Reason.com has a spoof video of Chrysler’s “Halftime in America” Super Bowl ad. The narrator, in a raspy Clint Eastwood impersonation, says: “People are out of work and they’re hurting. And they’re wondering where all their money went. Well, $12.5 billion of it went to Chrysler. In the form of a bailout. But it’s OK, because Chrysler is all-American. Though, technically, 58.5 percent of Chrysler is owned by an Italian corporation. And Chrysler manufactures many of its vehicles in Canada. And Mexico. But I guess that doesn’t make for a great commercial.”
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach said that the anti-immigration law he crafted has increased Alabama’s reputation around the country. “There are many legislators in other states that are saying, you know, ‘They’ve really done something great,’” he told the public radio show “This American Life.” But an editorial by the Mobile, Ala., Press-Register complained that “such comments could only come from someone who has no real ties to Alabama but who wants to use the state as a guinea pig for his own personal gain.” The editorial said that the law “has embarrassed the governor, discouraged industry, scared legal immigrants and, according to a recent report, been a drag on the state economy it was supposed to help.”
Though he is OK with higher taxes on the wealthy, noting that the top capital-gains rate was 28 percent under President Reagan and “the economy did fine,” columnist Robert J. Samuelson argued that a “Buffett Tax,” named after billionaire Warren Buffett, wouldn’t make much of a dent in the federal deficit. “In September, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the 10-year deficit at $8.5 trillion,” Samuelson wrote. “The nonpartisan Tax Foundation estimates that a Buffett Tax might now raise $40 billion annually.” Though every bit helps, the debate is mostly a political distraction from the real work needed to create jobs and significantly reduce the deficit, Samuelson argued.
Reason.com has a spoof video of Chrysler’s “Halftime in America” Super Bowl ad. The narrator, in a raspy Clint Eastwood impersonation, says: “People are out of work and they’re hurting. And they’re wondering where all their money went. Well, $12.5 billion of it went to Chrysler. In the form of a bailout. But it’s OK, because Chrysler is all-American. Though, technically, 58.5 percent of Chrysler is owned by an Italian corporation. And Chrysler manufactures many of its vehicles in Canada. And Mexico. But I guess that doesn’t make for a great commercial.”
