Martin Wolk’s Kerry, Bush differ sharply on tax policy is an interesting read for a number of reasons – especially his suggestion tha the national sales tax idea is still being considered by the GOP leadership. I find the following both intriguing and insulting for reasons noted below: A recent article in The New Yorker […]
According to the White House web page, Bush’s proudest economic accomplishment is this: “The economy has posted job gains for each of the last twelve months – creating nearly 1.7 million jobs since August 2003.” This is the boast they put at the top of the page, and the achievement that Bush mentions in every […]
John Kerry has a piece in today’s Wall Street Journal outlining the core of his economic proposals. If you want to see a list of some meaningful economic policy changes, read the article (free registration required). No, not every single item that Kerry proposes is perfect, and not all of them will necessarily make much […]
Luddism is attributed to English workers in the early 1800’s who felt technological progress threatened their jobs. I seriously doubt that Alan Greenspan is a Luddite, but Thomas Nugent writes: in the hearing last week one Democratic congressman went to great lengths to graphically depict employment growth during the Bush years. His aim seemed to […]
We at the Angrybear have argued that as President Bush emphasizes the benefits of his decision on 3/19/2003 to invade Iraq, we should also be mindful of the enormous costs. It is not simply the budgetary costs but also the costs in terms of lost lives both in terms of the over 1000 American soldiers […]
From Josh Marshall: Kerry needs a catch phrase or catch question about the Iraq war, one that provides offense against President Bush’s oft-stated, extremely lame, but also somewhat effective line that the world is safer with Saddam Hussein out of power. In political rhetoric, coherence and clarity almost always trumps substance. So substance must be […]
Kash asks in Why Bush’s Tax Cuts Failed: Shouldn’t the largest tax cuts in history have had more effect? How could such massive tax cuts have such little impact on the economy? The answer is that it matters a great deal exactly how you cut taxes. This short-run Keynesian issue might seem to be a […]
This morning the BEA released its estimate of the US current account balance during the second quarter of 2004. The second quarter deficit was $166bn, meaning that the US borrowed a net $166bn from the rest of the world during those three months. This was done as a mixture of some explicit borrowing (e.g. selling […]
For some reason, while national income has risen at a moderate rate during this recovery, workers’ real salaries and wages have risen almost not at all. Instead, most of the increase in national income during this recovery has come in the form of profits. The portion of national income that goes to workers in the […]
From the front page of today’s Washington Post: $3 Trillion Price Tag Left Out As Bush Details His Agenda The expansive agenda President Bush laid out at the Republican National Convention was missing a price tag, but administration figures show the total is likely to be well in excess of $3 trillion over a decade. […]