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The Corner

Re: Oh Man, We're OldToday

It starts when we realize that rookie cops are younger than we are. Two weeks from now, the president of the United States will be younger than I am.

He'll Be Missed When He's Gone ...Today

Mark my words. On Wednesday, some conservative journalists had a final lunch discussion with Vice President Cheney at his residence. Over the past eight years, the vice president has periodically hosted these sessions and was always unfailingly candid and insightful. And charming and quick-witted. Wednesday he talked about a range of issues. On the international front, he mentioned multiple challenges, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, and Russia. He concluded, "it's a big, complex, dangerous world out there and President Obama and his people are going to have their hands full." He expressed concerns about the president-elect's approach to the war on terror based on his campaign rhetoric but noted that Senator Obama did vote to reauthorize the terrorist surveillance program. He recommends (hopes?) that the Obama team will carefully study the whats and whys of the Bush administration's (successful) efforts in countering the terrorist threat before abandoning certain strategies. While hoping they get it right, he's worried. So, so am I. Fortunately, the vice president is giving "serious thought to writing a book." Let's hope we will continue to benefit from his unparalled experience and sound judgment. Finally, for the umpteenth time the caricature of this talented, temperate, dedicated patriot struck me as insane.

Oh Man, We're OldYesterday

My kid's school newsletter came in today. It announces that the "class of 2002" (the school goes to 6th grade), are off to college this year.

Walker on the Deficit: "No one is going to bail out America"Yesterday

Former U.S. comptroller David Walker has long been a leading advocate of fiscal sanity, and I called him today to get his take on the latest CBO budget-deficit projections ($1.2 trillion for next year, trillion-plus deficits for years to come). "If trillion-dollar deficit numbers for several years in a row don't wake up Washington and America to the nature of our fiscal problems, then I don't know what will," he says. Walker says, "For the first time in the history of the U.S., the federal government owes more in liabilities [including unfunded commitments for Social Security and Medicare] than American households are worth." And that gap is widening, he says. "The fiscal hole is getting deeper, and household worth continues to decline." Walker says, "We should not just engage in timely and targeted stimulus. We need to put a process in place that will enable elected officials to make a range of tough decisions that have been delayed for far too long." On entitlement spending, Walker says that Obama should consider something like the Cooper-Wolf plan, which calls for a commission on entitlement reform whose recommendations would be guaranteed hearings and a vote. #more# Walker, who currently works on these issues as the president of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, says, "Deficits and debt levels are going to go up significantly in the short term, and there's no way of avoiding that, so we're not saying there shouldn't be a stimulus. We're saying that for the nation

Pro-Immigrant, Low-ImmigrationYesterday

This year will be the first time since 1965 when a major immigration debate may be in the offing with Democrats in unified control of the elective branches of government. It didn't work out so well last time. I lay out on the homepage today a proactive approach for the GOP: placing the necessary measures against illegal immigration and amnesty into the broader context of a pro-immigrant policy of low immigration.