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There are two distinct compensation issues arising from the current economic crisis. One involves the compensation of executives of firms that are owned or controlled by the federal government, such as General Motors, American International Group, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac, as a result of federal bailouts in the form of equity investments rather than loans. The other issue involves recipients of federal bailout money that nevertheless remain under private ownership and control.

DOMA maintains federal policies that have long sought to promote the traditional and uniformly-recognized form of marriage, recognizes the right of each State to expand the traditional definition if it so chooses, but declines to obligate federal taxpayers in other States to subsidize a form of marriage their own States do not recognize. This policy of neutrality maximizes state autonomy and democratic self-governance in an area of traditional state concern, and preserves scarce government resources. It is thus entirely rational.

The potential effects on the federal budget of recognizing same-sex marriages are numerous. [...] In some cases, recognizing same sex marriages would increase outlays and revenues; in other cases, it would have the opposite effect. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that on net, those impacts would improve the budget's bottom line to a small extent: by less than $1 billion in each of the next 10 years (CBO's usual estimating period). That result assumes that same-sex marriages are legalized in all 50 states and recognized by the federal government.

Hannity: ...The price of oil is going up again.  It's not quite at $140 a barrel, but it's on its way up to $70 and $80...

Palin: Yeah, well and I thank God it's not at $140. You know people say, "Hey, Alaska!  85% of your state budget is based on the price of a barrel of oil.  Aren't you glad the price is going up?" I say, "No!"  The fewer dollars that the state of Alaska government has, the fewer dollars we spend.  And that's good for our families and for the private sector.

graded schooling required regular attendance by all students, because long or frequent absences would require costly remedial attention. Thus compulsory attendance laws and a standard school year were complementary with the concept of graded schooling. Indeed, prior to graded schooling, the concept of a "school year" was not especially meaningful. Students in ungraded schools just attended until they learned whatever the teacher could offer, assuming the value of the time spent learning exceeded that spent working on the farm or elsewhere. 

Before interurban migration became important, the particular date at which school began did not matter, as long as it was the same for all schools in the district. But when new students were coming from some distance because their families were moving to a new region, school districts needed to allow sufficient time for newcomers to arrive and get settled. Losing four days of school because of a cross-town move was easily remedied, but losing four weeks of school because the family moved from Boston to Cleveland was more costly. In addition, the precise curriculum of the Cleveland school was apt to be different from that of Boston, even if both schools were graded. Even if transportation were instantaneous, a transfer between districts months after the school- year began would be disruptive. 

[...] September became the preferred time to start the school year because in the Northern Hemisphere travel is cheapest during July and August. Summer travel was least likely to be disrupted by inclement weather, and so summer became the standard time for families to move and for schools to be closed. Schools that expected many new students from outside their district would find that it paid to have a standard vacation time during which all students were idle. Interurban job-changers found that it paid to leave one's employment in summer so that they could move to another area and start their children in a new school in September. Summer remains the prime season for households to move, especially if they have children.

Both President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have called the traditional school day and school year outdated and inadequate for the demands of 21st-century life. Students in countries that routinely outscore the United States on international tests go to school for as many as 230 days each year, 50 more than kids typically attend here. "Go ahead and boo me," Duncan said in April to Denver students. "I think schools should be open six, seven days a week, eleven, twelve months a year."

"Some in Washington would approach our economic woes in ways that absolutely defy Economics 101, and they fly in the face of principles, providing opportunity for industrious Americans to succeed or to fail on their own accord," she said. "Those principles it makes you wonder what the heck some in Washington are trying to accomplish here."

While Wal-Mart is bent on maximizing returns for its shareholders--an appropriate goal, for a corporation--Craigslist is not. [...] Craigslist doesn't even try to profit from its economic activities, because its owners are devoted to a form of libertarian ideology.

On its Web page, Harvard Law School cites the university's nondiscrimination policy and then goes on to describe how it lives up to that principle:

"The Harvard Law School makes one exception to this policy. Under threat of loss of funding to the University resulting from the Solomon Amendment, the Law School has suspended the application of its nondiscrimination policy to military recruiters."

You don't have to be a lawyer to get the point: Even though we are one of the world's wealthiest universities, we'd rather make an exception to our principles than give up the money. So we'll do what the Solomon Amendment requires and hold our noses.