Posted on 07/05/2007 3:10:42 PM PDT by Cincinna
The country is at a crossroads, a different kind of place from where we've been before. The special interests seem more reactionary and entrenched than ever, the bureaucracies much larger. We need to marshal the courage to change, and we need to understand what needs changing.
Two books guide my thoughts these days. One is " Testimony: France in the Twenty-First Century," by the new French president, Nicolas Sarkozy. The second is American: " The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression," by Amity Shlaes. Together they form a map for the crossroads.
Start with the will to change. Most American politicians have lost that. Or, if they have it, they are hostage to advisers who don't have the will to change.
France has a reputation as a country averse to change. But President Sarkozy translated his general exhortation about the need to change and the importance of work into a simple and direct policy proposal: All overtime will be tax-free.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Bush’s Ancestors by SEAN WILENTZ
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1503240/posts
“Shlaes’s book is historical — she is a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. But the implication for today is that the interest groups are the problem.”
That’s an interesting sentence. Historical -CFR- interest group.
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