Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Trade deficits, offshoring jobs, Republican tax plan

Via Washington Post, Jared Bernstein writes: The Republican tax cut plan has been justly criticized for worsening both income inequality and the national debt, but the plan has another big problem: It’s likely to lead to more outsourcing of U.S. jobs and a larger trade deficit. That’s obviously a negative for factory jobs and net […]

More on why so many parents lose under the TCJA

Ernie Tedeschi writes: As a followup to my post earlier this morning, I’ve created a table below detailing how each policy in the TCJA affects the number of parental families in 2027 seeing a tax hike. Using refined policy parameters that have been added to the OSPC model since yesterday, I find that under the TCJA […]

Tax Cuts Pay for themselves nonsense

by Hale Stewart (originally published at Bonddad blog) John Hinderaker Renews His “Tax Cuts Pay For Themselves With Growth” Nonsense It’s been awhile since John “Everything I wrote about economics for an entire year was wrong” Hinderaker has written about economics.  The respite has been glorious.  But now that Republicans in the House have passed […]

Many parents face higher taxes under TCJA, even if Congress makes its credits permanent

Ernie Tedeschi as linked by Paul Krugman points to an interesting author. The math is in follow up post.: Many parents face higher taxes under TCJA, even if Congress makes its credits permanent This quick post looks at the effects of the Tax Cut and Jobs Act (TCJA, the House GOP’s proposed tax plan introduced […]

Progressive policies

Via Washington Post on Progressive policies Of the many things that are terribly wrong with our current tax debate, one primary offender is the notion that tax cuts will unleash massive growth effects. If facts could kill this mythology, it would be long dead. … …but a great, new paper just landed on my desk that takes […]

Cutting the tax on corporate profits would probably reduce US national income

Paul Krugman has been explaining (very slowly and clearly) that if the US attracts foreign investment by cutting taxes on profits, then it will have to pay the foreign investors. The Tax Foundation appears not to have noticed that loans are not gifts. First he quoted Stephen Rosenthal’s observation that the direct effect of cutting […]

Why are Republicans About to cut $25 Billion from Medicare ?

The PayGo law forbids bills which increase the national debt. Unless it is repealed or waived, the Republican tax cuts would cause automatic sequestration of, among other funds $ 25 billion from Medicare. This is an excellent as usual Vox Explainer by Tara Golshan It all comes down to the “pay-as-you-go,” or PAYGO, rule — […]

Two thoughts on the Virginia election: it’s the net strong disapproval,stupid! But is the primary driver education or age?

Two thoughts on the Virginia election: it’s the net strong disapproval,stupid! But is the primary driver education or age? It’s a slow week for economic news, but we sure had some electoral fireworks on Tuesday! Since I am a data nerd, here are two metrics from Virginia that caught my attention, which I’ll discuss in […]