This being the Easter/Passover Spring break for Congress, you’d think lawmakers back in… ;
Covered at Reason 24/7: First Family’s Taken Three Vacations So Far This Year
Covered at Reason 24/7: First Family’s Taken
Three Vacations So Far This Year
The White House was shut down for visitors, to save about
$70,000 a week, after the sequester went into effect. The sequester
isn’t austerity, and even if it was, the White House remains far
from austere.
From the Weekly Standard:
In the first three months of the year, members of the
first family have been on three vacations, averaging a vacation a
month. And now it’s being reported that the first daughters are on
a spring break vacation in the Bahamas.
The Obamas began the new year in Hawaii. “President Obama departed
Hawaii this morning for Washington, after spending NINE days
vacationing with family and friends in his native state. Here’s a
quick look at how he spent his vacation,” ;ABC reported on
January 6, 2013.
President Romney would likely be getting skewered by the press
for this.
h/t John
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can e-mail stories to us at 24_7@reason.com and tweet us
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Rand Paul: Give LGBT Americans a flat tax instead of marriage rights
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on Sunday suggested that implementing a flat tax could assuage gay and lesbian Americans who want equal marriage rights because straight marriages would not get a tax break. During an interview on Fox News, host Chris Wallace pointed out that the Supreme Court would be hearing…
Kurt Loder Reviews Spring Breakers and The Incredible Burt Wonderstone
After 20-some years of MTV beach marathons and
another 16 of harder-core Girls Gone Wild sex-and-sand
videos, director Harmony Korine is coming very late to the great
American Spring Break bacchanal with his new movie Spring
Breakers. And you have to wonder why he bothered, writes Kurt
Loder, since he has nothing interesting to say about it—unless you
feel that some foggy noodling about the Dark Side of the seaside
frolics on view is somehow different from the dire warnings that
worried parents have been imparting to their vacation-bound
offspring for many, many years. ;
The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, on the other hand,
passes up any number of opportunities to be much funnier than it
is. Steve Carell and Steve Buscemi are a team of top Las Vegas
magicians—Burt Wonderstone and Anton Marvelton are their
unflinchingly fakey names—who’ve been headlining at a big casino
theater for 10 years. They’re stars on the Strip, but their act has
grown stale, and conflict soon arrives in the person of Steve Gray
(Jim Carrey), a preening street magician who represents a new, more
hard-edged breed of performer. View this article.
… Read More
Republican senator defends tax breaks for corporate jet owners
Republican Sen. Jerry Moran of Kentucky on Thursday defended the so-called “corporate jet loophole,” which provides special tax deductions for the owners of private jets. President Barack Obama has called for the corporate jet tax break and similar deductions, such as those for yacht…
Congress is ravaging the economy all by itself
If you wanted to be (overly) generous in your interpretation of the CBO data out yesterday, you might say that we’re sacrificing the near term for the longer term. That is, we’re accepting lower economic growth rates and higher unemployment now in exchange for lower-budget deficits which will, according to CBO, be better for growth in the future.
Here’s how they frame the issue:
…less fiscal tightening this year would lead to stronger growth in 2013 but, if not accompanied by sufficient additional tightening in later years, would also restrain real output and income in the middle of the decade and beyond owing to higher federal debt.
I must say, though, that I find this all a bit of a muddle. In 2013, according to the budget office, fiscal cuts—both tax increases like the end of the payroll tax break and spending cuts like the sequester (CBO assumes it will be implemented to the tune of $85 billion in cuts starting next month)—are cutting the economy’s growth rate pretty much in half, from a bit below 3% to 1.4%.
‘Smash’ Premiere: Jennifer Hudson Plays A Mentor Role On The Drastically Revamped Series (VIDEO)
After a long break, “Smash” returned with a two-hour premiere that went out of its way to emphasize how much it had changed since the first season. Julia’s husband drama was jettisoned, along with the husband — she moved in with Tom! — and she finally let go of those scarves.
The most interesting change was in the dynamic between Karen and Ivy. With “Bombshell” experiencing a run in Boston to work out some kinks, Karen started getting some good press in the lead. Suddenly, she’s a known commodity while Ivy has become the veritable nobody lost in her shadow.
The flashiest addition to the show is Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson. She plays a Tony-winning Broadway star who serves a sort of mentor role for Karen as she gets ready to take “Bombshell” to Broadway. Of course, there are some major hurdles to get through first, like some legal trouble Eileen has found herself in regarding the financing of the musical.
