Happy 4th!

It's the 4th of July, a day to bask in the sun, grill, eat macaroni salad and watermelon, drink a few cold ones, relax with family and friends and blast some low level explosives off (a tradition Hartfordites solemnly observe nightly from Memorial Day to Labor Day.) And while these days being in America might not be what it has been at times, it's still not all that bad of a proposition. Seriously, have you ever tried to keep up with a fantasy baseball league while living on Greenwich Mean Time?

Another great feature about being American is everyone is so sure that their political party has the only right ideas and that only their parties policies will be able to achieve those goals. Many are so sure of it and wrap their identity so deeply in it that any deviation of thought is met with venom. How many times have you seen self-identified "liberal people lovers" turn and spew visceral hate lest anyone question any part of their agenda.

Recently we were reading The Passage of Power, Volume IV in Robert E. Caro's stunning work on Lyndon Johnson. It's about as good and as thorough of a biography that's ever been written. In late 1963 Johnson, having just ascended to the Presidency after SPOILER ALERT.....



President Kennedy's assassination, desperately need to get the budget passed, we read this most fascinating paragraph about the quandary he faced:

"[The budget] was a key battlefield in the war between liberals and conservatives. Liberals wanted a larger role for government, wanted bigger, and new, government social welfare programs and therefore a larger budget. They believed the $11 billion tax cut would, by putting more money into people's pockets, stimulate the economy and thereby increase tax revenues, and the money the government would have for these programs. Conservatives, uneasy about an expansion in government's role and about the proposed new programs, were opposed to the deficits that would be produced by the higher spending, and believed the deficits would be increased by the tax cuts."

Hmmm. Well that's interesting.

Ehhhhhhhh......Who really wants to question things anyway? It's a holiday. Just return to your drink and fully supporting the flawless agenda of whichever great leader you have chosen to worship.

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