President Obama has put forward a budget that includes cuts to Social Security in the hopes of getting a grand budget bargain with Congressional Republicans. The goal was to show seriousness in cutting entitlements in order to get Republicans to show seriousness in raising revenue. Republicans have already panned it, liberals are not happy, and… Continue reading Negotiating with yourself
Category: Politics
Walk A Mile
Senator Rob Portman, a Republican from Ohio, has come out in favor of gay marriage because his son is gay. Some people were less than impressed with the fact that apparently empathy starts and stops at the front door of their own house. Others cut him a little more slack. I have to admit feeling… Continue reading Walk A Mile
Minnesota Tax Incidence 2013
I’m a couple days late to this, but it’s that time of the year: the 2013 Minnesota Tax Incidence Study has come out. I post about this regularly, so let’s take a look at what is new in 2013! Let’s start with the standard picture: the overall effective tax rate. Little has changed in… Continue reading Minnesota Tax Incidence 2013
The Unkindest Cut
There are a lot of things that bother me about the “sequester”, not the least of which is the fact that it is completed unnecessary and could be fixed with a quick repeal of the law. But another thing I hate, which I hated just as much when it was used at the state level,… Continue reading The Unkindest Cut
The Deal II
So I finished reading the The Deal (it took a couple hours at most), and the result was a fleshing out of pretty much everything that was in the original blog post. The long-term deficit isn’t hard to understand: it’s caused by health-care benefits that are out of whack with taxes. It’s really that simple.… Continue reading The Deal II
The Deal
I saw this article a couple of days ago and it piqued my interest so much, I had to buy the e-book (it’s only 1.99!). I haven’t yet read it, so I’ll give my full review later, but the top 10 takeaways from Ezra Klein were true enough to make me want to comment already…
Consequences
I’m with Atrios on this one. Last night, I heard a story on Marketplace about a guy who was long-term unemployed, and then got a job writing for Mad Men. The end. It was a wholly unfulfilling story, essentially saying nothing other than “This guy found a way.” Nothing on how, or what is happening… Continue reading Consequences
A few thoughts
A few random thoughts and links from the past couple weeks: Obama the Communist has presided over a shrinking of the government workforce. You don’t see that reported very often. Once again, more proof that we need to disassociate health insurance coverage from employment entirely (a personal story along these lines will be posted later…)… Continue reading A few thoughts
Ditching Health Insurance
I’ve harped on this issue before, but I still don’t get it: why aren’t businesses in favor of universal health care and severing the link between employment and insurance? Businesses don’t really want to be in charge of insurance plans; if they could get away with it, they would drop insurance. But they can’t, and… Continue reading Ditching Health Insurance
That’s a tax plan!
The Center for American Progress (CAP) came out with a tax plan. And it’s a pretty darn good one! It’s actually fairly close to a plan I’d support. It raises the top bracket to Clinton-era levels, it caps deductions, it increases the capital gains tax and the tax on dividends, it gets rid of the… Continue reading That’s a tax plan!