If you feel like you’re stuck on the down escalator financially, no matter how hard you try to get ahead, it may be because you actually are. Even though workers are producing more, inflation-adjusted median family income has dropped 2.6 percent — or nearly $1,000 annually since 2000, the Washington Post reported. The main reason is that rising health care costs are causing many businesses to limit wage increases and to pass more costs on to workers.
“I give myself some credit for managing to get the Clinton and Obama campaigns to agree on something — that neither wanted to be associated with my remarks,” James Carville (in photo)  joked in a commentary defending his comparison of Bill Richardson to Judas Iscariot. Carville said Richardson’s disloyalty deserved the insult, and that Democrats should be tough enough to take it. “If Richardson was going to turn on the Clintons the way he did, I see no problem in saying what I said,” he wrote. “Because if loyalty is one virtue, another is straight talk. And if Democrats can’t handle that, they’re going to have a hard time handling a Republican nominee who is seeking the presidency with that as his slogan.”
Here’s another cost of the war in Iraq: The Bush administration’s bullying of our allies and their diplomats created lasting “bitterness†and “deep mistrust,†according to a new book by Heraldo Munoz, Chile’s ambassador to the United Nations. Munoz claims that the administration threatened trade reprisals against friendly countries that withheld their support for the U.N. resolution on Iraq, spied on U.S. allies, and pressed for the recall of U.N. envoys who resisted U.S. pressure to endorse the war, the Washington Post reported.
“In the aftermath of the invasion, allies loyal to the United States were rejected, mocked and even punished†for not backing the U.N. resolution, Munoz wrote. But after the war started to fall apart, the administration needed some of those same allies to come to its aid.
Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, told an El Dorado audience recently that a physical fence has yet to be built on the southern border because of “technical problems†but also because of lawsuits, primarily brought by organizations concerned about endangered species’ migration patterns. He also said: “One of the things we look at is what damage is caused by illegal immigrants coming through the national park system. They have a huge environmental impact. We find abandoned cars, a lot of trash. We spend millions of dollars every year just cleaning up after illegals coming through here, and we can’t build a fence because of the lawsuits. It’s a really frustrating experience.â€
Congratulations to Don Bennett of Arkansas City, this week’s caption contest winner. Here are some of the others:
Karen Jerman of Wichita: “Now that is what I call splitting hares!â€
Karen Wallace of Wichita: “Talk about road rage!†and also “Give me a call at 3:00 in the morning. . . .â€
Richard Hopper of Derby: “Looks like the Dems are having a bad-hare day!â€
Cliff Jayne of Wichita: “Where did I park my Airbus?â€
Richard Julius of Belle Plaine: “March Madness! It’s fun to watch!â€
Janet Cook of Wichita: “100 years right here!â€
And this fine entry, which came in after the deadline so was disqualified, from Travis Metcalf: “There you go, Hillary! Give him that Wright hook!â€
Inventors, start your engines: There’s a $10 million award for the first person to build a commercially viable car that gets at least 100 mpg.
The prize is being offered by the X Prize Foundation, which offered a similar contest a few years ago for the first private group to send a human into space. The Automotive X Prize already has attracted 60 teams from 10 countries — although none of the major car companies has entered.
Among the entrants is Wichita’s own Johnathan Goodwin, who plans to enter a 1959 Lincoln Continental owned by rocker Neil Young that he’s retrofitting with an electric biodiesel hybrid engine. I wrote a profile of him awhile back.
It will be fascinating to see the finalists when they’re tested late next year. Here’s hoping Goodwin’s “Linc Volt†takes the prize.
Gov. Kathleen Sebelius “put up a sign that reads: ‘Kansas closed for business.’†— House Speaker Melvin Neufeld, R-Ingalls, on the governor’s veto of a bill allowing two coal-fired power plants
“You hang a sign up that says ‘Kansas: closed for business’ when you pass bills like this.†— Sen. Karin Brownlee, R-Olathe, on the toughest proposals to penalize businesses that hire illegal workers
If you feel like you’re stuck on the down escalator financially, no matter how hard you try to get ahead, it may be because you actually are. Even though workers are producing more, inflation-adjusted median family income has dropped 2.6 percent — or nearly $1,000 annually since 2000, the Washington Post reported. The main reason is that rising health care costs are causing many businesses to limit wage increases and to pass more costs on to workers.
