The Weekly Standard senior editor Christopher Caldwell, writing in a piece reproduced by National Public Radio as "partner content from The Weekly Standard": "George W. Bush's tax cuts were reckless. Any serious budget-balancing plan must undo them."

Whenever there's deficit/debt pressure the tax-raisers on the right start stirring.

A lawyer at Sullivan & Cromwell, Frank Aquila, has a column in Businessweek calling for a "jobs agenda," including eliminating "burdensome regulation," reforming the tax code, and increasing skilled immigration. So far, so good, but then he adds on this:

Tax credits for jobs. Employers should receive additional tax credits for creating new jobs. A temporary federal tax credit would give businesses added incentive to create new jobs. While such a tax credit would reduce federal revenues in the short run, the economic growth generated by the new workers would eventually more than make up for any lost tax revenue.

Compare that proposal to his paragraph on tax reform, one paragraph earlier:

Jeff Madrick writes: "Nothing surprises me much more than when I read that trading on insider information is a victimless crime...In fact, it is entirely untrue. The victims are all those who sold Raj a stock or other security at a lower price than they might have if they had the same information he had."

Foreign policy isn't usually the main topic around here, but this is big: "Die Welt reports that in fulfillment of a commitment made by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran in October 2010, Iran is constructing launching pads for Iranian intermediate-range missiles in Venezuela....This would appear to be the first stage of a larger project to establish a military base that will eventually be manned by Iranian missile officers and soldiers of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, as well as Venezuelan missile officers who are to receive intensive training from the Iranians."

The New York Times has some details on Dominique Strauss-Kahn's $3,000 Sofitel hotel suite and First Class airline ticket on Air France:

William Murray, a spokesman for the International Monetary Fund, said that Mr. Strauss-Kahn had paid $525 for the room, according to a Travelocity reservation receipt provided by Mr. Strauss-Kahn's office. Mr. Murray said that Mr. Strauss-Kahn had stayed at the Sofitel several times before, and that the I.M.F. had not expected to reimburse him for the cost. Mr. Murray added that the I.M.F. had paid for a business-class seat on Air France for Mr. Strauss-Kahn, but that he received an upgrade.

Fair enough. But it's hard to erase first impressions. The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson, echoing a point I made first here, writes:

When Goldman Sachs announced earlier this year that former Walmart CEO Lee Scott was leaving the Goldman board after just a year of service "as a result of increasing time requirements associated with his other commitments," Goldman didn't say what those "other commitments" were.

Dennis Berman sheds some light on the matter in today's Wall Street Journal with a profile of a former Goldman vice chairman, Byron Trott, who has struck out on his own to form BDT Capital, which the Journal says has 38 employees and a $2 billion investment fund with a long-term investment horizon and a focus on family-controlled businesses. The Journal article describes Mr. Scott as "the head" of the BDT Capital "senior advisory council." The Journal doesn't mention Mr. Scott's Goldman connection, but for those who follow this sort of thing, it's kind of an "oh, that explains it," moment.

Senator Inhofe, a Republican of Oklahoma, has an op-ed in USA Today about energy: "Consider President Obama's Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who said in 2008, 'Somehow, we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.' That's about $7 to $8 a gallon."

President Obama released his annual financial disclosure form this afternoon, showing he has by far the bulk of his assets — anywhere between $2 million and $10 million dollars, according to the broad ranges of the disclosure forms — in "U.S. Treasury Notes" and "U.S. Treasury Bills." No information on when they mature, what rate they are paying, or whether any are of the "inflation protected" variety.

The Boston Globe has a profile of Roger Berkowitz, who runs the Legal Sea Foods chain of 32 restaurants, which the article says about 4,000 employees and more than $200 million in annual revenue.

Like Maurice Harary, Bill Gates and Paul Allen, Mr. Berkowitz is another entrepreneur who built a business in part by working when other people are sleeping: "When the kids were little, Roger would leave by 8 in the morning and not come back till 1 the next morning," the article quotes his wife as saying.

The article also gets into the "sustainable seafood" issue that Walmart wants to solve with more regulation.

The chairman of the House Budget Committee, Paul Ryan, has an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune:

The talk is too often restricted to "shared sacrifice." This sets up a debate where we are really just arguing over whom to hurt and how best to manage the decline of our nation. It is a framework that accepts permanently higher taxes and bureaucratically determined access to health care as givens.

A better name for this approach is "shared scarcity." It represents a deeply pessimistic vision for the future of this country — one that would lead us to a diminished future.

The House-passed budget — "The Path to Prosperity" — offers an alternative vision. It is rooted in the recognition that spending discipline and economic growth are the keys to balancing the federal budget.

More:

USA Today has an editorial that is pretty harsh on President Obama's effort to raise taxes on oil companies. The newspaper calls it "a one-act piece of political theater" and writes, "the initiative is also government at its arbitrary worst, further complicating the tax code by singling out five companies — ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Shell and BP — for special taxes not paid by smaller energy concerns, or by similar companies in other industries."

The Pew Research Center is out with two new studies, one of 2,142 American adults, the other of 1,055 college presidents. Highlights: "A majority of Americans (57%) say the higher education system in the United States fails to provide students with good value for the money they and their families spend....At the same time, however, an overwhelming majority of college graduates (86%) say that college has been a good investment for them personally." Maybe they attended before the tuition got as high as it is now.

The arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn got me to wondering what, exactly, America is doing funding the IMF to begin with. A wire over the weekend from David Malpass of Encima Global notes that "The IMF is providing over a quarter of Greece's $155 billion aid package and is expected to provide nearly one-third of Portugal's $110 billion package," and also that "the U.S. has made the largest contribution to the IMF." This Wall Street Journal article from 2009 reports President Obama pushing Congress to approve a $108 billion contribution to the IMF, and this paper from the Web site of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress cites hidden costs of more than $1 billion a year. America can barely pay its own bills these days. Should we really be borrowing from China to help Greece and Portugal pay their bills?

The managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, is innocent until proven guilty, and his lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, says he denies the charges. I am hesitant to pile on. Even so, the details as recounted pretty much sum up both the arrogance of the elites and the sense of entitlement of government officials that are frequent themes here. For those who have missed it: The guy was staying in a $3,000-a-night hotel suite, he was in first class on Air France, he is accused of sexually assaulting a hotel maid, and polls show he was a leading candidate to be the next president of France – representing the Socialist Party. This is how some socialists operate — they stay in fancy hotels and fly first class, and when they encounter actual members of the "working class," they treat them badly.

The president of the Galen Institute, Grace-Marie Turner, has a piece at National Review Online making this criticism of Mitt Romney's health care program in Massachusetts: "it's increasingly difficult to get a doctor's appointment. A recent survey by the Massachusetts Medical Society reveals that fewer than half of the state's primary-care practices are accepting new patients, and the average wait time to get an appointment with an internist is 48 days."

I'm not saying RomneyCare is perfect, or that Mr. Romney should or shouldn't be the Republican Party's presidential nominee for 2012. But as a criticism of RomneyCare, this particular point is a weak one. First, doctors are highly skilled professionals whose training represents considerable government expense. We should want them to be busy, or almost fully utilized, rather than sitting around waiting for the phone to ring while practicing their golf swings in empty examining rooms.