Disillusionment can come as fast as a gust, but building faith that the government won't inflate again is like building a new sailboat, a project of years.

Everybody should pay some tax, just as everybody should vote.

With demands for special education or standardized test prep being shouted in their ears, public schools can't always hear a parent when he says: 'I want my child to be able to write contracts in Spanish,' or, 'I want my child to shake hands firmly,' or, 'I want my child to study statistics and accounting, not calculus.

Coolidge believed that government officials who tell themselves that spending benefits the economy delude themselves and the citizens. Government budgets promote human freedom.

Coolidge was a pragmatist. He didn't start out with a tax theory. But he observed over time that lower tax rates sometimes brought in extra revenue. The success of his and Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon's experiment with rate cuts has been obscured by our modern history books.

Economics are part of our life. We try to treat them separately, like over there is the economy and here is history. Econ affects history and history often doesn't get it right if it doesn't respect econ.

Today we care about budgets more than anything. Our American future hangs on the ability of government to cut budget.