“There are many worse things in politics than hypocrisy,” the University of Chicago’s Jean Bethke Elshtain reminds us in U.S. Catholic (June). “For example, vicious cycles of retribution, whether against nations or groups or other political figures. On the whole list of political sins, crimes, and misdemeanors, hypocrisy would come pretty low on my list. Remember the line that says, ‘Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue’? Hypocrisy at least indicates that we still have some virtuous standard we know we ought to aspire to, and in our own bumbling, human way we’re trying to live up to that.”
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No free lunch for bellyaching suburban drivers. “Getting rid of the toll authority would certainly save on overhead costs,” muses Jon Marshall in Illinois Issues (May). “The agency’s palatial headquarters in Downers Grove could be sold and administrative costs eliminated. The toll authority’s small army of lobbyists, lawyers and public relations consultants could be furloughed. And drivers would no longer have to cover the costs of operating the toll booths, saving roughly $60 million a year.” But the already overburdened state transportation budget would have to take on the maintenance and debt of the tollway system. Absorbing all that would cost the state an estimated $233 million a year, “equal to approximately a 4.6-cent hike in gas taxes” on top of the 43.7 cents per gallon already levied in Chicago.
Percentage of Caucasian women entrepreneurs who borrow capital to launch their firms, according to a recent report from the National Association of Women Business Owners: 49. Of African-American women: 29.
