Monthly Archives: August 2022

How Republicans are more shrewd than Democrats on tax policy

Who gets tax expenditures?

“For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.” — Jesus, quoted in Luke 16:1-13 NIV Everyone knows the punchline of this joke… Read more »

A fragile lifeline for the IRS

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WGPD Tax Code

I have no great love of the Internal Revenue Service, but the current criticisms from people like Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, who is trying to convince people that that 87,000 IRS agents are headed to Iowa carrying high-lethality weapons have zero basis in reality. Grassley needs to be retired by the voters. However, I am going to tell you how… Read more »

The pithy gospel of Frederick Buechner (1926–2022)

Wishful Thinking

“Whether your faith is that there is a God or that there is not a God, if you don’t have any doubts you are either kidding yourself or asleep. Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.” (Frederick Buechner – Wishful Thinking, p. 79) After two dozen or so house moves, my wife… Read more »

Removing the “magic wand” from civil marriage

George C. Scott questioning Kathryn Grant's cohabiting status in "Anatomy of a Murder."

Same-sex marriage should not be in the news again. But Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion in the recent Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision has clearly invited states, as they did with Roe v. Wade challenges, to challenge their own 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision that enabled same-sex marriages nationwide. Both Justices Thomas and Alito, have recently been… Read more »