Brian Gongol
How in the world did CNN manage to host a debate among the Republican Presidential candidates this past week during which the words "Social Security" weren't mentioned even once? The word "Medicare" was uttered only once -- which is a horrible, horrible commentary on our political process. The GAO just reported that taxes will have to rise by 50% in ten years if we don't do something immediately about Medicare and Medicaid. As I said earlier this week,
"Forget the border. Forget terrorism. Forget global warming and high petroleum prices. Unless this situation is wrestled to the ground, the government won't be able to deal with anything else."The new logo for the 2012 Olympics in London look like some bad flashback to the "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air." Take a look at some of the "make-your-own" designs submitted by the public. Even the worst examples don't look much more awful than the real logo, and some of the public contributions are actually much better than the official one.
An ISU study says that most of the decline in retail spending in parts of the Des Moines metro is simply a shift in spending to the Jordan Creek area. That's not unrelated to the campaign in favor of Project Destiny, which is a proposal to raise sales taxes in the metro area, in part to put more money into local attractions. I have not been convinced that Project Destiny satisfies my usual test for worthwhile public spending. And given just how bad the state's fiscal condition is already, and just how bad the Federal spending problem is (see above), it just doesn't seem like the right time to be raising local sales taxes, too.
Keywords in this show:
CNN •
Des Moines •
Federal spending •
GAO •
graphic design •
Iowa State University •
logos •
Medicare •
Olympics •
Presidential candidates •
Project Destiny •
retail spending •
sales taxes •
Social Security •
taxes