Quotes of the day

So it appears that New Jersey voters don't want a governor who increases taxes and may not want one who cuts spending, but they also want the state's credit rating restored and the budget situation fixed. In other words, they want a fiscal magician.--Stan Collender

Democracy, too, is a religion. It is the worship of jackals by jackasses.--H.L. Mencken

Many of the same people who ridicule the idea that private-sector output is meaningfully reduced by higher taxes are convinced that private-sector output is meaningfully raised by higher subsidies.--Don Boudreaux

For gas to reach a record high as a percent of per-capita disposable income, it would have to sell today for about $5.50 per gallon to reach 14.90% of per-capita disposable income, like it did in March of 1981, when gas sold for $1.42 per gallon, and per-capita disposable income was only $9,500.--Mark Perry

By preventing production and through inflationary monetary policy, maybe the government should be blamed for high oil prices, not speculators?---Mark Perry

If you vote for Democrats on the theory that Republicans are a threat to civil liberties, caveat elector. Bill Clinton and his administration incinerated children at Waco, undertook the policy of "extraordinary rendition," used a grand jury investigation to intimidate journalists at The American Spectator, deported Elian Gonzalez to communist Cuba, and signed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which restricts the habeas corpus rights of American citizens.

Whatever one may think of these particular measures, they would have generated much more opposition from Democrats had they been instituted by a Republican administration. The Keith Olbermanns of the media world outnumber the Glenn Greenwalds, so when an Obama administration curtails civil liberties (justifiably or not), the outcry will be far more muted than it is now. If civil liberties are your top concern, then, you better vote for John McCain.--James Taranto