Posts Tagged ‘politics’
By James Kwak Whatever they’re doing, it doesn’t seem to be good for shareholders. That’s one conclusion of a new paper by John Coates, a Harvard law professor, which I discuss in today’s Atlantic column (which originally misdated the Citizens United decision, thanks to some faulty proof-reading by me). Coates compares firm valuations with levels of lobbying and [...]
By James Kwak As you may have noticed by now, Wikipedia’s English-language site is (mostly) down for the day to protest SOPA and PIPA, two draconian anti-copyright infringement laws moving through Congress, and Google’s home page looks like this: Under existing law (the DMCA), if someone posts copyrighted material in a comment on this blog, [...]
By James Kwak Earlier this year I wrote about a paper by Suzanne Mettler that included a survey showing that a large proportion of beneficiaries of government programs insist that they have never been beneficiaries of any “government social programs”—60 percent for the mortgage interest deduction and 44 percent for Social Security retirement benefits, for [...]
By James Kwak Yesterday I wrote an Atlantic column about Republican presidential candidates’ fondness for tax plans that transfer massive amounts of money from the poor to the rich. The main question, to my mind, is why people like Herman Cain and Rick Perry talk about transferring massive amounts of money to the rich when [...]
By James Kwak It has become a truism that modern American conservatism is revolutionary in the sense that it seeks to overturn the established order rather than to preserve it. “Reagan Revolution,” “Tea Party”—the very names for the movement announce that is about more than defending the status quo. In the conservative worldview, America (or [...]
By James Kwak (Actually, it was on Saturday.) I just read Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan (W.W. Norton, 2009), by Kim Phillips-Fein. It’s a history of the resistance from the business community to the New Deal and how it gave birth to at least one major [...]
By James Kwak Today’s Atlantic column is about corporate political spending in the wake of Citizens United and what, if anything, can be done about it. A group of corporate and securities law professors has petitioned the SEC to write rules requiring companies to disclose their political spending, just like they have to disclose their executive compensation [...]
By James Kwak Yesterday I wrote an Atlantic column about the bizarre situation that the Federal Reserve is in. Ordinarily, we think central bank independence is important because it permits the bank to take unpopular, anti-growth steps when the political branches of government want popular, pro-growth steps. But today we’re in Bizarro world: the political [...]
By James Kwak Helene Cooper of the New York Times wrote a “news analysis” story saying that the challenge for President Obama is this: “Is he willing to try to administer the disagreeable medicine that could help the economy mend over the long term, even if that means damaging his chances for re-election?” The problem, [...]
By James Kwak 1. Obama still has his hostage—if he wants it. As far as I can tell, the Bush tax cuts are nowhere in the debt ceiling agreement, which means that at current course and speed they expire at the end of 2012. Extending the tax cuts would reduce revenue by about $3.5 trillion [...]
By James Kwak Quick, what was the greatest conservative accomplishment of the George W. Bush presidency? It wasn’t Medicare Part D: that was a clever way to steal a Democratic issue and pass it in a form that was friendly to the pharmaceutical industry. It wasn’t Roberts and Alito: yes, they are young and conservative, [...]
By James Kwak What was the budget debate about eleven years ago? As you can see, that is the cover of the CBO’s March 2000 Budget Options report. (You can get it online, but without the cover.*) For most of the 1980s and 1990s, this report was called Reducing the Deficit: Spending and Revenue Options; [...]
By James Kwak (Warning: Very elementary post ahead. Most of you probably know all this already.) Mitch McConnell, Senate Republican Leader, quoted in Bloomberg: “We have seen the consequences of giving Washington a blank check. My message to the president is simple: It’s time for Washington to focus on fixing itself. It’s time Washington take [...]
By James Kwak One of the new old ideas floating around Washington these days is an aggregate spending cap for the federal government. For example, both the House Republicans’ budget and one of those “moderate bipartisan” Senate proposals calls for limiting total government spending at around 21 percent of GDP. This is silly for at [...]
Tweets About Us- RT @baselinescene: Cute: http://t.co/rzK8VjXl. But is it fair to call "ignorance" the result of a steady stream of lies amplified by the media? emmett_j@twitter.com (Emmett Johnson)
- RT @baselinescene: Cute: http://t.co/rzK8VjXl. But is it fair to call "ignorance" the result of a steady stream of lies amplified by the media? JoScoMac@twitter.com (Scott McLean)
- RT @baselinescene: Purebred dog shows have always been creepy. This just confirms it: http://t.co/6iu2bwjR. /JK gebersole@twitter.com (Garrett Ebersole)
- RT @baselinescene: Purebred dog shows have always been creepy. This just confirms it: http://t.co/6iu2bwjR. /JK april_harding@twitter.com (April Harding)
- RT @baselinescene: Purebred dog shows have always been creepy. This just confirms it: http://t.co/6iu2bwjR. /JK APogonowski@twitter.com (AP)
- RT @baselinescene: Purebred dog shows have always been creepy. This just confirms it: http://t.co/6iu2bwjR. /JK jamiesw@twitter.com (JamieSW)
- The Bear&Bull Blog Daily is out! http://t.co/mcAbzHbi ▸ Top stories today via @thestalwart @baselinescene bearbull@twitter.com (bearbull)
- RT @TheBrowser: Mean-Spirited, Bad Economics: @baselinescene on unemployment benefits & Republican party plans to cut them http://t.co/GVnNzAUN drooperman@twitter.com (Drew)
- Agree with RT @baselinescene: Felix Salmon mocking Jack Welch's vacuous management lesson for Facebook http://t.co/BBKIGOIl /JK Alheri@twitter.com (Lilly Evans)
- #FF for political and other insight: @SarahBarfield @BuddyRoemer @RoyBlunt @StartSnitching @delong @TheGoodReport @baselinescene normanwlucas@twitter.com (Norman Lucas)
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Department of “Duh”
January 19, 2012 in Commentary
Tags: politics, taxes
By James Kwak The Times has a story out today: Surprise, all the Republican candidates’ tax plans increase the national deficit! The numbers (reduction in 2015 tax revenues, from the Tax Policy Center): Romney: $600 billion Gingrich: $1.3 trillion (Late lamented) Perry: $1.0 trillion Santorum: $1.3 trillion I guess that makes Romney the “fiscally responsible” choice, [...]