• “It’s important we focus on tax changes that would have the greatest impact in creading jobs. That’s what the imcome tax cut we have proposed is all about.”

Gov. Mark Sanford

in his State of the State address

• “I’m delighted he’s good at water sports, because he’s going to have to navigate waters filled with alligators. But overall it was a good speech.”

Sen. John Courson,

reacting to the governor’s speech

• “I am every bit as white as I am black, and it is my full intention to drink the nectar of both goblets.”

Essie Mae Washington-Williams,

in her book Dear Senator

• OTHERS SAY

Commentary from elsewhere

• Drained Reserves

The "wave of steel" that rolled through the Iraqi desert is corroding in the swamp of occupation and insurgency, and America's citizen-soldiers are paying a high price for that. With reserves now making up 40 percent of American Army forces in Iraq and Kuwait — and heading toward 50 percent — the Pentagon's Army Reserve chief is right to warn that this force could soon be broken. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld owes the country and its service men and women an explanation for that disproportionate commitment of Reserve forces, instead of better redeployment of the nation's sizable active-duty military force.

Buffalo (N.Y.) News

• Those on disability

The father in your neighborhood who developed Lou Gehrig's Disease at the age of 33 collects a Social Security check if he can no longer work. So do the young mother disabled by multiple sclerosis, the 55-year-old former hospital aide whose back gave out after too many years of lifting patients, and the 22-year-old with Christopher Reeve's limitations but not his money. You might call individuals such as these the silent minority of Social Security recipients. Unable to work when things get lean, often burdened by high medical (and sometimes by high caretaking) bills, sometimes raising children, too young to have invested much, they may be the program's most vulnerable. As the nation ponders the future of Social Security, we need to hear, and to talk, much more about them.

Peoria (Ill.) Journal-Star

• Tobacco’s toll

Californians voted in 1988 to raise cigarette taxes by 25 cents per pack, with 5 cents going toward tobacco education, research and other programs, GNS reported. The results, after 15 years, have been dramatic. Lung and cancer rates, higher than the national average in 1988, have since fallen three times faster than rates in the rest of the country.... Right now, South Carolina's cigarette tax — at 7 cents a pack — is one of the lowest in the nation. Raising the state's cigarette tax would not only help fund public health programs but also deter smoking — and save lives.

Greenville News

• Saddam’s kickbacks

Investigations are under way concerning the United Nation's oil-for-food program, from which Saddam Hussein reaped more than $20 billion in kickbacks and smuggling. These inquiries are beginning to bear fruit in the form of criminal convictions and should be vigorously pursued.... Saddam's bid to buy influence bore little fruit with the United States. But the evidence so far suggests he had greater success in other countries — and at the United Nations itself.

Kansas City Star

• FOOD FOR THOUGHT

• “If life was fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead.”

Johnny Carson

• INSPIRATION

• “Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.”

Martin Luther King Jr.