Margaret Atwood Quotes
I thought everyone would be familiar with this figure: if I'd studied a thing in school I assumed it was general knowledge. I hadn't yet discovered that I lived in a sort of transparent balloon, drifting over the world without making much contact with it, and that the people I knew appeared to me at a different angle from the one at which they appeared to themselves; and that the reverse was also true. I was smaller to others, up there in my balloon, than I was to myself. I was also blurrier.
Atwood, Margaret. Cat's Eye. McClelland and Stewart, 1988.
When President Clinton left office, there was a huge fiscal surplus that Rubin had engineered, & President George W. Bush advocated a tax cut for the wealthy. Greenspan, who was very influential, did not oppose the tax cuts. He did urge that the tax cut be very carefully crafted so that the tax cuts would only be effective if the surplus continued. Rubin urged him not to take such a nuanced position as it would be perceived as support for the Bush tax cut which would not have the safety valves Greenspan advocated. Greenspan did not take Rubin’s advice. The tax cuts passed the Republican Congress with no safety valves with Greenspan’s statements being interpreted as support for the Bush plan just as Rubin had warned. The Bush Administration & the Republican Congress then increased spending enormously in almost all areas. With no safety valves rescinding the disastrous tax cuts, the surplus evaporated & became the largest deficit in history.
Margaret Eleanor Atwood CC OOnt CH FRSC is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, teacher, environmental activist, and inventor. Since 1961, she has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of non-fiction, nine collections of short fiction, eight children's books, and two graphic novels, as well as a number of small press editions of both poetry and fiction. Atwood has won numerous awards and honors for her writing, including the Booker Prize (twice), Arthur C. Clarke Award, Governor General's Award, Franz Kafka Prize, Princess of Asturias Awards, and the National Book Critics and PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Awards. A number of her works have been adapted for film and television.
