Kansas Republicans abandon Brownback; raise taxes over his veto Remember Kansas’s great tax-cutting experiment under Governor Sam Brownback? (Me, sarcastic?) As always in Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore La-La Land, cutting taxes leads to economic nirvana. Except when it doesn’t, and it didn’t in Kansas. I recently wrote about the idiocy of Investor Business Daily‘s […]
A Personal Observation On Trump’s “Infrastructure Week” Yes, folks, you may have already forgotten it, but this has officially been Trump’s “Infrastructure Week,” highlighted by his proposal to privatize air traffic control in the US, and his trip to Cincinnati where he in general terms talked about the supposed virtues of privatizing highways, bridges, and […]
by Peter Dorman (originally published at Econospeak) Class Resentment and the Center-Left, or the Politics of “We Are the 80%” I’ve just read the suitably downbeat piece by Thomas Edsall about the travails of the Democratic Party in today’s New York Times. Edsall, citing a recent symposium of political strategists in The American Prospect and […]
by Peter Dorman (originally published at Econospeak) The Cost of Climate Change: It’s Not About Psychology You know there are problems with economics when things that are perfectly reasonable in the context of economic theory are clearly absurd once you step out of it. Case in point: the claim in today’s New York Times […]
Via International Business Times (via RSN): Trump Administration’s Infrastructure Plan Involves Privatizing America’s Assets and Selling Them to Goldman Sachs>/a> President Donald Trump’s administration this week touted an infrastructure plan that would sell off public assets to private financial firms. Left unsaid in the White House promotional materials was any mention that the Trump aide […]
Via Salon, another Goldman Sachs story: Ted Cruz failed to properly disclose Goldman Sachs loans: FEC This has not been a good week for Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. First he is the butt of a cutting joke by Democratic Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota (who told “USA Today” that “I like Ted Cruz […]
Fighting Zombies with Zombies Larry Mishel and Josh Bivens enlist zombie government policy ponies in their battle against “the zombie robot argument“: Technological change and automation absolutely can, and have, displaced particular workers in particular economic sectors. But technology and automation also create dynamics (for example, falling relative prices of goods and services produced with […]
Paul Krugman talks unions: Trucking And Blue-Collar Woes MAY 23, 2017 5:11 PM May 23, 2017 What with everything else going on, this Trip Gabriel essay on truckers hasn’t gotten as much attention as it should. But it’s awesome — and says a lot about what is and isn’t behind the decline of blue-collar wages. […]
A thought for Sunday: no, Trump approval *still* isn’t imploding. BUT … Democrats continue to delude themselves about Presidential approval polls — with one very big possible exception. In the first place, can we all agree that Trump has had a particularly nasty last several weeks? Including firing Comey, blabbing secrets to the Russian ambassador, […]
Of Memorial Day and Confederate statues Memorial Day is a particularly fitting time to write about the issue of Confederate monuments. That’s because Memorial Day originated as a day set aside to honor the Civil War dead, not just those who fought for the Union, but those on both sides, including those who died in […]