Category: Politics
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The Flat Tax, Short Version
Reading the many web comments on my flat tax proposal, I find that many didn’t actually read it (I do go on…), or understand it. So here’s the short version. Not so short, as it turns out, but I hope easier to grasp quickly. Unlike the many commenters who failed to do so, please at…
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It’s About Bloody Time. Sheesh.
Nate Silver: Gay Marriage Opponents Now in Minority – NYTimes.com. Related posts: Conservatives Love to Point Out that Personal Incentives Matter Polling the Pollster Pollers: Obama Still Strong Guns and Gun Deaths, State by State Must. Make. Gubmint. Smaller. Proofiness!
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Are Tea Partiers Copping a Clue? Paul Ryan Gets Booed
Paul Ryan Gets Booed By Constituents For Opposing Tax Hikes On Rich (VIDEO) | TPMDC. Related posts: “Anybody else have a question besides this guy?” What’s Wrong with Vouchers? Neoclassical economists don’t understand neoclassical economics Damn this guy sounds like me Bring Back the Philosopher Kings
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It’s “Obviously” a Spending Problem
Well, unless “obvious” means “conforming to reality.” Here just the latest: I don’t think I have to draw the trend line for you, or point out that the U.S. spends less than every thriving, prosperous country but two. Update: Way less. To spend is to owe? « Consider the Evidence. Related posts: Is Big Government…
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“Anybody else have a question besides this guy?”
PAWLENTY: I like Paul Ryan’s plan directionally. I don’t think it’s fully filled out in terms of the fact that we still have to address Social Security and when we issue our plan later in this process, it will have some differences[…] VOLSKY: Do you support the Medicare cuts in his plan that he keeps…
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Weimar, Zimbabwe, Here We Come
Or maybe not. Megan McArdle invokes one of the two standard bogeymen to suggest — classic fallacy of the extremes — that It Could Happen To Us. And I cannot disagree too strongly with the notion that the US can’t default because we can always print money. It isn’t even technically true–Zimbabwe eventually ran out of…
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What’s Wrong with Vouchers?
James Kwak explains why Paul Ryan’s notion for vouchers replacing Medicare doesn’t work: If you are forty years old and healthy now, you simply cannot insure yourself against the risk that you will be uninsurably unhealthy when you are sixty-five. You retire, and you lose your health insurance. But you’ll have vouchers, right? You can use them…
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The Coming GOP Spectacle: “a freak show of stupendous proportions”
Emphasis mine: I just want to say that I am so looking forward to the Republican primary campaign this cycle. It looks like Michele Bachmann is going to run, Palin might run, Newt Gingrich is probably going to run, Jim DeMint seems like he might run, and I suppose Ron Paul will run again too. This…
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Gingrich: We’re becoming a secular atheist country dominated by radical Islamists
I kid you not. “I have two grandchildren — Maggie is 11, Robert is 9,” Gingrich said at Cornerstone Church here. “I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they’re my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated…
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“You Deserve It” Part 243
John, born in 1973, decided to get married, buy a house, and start a family in 2003. James, born in 1976, decided to get married, buy a house, and start a family in 2006. In 2009, both John and James were laid off. Both were offered jobs in another state. John sold his house at…
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Intolerable Socialism
Best line of the week (with a couple of elisions by moi): Any effort to reduce government spending on health care … is intolerable socialism, and any effort to increase government spending on health care … is also intolerable socialism. via Yglesias » Making Sense of the Rationing Switcheroo. Related posts: The Problem with “Socialism”…
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Too Big to Fail? Wall Street and Main Street: How Big Are They?
Crossposted at Angry Bear. People are forever talking about banks that are too big to fail. But you rarely hear about the larger issue: The financial industry is too big to fail. (Click for larger graphic.) Note that “Main Street” here includes government expenditures — 20% of the total. Remove those, and Wall Street money flow…
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Christina Romer Gets It Right. Mostly.
I’ve been highly skeptical of Christina Romer’s thinking since she came out with that egregiously poorly-reasoned paper (PDF) that got so much play a couple of years ago. But her NYT “Economic View” piece today seems cogent, lucid, and well-supported to me. Basically: the emperors of theory-driven, sky-is-falling inflation hysteria are not wearing any clothing.…
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Ah: The Republicans Banned Earmarks!
How Budget Battles Go Without the Earmarks – NYTimes.com. This good news. But it’s badly reported good news. Misrepresentative, and more importantly, it’s not a good explanation of what happened, which is the basic purpose of news reporting. Here’s the letter I wrote to the reporter: Re: “The wall finally tumbled down this year when…
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What’s Wrong with this Picture?
Public-sector collective bargaining is unhealthy and distorts democracy because it enables workers to influence the government which negotiates with them; but Unlimited and secret corporate political campaign contributions are necessary to democracy because they enable corporations to influence the government which regulates them. And I would add, “that negotiates with them over what those regulations should be.” via New…
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“one of the most elemental human rights–the right to belong to a free trade union”
Now who do you think said that? And when? http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=43110 Related posts: Largest Oil Spills You Gotta Give Reagan Credit Politicians Should Resist Equality and Prosperity! No, the Greeks Aren’t Lazy. The Germans Are. Reveal Your Preferences! Show Your Support for Accounting-Based Economic Modeling
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Do Unions Kill Prosperity?
You hear from lots of people — including lots of economists — that they do. Because they’re monopolistic price-fixers, they distort economic decisions and make us all worse off. The theory makes sense, as far as it goes. But if it were really true you’d expect to see it in the data. Not so much:…
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Do We Need More Doctors?
Since the rapidly rising cost of health care services is basically the only thing that matters in the whole government budget discussion, I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. One frequent assertion is that the limited supply of doctors (because of semi-monopolistic medical-school, licensing, and immigration policies) is a big contributing factor. So when…
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Embarrassed Republicans Admit They’ve Been Thinking Of Eisenhower Whole Time They’ve Been Praising Reagan
“When I heard about Eisenhower’s presidential accomplishments–holding down the national debt, keeping inflation in check, and fighting for balanced budgets–it hit me that we’d clearly gotten their names mixed up at some point,” Priebus told reporters. “I couldn’t believe we’d been associating terms like ‘visionary,’ ‘principled,’ and ‘bold’ with President Reagan. That wasn’t him at…