Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

The Billings Gazette   is reporting that “Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, was romantically involved with a former staffer when he recommended her earlier this year to become the next U.S. attorney for Montana…” Baucus, a major proponant of health care legislation, and his former state director, Melodee Hanes, began their relationship, according to the paper, in the summer of 2008 after Baucus separated from his wife. Baucus submitted Hanes’ name, along with five others, to a third party reviewer who submitted three names, including Hanes’, to the White House. President Barack Obama, possibly forewarned, chose Mike Cotter rather than Baucus’s girl friend for the position, which will supervise the prosecution of federal crimes committed in Montanba and its seven Indian reservations. Roll Call, a Washington DC publication, reported that the Baucus-Hanes relationship nvegan in the summer of 2008, almost a year Baucus and his wife, Wanda, were di...

Milton Friedman in " Free To Choose " says that 46 percent of our country (in terms of corporate enterprise) is socialist. He said it in a 10-part TV series on Public Broadcasting Service in 1980, made into a book, "Free To Choose" (1979). It defines the role that government should play in a free market. Uncertainties and unresolved problems flood the media. Most prominent at the moment is health-care insurance, and most prominent within it is Public Option and President Obama’s oft-repeated statement that the Medicare account must be deficit-neutral. Tremendous efforts are being made to add taxes (some of which may fall upon those earning less than $250,000, breaking an Obama promise). The House Democrat bill adds a surtax of 5.29 percent on incomes above $500,000 for individuals and $1 million for married couples. . The Senate Finance bill proposes to tax at 40 percent luxurious health-care policies, if they exceed $8,000 per person and $21,000 per family. Ef...