The Atlantic this month offers a piece on Christian financial guru Dave Ramsey – any of you used his advice? The author, Megan McArdle, summarizes his advice thus:

[G]ive 10 percent of your income to charity, save 15 percent for retirement, build up a sizable emergency stash and a college fund for your kids, and above all, stop borrowing money. Ramsey devotees pay cash for everything they can. They are allowed only one exception to the no-more-debt rule: a 15-year fixed-rate mortgage.

Christianity Today’s Sarah Pulliam Bailey critiques the article’s use of canned phrases about evangelicals and generalizations:

“the format was more tent revival than accounting seminar”

“his disciples routinely shun lucrative financing deals”

“Ramsey is not the first evangelical to sell financial advice to his co-religionists”

“Ramsey devotees”

McArdle, however, has a generally positive take on Ramsey’s advice, though she scoffs a bit at his evangelism.

The piece shows Ramsey as a foil to prosperity-gospel (debt-ridden) Christians, which The Atlantic details in its breathless cover story: “Did Christianity Cause the Crash?” There, author Hanna Rosin explores the idea that mainstream denominations promote risk-taking because the prosperity gospel offers material rewards, creating a culture of debt.

For a secular writer, McArdle rather surprisingly offers Ramsey as an antidote.

Just for your enjoyment, here’s a list of the 14 new committees, commissions, and advisory boards that the House healthcare bill creates.

• Health Benefits Advisory Committee
• Telehealth Advisory Committee
• Comparative Effectiveness Research Commission
• Advisory Committee on Health Workforce Evaluation and Assessment
• Clinical Prevention Stakeholders Board
• Community Prevention Stakeholders Board
• Council for Emergency Care
• Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee
• Health and Human Services Coordinating Committee on Women’s Health
• Personal Care Attendant Workforce Advisory Panel
• Intergovernmental Task Force on Indian environmental and nuclear hazards
• Indian Health facilities appropriation advisory board
• Indian Health facilities needs assessment workgroup
• Committee for the Establishment of the Native American Health and Wellness Foundation

Robert Kaplan writes at the Atlantic that in the United States’ current battles abroad, having more Muslims in the ranks is vital.

Inevitably, a minute percentage of these Muslim recruits may be influenced by jihadist propaganda, which certainly seems to have been the case with Maj. Hasan. So what do we do?

Better security surveillance and background checks, as well as better coordination within the defense bureaucracy to ferret out troublesome individuals, make sense.

He concludes:

More Maj. Hasans may lurk in the barracks and public squares. The way to find them out is not in a shrill witch hunt, but quietly, methodically, and legally, even as we open up our military to a wider spectrum of recruits.

But wouldn’t extra surveillance of Muslims entering the military be a deterrent to the Muslim recruits who Kaplan’s hoping join up? Thoughts?

Politico reported yesterday that the Republican National Committee’s insurance policy with Cigna covers elective abortions. Once the news broke, the RNC quickly took action to change its policy.

According to several Cigna employees, the insurer offers its customers the opportunity to opt out of abortion coverage – and the RNC did not choose to opt out.

Republicans have spoken forcefully against Democrats’ healthcare reform that included abortion coverage . The Stupak amendment limited that coverage.

Just read through this back-and-forth from an interview last night between Charlie Rose and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on her relationship with the president:

Charlie Rose:
Someone watching the campaign, the Democratic campaign, might have said there’s some space between how you view the world and he views the world, you being more hawkish, more something.
[laughter]

Hillary Clinton:
Well, look, I am very pleased at the relationship that the president and I have.

Charlie Rose:
What are you pleased about?

Hillary Clinton:
That it is very — it’s very collegial. It is personally, very positive. We see each other all the time, and we work very well together, and I think that we probably had people in both of our camps who were surprised by that and somewhat skeptical, but both of us understood what it is we had to do and do together given the array of problems we faced. So I am — you know, look, I’m very committed to doing everything I can on behalf of my country and the president and the agenda we’ve set forth.

Charlie Rose:
There’s no sharp disagreements between the way you two see the world?

Hillary Clinton:
Well, if there are, I wouldn’t tell you.
[laughter]

Charlie Rose:
That suggests there are some.

Hillary Clinton:
No, no, no. No, it doesn’t.

Charlie Rose:
But in the end it’s his –

Hillary Clinton:
Look, he’s the president, but what I really appreciate is we have a very robust process where everybody is heard, and there is quite a good back and forth, testing assumptions, you know, coming up with ideas. And on a couple of occasions I was kind of in a somewhat solitary position vis-à-vis the rest of the NSC.

Charlie Rose:
Look, just give me one example of that.

Hillary Clinton:
I can’t, but I –

Charlie Rose:
Oh, just one.

Hillary Clinton:
Someday, Charlie, someday. You know, in about 10 years, we’ll do this interview. But I went to the president and said, you know, “this is really what I would like you to think about, and here are the reasons for it,” and on one very important matter, you know, he agreed with me. And so, it’s not just that you have, you know, discussions between the two of us, which we do, where we look at things from different angles, where we try to come up with an approach, but it’s the larger team. Sometimes, you know, both the president and I are pushing the people on our teams to think differently and more creatively.

Charlie Rose:
All right, you have said you’ll never run for president again.

Hillary Clinton:
Yes, I said that.
[laughter]

You can watch the entire interview on charlierose.com

The League for American Voters has put out the first in a series of ads attacking government healthcare by playing off the Mac vs. PC ads.

HT: Ben Smith at Politico

Ahn Joseph Cao was the lone Republican to vote for the House healthcare bill late Saturday night. Cao’s district, which includes New Orleans, voted 75 percent for Obama – so it’s not entirely surprising he voted for the bill, except that his vote is by no means a guarantee that he’ll get reelected. Democrats expect to recapture his seat – which has been Democratic for a century – in next year’s elections. Cao explained his vote:

I felt last night’s decision was the right decision for my district, even though it was not the popular decision for my party.

Cao said he asked President Obama for more federal funds to help his district continue to recover from Hurricane Katrina. The abortion amendment also gave him the ability to support the bill.

WORLD profiled Cao in May – one thing you can say about this congressman is that he doesn’t vote party line. He voted against the stimulus bill, but voted against Republicans on issues like the hate-crimes bill and interrogation policies. He told me:

“In the event that they don’t want to vote me back in, that’s fine. At least I have spent two years of my life trying to do what is right and good.”

President Obama gave his condolences to those at Fort Hood in the wake of the shootings yesterday – but he came under critique for spending several minutes on national television giving a “shout-out” to a Congressional Medal of Honor winner at the conference he was attending and then name-dropping others before finally commenting on the tragedy. It seemed an awkward transition from light-hearted to serious – see what you think.

On the heels of our discussion of whether the Nov. 3 elections were a referendum on Sarah Palin, chew this over: The former Alaska governor has not yet endorsed the more conservative candidate, Marco Rubio, in the Florida primary for governor.

Palin’s spokeswoman Meg Stapleton said it was “too early” for Palin to endorse either Charlie Crist (who is considered more moderate) or Rubio.

I know, I know, it’s very early to be talking about the 2012 race.

But in case you are interested in how the field might shape up, USA Today and Gallup have put out a new poll showing Mike Huckabee at the top of the field among Republicans.

Huckabee himself brushed off such polls.

It’s like speculating who’s going to be the best actor next year when we don’t even know what the movies are.