Free Republic

Investors Fleeing GOP Investors at all income levels are increasingly turning away from the Republican Party, endangering the GOP's hold on power. According to pollsters, 35 percent of voters belong to the "investor class," which includes not only wealthy individuals but also union members, mutual fund holders and a growing number of minority-group Americans. They comprise a group that helped put Republicans in power "but now seems restless," Business Week reports. President Bush got the votes of 61 percent of investors in 2004, but now only 43 percent give him a favorable job approval rating, according to a recent Zogby...

A friend who works for the Service Employees International Union called the other day to alert me to a Web site her union has launched with the intriguing name SinceSlicedBread.com. The union, which broke away from the AFL-CIO in July to pursue its own liberal agenda, has invited the public to submit ideas for policy innovations that might fuel productive political debate. As this column was being written, the Web site had logged 9,053 entries. After Dec. 5, a panel of judges will pick 21 finalists and the public will be invited to vote on the one it likes best....

<p>After all the gnashing of teeth, it turns out consumers turned in a positive performance during the holiday season. Retail sales increased more than 1 percent in December, yielding a near 5 percent pace over the past year.</p> <p>Consumer spending has been the backbone of our economy for the last two years. In that time, it has grown at about a 3 percent rate, despite the stock market collapse and the deep business-and-profits recession. This is a solid consumer performance — yet once again Democrats mistakenly insist on giving consumers a quick one-shot of adrenaline via temporary tax rebates. Wrong ailment, wrong cure.</p>