Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Cheaper Drugs

In last week’s Sunday NY Times, there’s a good roundup of economists’ thinking about how to finance prescription drug research, by Eduardo Porter, with the unfortunate title “Do New Drugs Always Have to Cost So Much?” This kind of article seems to be a specialty of Porter’s. He’s really good at finding the right economists […]

Yikes!

Gallup recently asked America about evolution. Here’s one question: “Just your opinion, do you think that Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution is: a scientific theory that has been well-supported by evidence, just one of many theories and one that has not been well-supported by evidence, or don’t you know enough about it to say?” Here […]

Your Tax Returns Must Reveal Whether You’re About to Gay-Marry

That’s the only explanation I can imagine for the latest from our Republican masters: This weekend Congress was working on a massive $388 billion omnibus spending bill that will cover all manner of federal spending. But at the request of Rep. Ernest Istook of Oklahoma, chairman of the House Appropriations Transportation Subcommittee, a special provision […]

Peggy Noonan on Rice Becoming Sec. of State: Sssshhhh

Jesse Taylor has fun with how many times Peggy Noonan wrote “Ssssssssssssshhhhhhh….” in this WSJ oped. OK, I have come to expect WSJ opeds to miss the point but they often try to make a point. I can’t believe Noonan ever wrote speeches for President Reagan given that this has less substance than a teenage […]

Greenspan on the US’s External Imbalances

Today Alan Greenspan gave an address to a central bankers’ conference in Frankfurt — at the end of a week that has seen the dollar plumb new depths of weakness against the euro. In his speech Greenspan reveals his latest thinking about the US’s external imbalances. The question now confronting us is how large a […]

Possible Tax Changes

A story in today’s Washington Post discusses some of the possible tax changes that seem to be most likely in whatever “tax reform” package that Bush proposes: [T]he administration plans to push major amendments that would shield interest, dividends and capitals gains from taxation, expand tax breaks for business investment and take other steps intended […]

Borrowing Our Way to a Better Tomorrow…

So here’s a question for you: how many times will the Bush administration have to ask Congress to increase the government’s debt ceiling? This week’s action makes #3 so far, but the new limit of over $8 trillion will probably be reached in less than two years. So it will at least be four, and […]

Whistling in the Dark

For how long can moderate Republicans in Washington keep whistling in the dark? WASHINGTON – While pledging to help President Bush promote anti-abortion judges to the federal bench, Sen. Arlen Specter is struggling to maintain his proudly cultivated image as an independent thinker and sometime maverick. …A flash of his rebellious side surfaced this week […]

Bartlett on Tax Policy in Europe v. the U.S.

Bruce Bartlett claims: …it is interesting to discover, according to a new report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, that governments of the left in Europe have been doing pretty much the same thing as President Bush has done here…there have been a number of major tax cuts in Europe that have lowered […]

Matthew Yglesias: Simplification v. the Flat Tax

The following may be the clearest statement on this issue I have ever read: Think about it. You’ve paid taxes. It was complicated. But did the existence of different tax brackets significantly contribute to the complexity? Of course not. What’s complicated is calculating your income (especially if you, like me, derive income from several different […]