Second, single-payer would require a lot of additional tax revenue — and we would be talking about taxes on the middle class, not just the wealthy. It’s true that higher taxes would be offset by a sharp reduction or even elimination of private insurance premiums, but it would be difficult to make that case to […]
Bernie Sanders has proposed a federal national health insurance system which will provide no-deductible no copay insurance to all US legal residents. Needless to say, this will be expensive. Amazingly, Sanders focused on what taxes he proposes be increased to pay for the program. Kevin Drum is very favorably impressed by the (relatively) honest budgeting […]
UPDATE: To see the winning Clinton claim, read my my comment to Robert Waldmann’s post above. —- Last week when Chelsea Clinton made he now-infamous statements about Sanders’ single-payer healthcare insurance plan—specifically, the one he proposed as a bill in 2013, but presumably a blueprint for the one he plans to propose—I wondered how Sanders […]
Larry Summers has been writing about Secular Stagnation for Two Years. This is the post which triggered the trialogue It is an excellent and important post, but I will just take the non technical definition of Secular Stagnation The core idea behind secular stagnation was that the neutral real rate had for a variety of […]
President Addressing Weapon Safety: Link New Executive Actions to Reduce Gun Violence and Make Our Communities Safer To me this is “mostly” a reiteration of what is already out there for law with restrictions plus some enhancements. President Obama appears to be calling for enforcement of what is already there for law. There are adders […]
Sandwichman at Econospeak has a post up on subsidizing Methane and the BLM. It fits in with the Bundy take over of the Wildlife Refuge Bldg. He credits 538 Politics for this exclusive The Armed Oregon Ranchers Who Want Free Land Are Already Getting A 93 Percent Discount We are paying for the air pollution […]
Been taking some time to recoup from back surgery (8 inch gash Lumbar area), catch my breath, and find some more interesting topics on which to write. There are some awesome reads out there if you just take some time to search for them. – Another Christmas gift from Dean Baker; The Effort to Divert […]
This is the third of a series of posts on the non accelerating wage inflation rate of unemployment (NAWRU) estimated by the European Commission. In the first, I argue that this estimate is very important because it is used to implement the Stability and Growth Pact. In the second, I argue that the NAWRU is […]
This is the first of five posts I promised to write in this post. NAWRU stands for the Non Accelerating Wage inflation Rate of unemployment. It is a concept used by the European Commission when deciding how much to allow Treasuries adhering to the Stability and Growth Pact to spend. The commission considers cyclical adjustments […]
European Commission fiscal dictates are based on outdated economic theory, strange econometrics and arbitrary ad hoc restrictions on parameter estimates. It is not easy to discuss the technique behind that which presents itself as technocracy with a straight face. The ‘cracy part is genuinely powerful, so this matters. This will be the first of a […]