This seems to be the message from John Tamny: Majority Leader Bill Frist (R., Tenn.) has promised to hold a vote on the estate tax as soon as possible. Those presently suffering in Louisiana and Mississippi should hope he does, and that the Republicans also have the courage to make permanent the 2003 Bush tax […]

The SEC has rejected an approach to value employee stock options (ESO) proposed by Cisco Systems: Securities and Exchange Commission Chief Accountant Donald Nicolaisen is expected to reject Cisco’s Systems … The option valuation question is pressing because large U.S.-listed companies, under a new accounting rule, in fiscal years begun after June 15 had to […]

This from Kos… and just too funny for me to pass up. Jon Stewart: The president has vowed to personally lead the investigation into the government’s failed response to Katrina? Isn’t that a job perhaps someone else should be doing? Samantha Bee: No, not at all, Jon. To truly find out what went wrong, it’s […]

The Economist has noted for a couple of years now that the surge in house prices in the US is not a national phenomenon, but rather an international one. In fact, several countries started a dramatic run-up in house prices before the US, and rose further and faster. In particular, Great Britain, Ireland, Australia, New […]

Colin Powell struck me as a decent, principled, and extremely thoughtful man before his years in the Bush administration. Actually, even in the first half of the Bush administration I definitely had the sense that he provided a rare voice of reason and statesmanship in an administration by-and-large driven by domestic politics and ideology. For […]

Brad Plumer notes how the GOP wants to pay for the Katrina relief and not raises taxes now or in the future on wealth folks: It’s an old business myth that the Chinese character for “crisis” combines the characters for “danger” and “opportunity.” It doesn’t. But I’m not sure anyone’s told the Bush administration, judging […]

Does Howard Fineman have even the most remote understanding of the issues surrounding the Katrina disaster? But Hurricane Katrina has thrown Hillary’s caution to the wind: she’s decided to made a federal case out of this one. Fineman is trying to say that the former First Lady was playing politics with this disaster. Maybe a […]

Ariana Huffington deserves a lot of praise as she notes: So the White House is for time management and against “finger-pointing” — a two-talking-points-for-the-price-of-one She continues by nailing Michael Chertoff. But finger pointing and shifting blame is the White House game as played over at the National Review. Blame local authorities, blame liberals but don’t […]

Edmund Andrews of the NYTimes writes about the impact that Katrina will have on Bush’s economic agenda. With estimates from Washington yesterday that Katrina may cost the federal government $100 billion or more, the fiscal picture certainly does look a bit darker than it did just two weeks ago. Assuming that about $75 billion of […]

I realize that this story is getting good play already, but I’m so stunned that I have to repeat it here. From yesterday’s Salt Lake Tribune: ATLANTA – Not long after some 1,000 firefighters sat down for eight hours of training, the whispering began: “What are we doing here?” As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin […]