Are the budget deficits due to profligate spending by the Bush administration? Are Congressional Republicans truly more spendtrift in their ways than French socialists? I find a little historical context helpful in assessing these claims from the right. The chart below shows federal spending broken into several major categories over the past few decades, expressed […]
Think Progress invites Gene Sperling to discuss the facts as to real wages, employment, and other economic matters.
I used to think of Mr. Barbour as just another Republican that read straight from the talking points. But my estimation of this man has just shot up enormously given this: WASHINGTON (AP) – Congressional failures to approve emergency funding for roads, schools and housing construction have stalled Mississippi’s efforts to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina, […]
Edward Leamer’s quarterly forecast was released today. It was quite pessimistic regarding the housing market: LOS ANGELES – A sustained decline will hit the U.S. housing market next year, costing the nation as many as 800,000 jobs, according to a new economic report released Wednesday. The slowdown is likely to last several years, with as […]
I’d like to follow up on PGL’s post from yesterday about tax cuts and GDP growth. The argument from some supply-side tax-cut advocates (see, for example this WSJ op-ed: “The deficit is shrinking, thanks to the Bush tax cuts“) is that the Bush tax cuts have increased economic growth dramatically. So dramatically, in fact, that […]
I’ve been looking for an excuse to post this diagram of real Federal tax revenues (excluding payroll contributions) and Kash’s post “The Budget Deficit in Context” and a few other posts on this topic provide that excuse. I guess the standard supply-side reply to Kash’s noting that revenues as a percent of GDP have fallen […]
The New America Foundation has just proposed a few ideas for fundamental tax reform. Their tax reform plan suggests five specific major changes to how taxes are collected in the US: Replace the payroll tax with a progressive consumption tax, i.e. a tax only on the income that an individual does not save; Eliminate corporate […]
Reader RN alerted me to a recent press release by the Bush administration touting the fantastic job growth following the 2003 Bush tax cuts: “The American economy has created 4.4 million new jobs and the unemployment rate has fallen to 5.0% — well below the historical average — since the President signed the Jobs and […]
Dean Baker writes: One popular explanation for the weak employment growth of the last five years is that mothers are increasingly opting out of the labor force. The argument is that in a post-9-11 world, people have come to recognize that family is what really matters. Therefore, women now want to be at home with […]
Bruce Bartlett, noted tax-cut advocate and columnist for (among others) the Washington Times and National Review, sent me an email this morning offering this explanation for why he is in favor of at least talking about increasing taxes: I could do nothing but write about why spending should be cut for the rest of my […]