Bruce Bartlett’s post on his NYTimes blog last week highlighted the long-term fiscal problems faced by the US. He mentioned that his preferred solution would be to impose a national value added tax (VAT) to help close the gap between expected federal revenues and spending. His most recent NYTimes post (see Mark Thoma for excerpts, […]

Some of you have wondered why I haven’t yet made much of an effort to distinguish between legal and illegal immigration. It’s a fair question. Let me share my thoughts with you about the two, and explain why my sentiments about immigration in general mean that I don’t worry much about the distinction between the […]

Simpsons aficionados among you already know that the Simpsons addressed the issue of immigration back in 1996, in the episode “Much Apu About Nothing”. Here’s a summary of the beginning of the episode, thanks to Wikipedia (Btw, I never would have guessed that Wikipedia contains entries on individual Simpsons episodes…) On an ordinary day, a […]

A propos of recent discussions regarding immigration, I thought it worthwhile reposting the link to a relevant paper that I quite like: Gianmarco Ottaviano and Giovanni Peri, “The Economic Value of Cultural Diversity: Evidence from US Cities.” What are the economic consequences to U.S. natives of the growing diversity of American cities? Is their productivity […]

Brad DeLong uses his blog to publish more honesty from Bruce Bartlett: But how likely is it that the Laffer curve is causing revenues to rise, as opposed to normal operation of the business cycle? Not much, in my opinion. First of all, the Laffer curve came to prominence during a period when the top […]

Now that Blogger is letting me post again… This morning the Fed released data on industrial production – production in the manufacturing, mining, and utilities sectors of the economy – as well as capacity utilization in the US. From the press release: Industrial production increased 0.7 percent in February after a decrease of 0.3 percent […]

It appears that the blog is now viewable, but I can’t seem to post the things that I’ve been writing in the past 24 hours… Kash

Peggy Noonan is shocked that President Bush is not fiscally responsible. As she still worships St. Ronald Reagan, Ms. Noonan is not about the blame the tax cuts: This week’s column is a question, a brief one addressed with honest curiosity to Republicans. It is: When George W. Bush first came on the scene in […]

Mike Crapo has joined James DeMint, Rick Santorum, Lindsey Graham, and Tom Coburn with another spin on Social Security privatization that Phil Kerpen endorses: The DeMint-Crapo amendment puts the possibility of meaningful, pro-worker Social Security reform back into play. If the Democrats are smart they will latch onto it before the train leaves the station. […]

This morning’s release of consumer price inflation data for February by the BLS indicates that, for yet another month at least, any inflation pressures caused by last year’s sharp rise in energy prices has not been passed on into the prices of other goods. The inflation rate faced by consumers for things other than food […]