Glenn Beck, are being smashed by the modern state?
When it comes to my sanity, the tea party often taketh away. I go nuts when they throw out huge sums to cut from budgets without getting into details.
Eighteen years ago, "midnight basketball" was the big har-har-har on the conservative talk circuit. It was a federal program that sought to coax young men off the late-night mean city streets and onto supervised basketball courts.
Not long ago, Republicans mounted their high horse over Charlie Rangel's ethical lapses. They had a right to. Among other questionable conduct, Rangel had solicited charitable donations from executives with business before the House Ways and Means Committee, which the New York Democrat chaired.
A wall of water now rules our freak-of-nature nightmares. Like the whirling funnel that drops down from the sky, it gives scant warning. But unlike a tornado, it devastates wide swathes of civilization, and there's no tsunami equivalent of a tornado cellar for sitting out the violent weather.
Someone is missing at the celebration for the Utah Compact on immigration. Who could that be?
Before we take an ax to the federal budget, let's try a scalpel. Many things done in one federal department or agency are also done in others, according to a new Government Accountability Office study. Even wonderful programs don't get better in the duplicate, triplicate or quadruplicate. By locating and excising them, taxpayers could save billions, the GAO suggests, with minimal loss of government services.
Too bad the showdown with public employee unions has come to this, however long in the making. One can be pro-union and still feel a growing resentment at these workers' ability to set their own dream retirement benefits as the private sector's were being amputated. Not that they are to blame. They got what they could -- it's the American way -- though they overplayed their hand by resisting honest efforts to reform government, schools above all.
Though I deem myself a sort-of liberal, I don't closely read the left-wing magazine The Nation. Its views don't budge for decades at a time, so one can get by just checking in now and then.
In politics, simple phrases can hide complex agendas. The budget debate offers the perfect stage for mouthing "home truths" that are not quite true. Let's air a few examples.
As a rationale for invading Iraq, then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said: "The people of the Middle East share the desire for freedom. We have an opportunity -- and an obligation -- to help them turn this desire into reality."
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- The ice, snow and sleet that paralyzed American aviation last week forced upon me two extra days in tropical Puerto Rico. Somehow I managed. And so did the legions of other Americans and Canadians sharing stories of canceled flights as they contentedly drank cafe con leche in the warm sun of Plaza de Colon.
One of the more disagreeable traits of many tea party "spokespeople," aside from their loose connection with facts, is their zest for threatening Republicans who don't leap when they say "jump."
Billy the Kid was a psycho. It took the balm of time and multiple retelling of Old West sagas to turn this killing machine into a folk figure. You may recall former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson's causing a fuss when he considered granting the little monster a posthumous pardon. Among the Kid's many victims were officers of the law. Richardson wisely decided to take a pass.
A few years ago, baby boomers needed 3-D glasses to take in the gorgeous vision of their decades to come. Books and articles foresaw baby boomers skipping off into a "Second Adolescence" of self-fulfillment. No longer chained to the 9-to-5 and still healthy, the newly "retired" would follow their muse. The future was theirs, despite all that gray hair (or gray roots).
Like me, you may be wondering why 96,000 California state workers were given cell phones courtesy of the taxpayers. For, like me, you probably use a cell phone in the course of your work. And we know that if we asked our employers to pay for it, the answer would be N-O.
My eyes are dry as I ponder Joe Lieberman's decision to not seek re-election. Voices on the right regard Connecticut's independent senator as a victim of left-wing intolerance. I see him as a sanctimonious hypocrite, political opportunist and double-crosser. Guess I don't like him.
In the typical economic downturn, Americans thrown out of work make a deal with Euthenia, the Greek goddess of prosperity. They say (in their heads): We will get through this. We'll move in with family, find any part-time job. All we want is an assurance that good times will eventually return for hardworking people like us.
House Speaker John Boehner seemed truly appalled by the murderous rampage against Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and constituents at a supermarket in her Tucson, Ariz., district. But the Republican's contention that this was "an attack on all who serve" wasn't quite right.
