We planned to invade Canada?
Strange, but apparently true:
...The U.S. military really did develop a "Joint Army and Navy Basic War Plan--Red" in the 1920s and '30s, and it really did include provisions for an invasion of Canada by the United States.Ê
The document was declassified in 1974, so this isn't really a new story, but there has been some hoopla about it lately. Concerns in some quarters notwithstanding, the whole thing was just a theoretical exercise in military planning. The brass would have made better use of their resources planning for a war with Germany, but that wasn't politically expedient. They reasoned that planning for unlikely wars was better than no planning at all. War Plan Red was never intended to be put into action except in the event of a war with the United Kingdom, an eventuality that everyone would agree was highly unlikely after about 1900.
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(11:22) []
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Fun stuff in Bush's budget
Apparently there was a bit that W. didn't go into during the SOTU address:
IMAGINE THAT President Bush had a plan to dramatically reshape the federal tax system, eliminating taxes on investment income for most taxpayers, making the tax structure less progressive and providing a boon to the wealthiest Americans. You might think he would mention it during his State of the Union address. You might think he would call it by its name: radical tax reform.
It turns out that Mr. Bush has such an audacious plan, but he has left it to his Treasury Department and to his 2004 budget proposal, which was released yesterday, to spell it all out. It's being wheeled into town inside a Trojan horse of private savings accounts. That doesn't make it any less radical. Indeed, if enacted, the plan could have effects far greater than the president's related move to eliminate dividend taxes. It would create new savings accounts that would allow almost anyone who pays slight attention to tax planning to avoid paying taxes on investment income: gains from stocks, interest on savings and dividends.
This just seems wrong... but what do I know? Hey, this may even be beneficial to me personally... but it still seems wrong...
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(08:47) []
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