Quote of the day

"Economic unions do not succeed by lowering all members to the standards of the economically less successful and less responsible members."

That's true for any society, not just a construct like the European Union...

Or, as the Instapundit puts it in "Reynolds' Law:" (emphasis added)

"The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle-class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we’ll have more middle-class people. But homeownership and college aren’t causes of middle-class status, they’re markers for possessing the kinds of traits — self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. — that let you enter, and stay, in the middle class. Subsidizing the markers doesn’t produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them."