If you equate wealth and prosperity (not a crazy equation), then one of the best measures of a country’s prosperity is median household net worth. It arguably says a lot more about prosperity than various income measures. It tells you how the typical household (50% have more, 50% have less) is doing. If lots of […]
In the Open Thread, I pointed to the The Millennial Disruption Index and Millennials as a cohort which will be bigger then Baby-Boomers and are also the cohort which has suffered the most since 2001 when jobs started to disappear and wages crashed. The families at 35 years of age are struggling the most with […]
King v. Burwell [Cert] and Halbig v. Burwell) arrived at the DC COA in hopes of defunding (Ted Cruz’s top priority dream) the PPACA. Initially, a 3 judge panel ruled 2-1 striking down the funding of the PPACA based upon an earlier IRS interpretation of PPACA Section 1311 stating “Exchanges established by States.” Section 36B […]
Okay, so most of you who don’t live in Iowa (and most of you don’t live in Iowa, since it’s not a populous state) probably are unaware that the outcome of the election to replace retiring progressive Iowa senator Tom Harkin—which in turn may determine party control of the Senate—may turn on a dispute between […]
Barkley Rosser at Econospeak writes an op-ed on the Washington Post’s reporting: Dana Milbank Joins Parade Of WaPo Hysterics Over Social Security And Medicare Dean Baker has posted on this more completely and effectively than I shall do here (and his url is so long on this one, I shall not link directly, sorry), but […]
In my own state of Michigan, there was a battle in the Republican controlled state legislature to expand Medicaid for the 600,000 uninsured citizens. It did pass with some legislators such as Michigan State Senator Joseph Hune complaining loudly about how its passage made him “sick to his stomach.” Even with the passage, the state […]
I wonder what happens when a Democratic canidate for President campaigns on a proposal to increase taxes on high incomes and cut taxes on middle and lower class incomes (that is on the class warfare platform) ? IIRC what happens is that he gets elected. This is what Clinton did in 1992 and Obama did […]
In a new radio interview, [Massachusetts senator-cum-New Hampshire senate candidate Scott] Brown professes support for protecting people with preexisting conditions and other general goals of the law. But he reiterates his support for repealing Obamacare, claiming its goals should only be accomplished by states: “I believe states can do it better. They can certainly cover preexisting […]
In 2015, I predict that Obamacare enrollment will soar, matching 2014’s success. This may seem counter-intuitive. After all, in recent months, the public’s perception of Obamacare seems to have soured. The Henry J. Kaiser Foundation’s health care tracking poll for July reveals that 53% of those surveyed last month said they view the Affordable Care […]
What impact would Congress have on corporations if it were to change the amount of tax-deductible executive performance-based compensation downwards from $1 million to $500,000? The portal to the upper 1% of household taxpayers in income is $500,000 in normal income. If Congress were to limit tax-deductible performance-based income to $500,000, the change would put […]