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Why is Joe Scarborough risking his reputation by co-authoring with a notorious charlatan?
Archive for the ‘Macroeconomic Policy’ Category
November 29th, 2012
Category: 2013 Democratic Agenda, Health Care, Macroeconomic Policy, Medicaid, Republican Party, Watching Conservatives
Kevin Drum notes that Republicans insist on something called “entitlement reform,” but have no actual ideas about what this reform might mean (aside from getting rid of Medicare). So now they are insisting that President Obama make the first offer, which is a laughable position. The also insist on “putting Obamacare on the table”, which [...]
November 7th, 2012
Steve Benen on why Obama’s win matters: it proves progressive government can be rewarded.
June 1st, 2012
(cross posted at freeforall) My first post of 2012 said the top public policy priority for 2012 was to: …enact policies that encourage economic growth now, while moving toward a sustainable budget over the long run. This main policy need is unchanged from 2011, and we didn’t manage to do either very well. This is [...]
May 3rd, 2012
Josh Barro has a piece in favor of a Value Added Tax in Bloomberg. A VAT is a tax levied on business sales minus their inputs or costs, so all companies ‘adding value’ along the production chain pay the tax, but it is collected at the sale of the final consumer good. If you buy [...]
October 31st, 2011
In the middle of his evisceration of the House Republicans’ attack on the Affordable Care Act, MIT’s Jonathan Gruber notes that the attack claims that the ACA’s tax credits are a form of spending. But…but…but…Saint Grover says that we cannot get rid of any corporate welfare tax credits because that is a tax increase! So [...]
September 27th, 2011
My Cornell colleague Bob Hockett has written a scorchingly satirical essay about the Republican mental malady that’s led them to oppose economic stimulus in the name of fiscal probity. I liked his title so much that I’ve commissioned my sons (who are two thirds of the rock band The Nepotist) to write a song with [...]
September 16th, 2011
Texas unemployment rises to 8.5%, the highest in 24 years. (h/t TPM). Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, clearly a basket case due to liberal policies, the unemployment rate has dropped to 7.4%, the lowest in two and a half years. It should be mentioned that Texas job losses stem from public sector reductions. Since public sector workers like [...]
August 23rd, 2011
Among the many amazing things the gods of irony and absurdity have showered upon us in the last decade or so, I have to score serious discussion of a gold standard for money very high. Many years ago an economist friend explained that Marx’s labor theory of value was correct, but trivially correct, because there [...]
August 13th, 2011
Category: Macroeconomic Policy, Watching Conservatives
Steve Benen: Current GOP officials aren’t just wrong about stimulus, the timing of budget cuts, taxes, debt reduction, or monetary policy — they’re wrong about all of them at the same time.