Life, Death, And Taxes

My St. John's friend and the founding treasurer of St. John's School, Bruce Hughes, shown here with Lisa at son Scott's June wedding, wrote to the Orange County Register about one of the recommendations of the bipartisan debt commission:

I am happy to hear that our government’s debt commission is finally trying to be fiscally responsible and rein in our national debt by reducing our payments from Social Security and Medicare. After all, no one guaranteed these people that they would actually collect from the taxes that they paid for 40 or 50 years. They were also told that this government pittance would not be enough to support them through their elderly years and they would need to supplement this pension. As such, they should all have some savings in the bank. Maybe we can tax this money, too.

The more I consider this proposal, the angrier I get. Our Washington elected politicians can retire at any age after 20 years of service while receiving 80 percent of their full salary. Public employees can retire after 25 years of service at any age with near full salary benefits. This proposal is creating an elite group who can stop working at an early age, with near full salaries and all the rest of us who will be like cattle led to slaughter.

The rest of us must continue to work until we die and pay taxes to support the public employees and politicians. If this deficit commission wants change, let’s make the system equal. That will be a major change.

Halloweiners

Our St. John's friends Bruce and Lisa Hughes moved into their first house in Coto de Caza a day or two before Halloween over 20 years ago. When some of their kids showed up expecting to be fed, as children will, Lisa cracked some Hormel chili and Bruce grilled some hot dogs, because that's what was around. It's been their festive Halloween menu ever since, although with some elaborations, such as a choice of three kinds of hot dogs, including Ball Park Franks. This gave me the opportunity to clear my throat, ask for the kind attention of our hosts and their other guests, and explain how my father named the Ball Park Frank. If you like, I'll come over to your house and tell you about it, too. Really, I insist.

Besides being a partner, with Bruce, in one of southern California's premier family law firms, Lisa's a canny political insider who came within five points of denying archconservative former Rep. Bob Dornan the 1998 Republican nomination for Congress. Lisa would've given the one-term Democratic incumbent, Loretta Sanchez, a good race, whereas Sanchez easily defeated Dornan, whom she'd ousted two years before.

You can just hear party bigwigs rubbing their hands together and emitting a piercing Halloween cackle. Nominate a Republican who can win? That's just what they expect us to do! So we shouldn't have been surprised that Lisa gave Kathy and me our first opportunity (after nearly 60 combined years of service to 37) to interact with a mask depicting the ghost of moderate Republican past. Fun, if a little yesterday. We got back to Yorba Linda in time to give some Kit Kat bars to a teenaged President Obama. I thanked him for working for Middle East peace.