My favorite news items of the day...

How refreshing. Newly elected Governor Christie of New Jersey has imposed a spending freeze on the state. The democrats reacted as expected decrying the negative impact the freeze will have on education and mass transportation. The typical cries of "tax the rich" can also be heard by those who have forgotten that the rich have moved out of the state in droves. The refugees from the Garden State can be found in states such as Florida and Texas.

Memo to politicians in Washington and Portugal, Ireland and Greece and Spain (also known as PIGS), emulate New Jersey.

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Rhode Island Congressman Patrick Kennedy has announced that he will not seek reelection next year. This will be the first time in 60 years that a Kennedy will not be in Washington. I for one, will not miss them.

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Meanwhile, in an interview with Bloomberg, Obama has announced that he is an agnostic when it comes to taxing those earning $200,000 and households earning more than $250,000.

Obama, in a Feb. 9 Oval Office interview, said that a presidential commission on the budget needs to consider all options for reducing the deficit, including tax increases and cuts in spending on entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

Remember “Read my lips, no new taxes”?  It was a promise made by a one term president.

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel has announced that Germany will not rescue Greece.

Despite a show of Franco-German unity on the crisis and the first statement from EU leaders pledging to safeguard the currency's stability, hopes on the markets of a German-led rescue plan to shore up Greece's critical public finances were dashed by Merkel, who repeatedly emphasized that Athens would need to put its own house in order and brushed aside all questions of financial support.

I am sure that in the coming days we will see Greeks overturning and burning cars. A better solution would be to eliminate the unions that have crippled the Greek economy and made Greece one of the less competitive nations in Europe.