In the comments on my recent Home Work, GDP, and Family Values, which discusses a recent study (PDF) on the subject, Saturos points to this Arnold Kling post replying to a Timothy Taylor post summarizing that study. Saturos thinks Arnold’s post is “excellent.” I think otherwise. Arnold says “the value of household production” is an […]

by Kenneth Thomas New Report Highlights Flaws of North Carolina Mega-Incentives My new report for the North Carolina Budget and Tax Center, Special Deals, Special Problems–An Analysis of North Carolina’s Legislature-Approved Economic Development Incentives, has just been published. It covers a range of issues I’ve emphasized here before as well as some basic considerations reporters […]

by Run 75441 United Citizens and Wisconsin Heading into the Tuesday vote Mayor Barrett with ~$4million in election funds of which 26% is drawn from out of state sources faces off with the under siege Governor Walker having ~$30 million in funds with 2/3rds coming from out of state sources. Again the Koch Bros are […]

Uwe E. Reinhardt offers his viewpoint on trends in US health spending.  Following are excerpts from two articles in the NYT’s Economix  concerning the costs of our system and how they are apportioned in the big picture, and the impact on family budgets.  Reading the charts is actually important. There are trends in our health care […]

Usually I describe the employment report as disappointing. But this one was just miserable. Private sector employment only rose 69,000 and the unemployment rate ticked back up from 8.1%to 8.2%. On a positive note, the household survey showed a gain of 422,000 and generally this series tends to lead the payroll data.   But the […]

Trevor Potter offers a thorough treatment (for an article sized piece) of the Citizen’s United decision by the US Supreme Court in a speech at an Annual Meeting of the American Law Institute. The link is to the transcript via Alternet. …coverage is so successful because it accurately describes a campaign finance world that seems too […]

Jared Bernstein writes on the same points on why people move to other states and taxes as Steve Roth and Linda Beale address in their posts today and gives us this evidence  (hat tip rjs): Migration is not common. The migration that’s occurring is much more likely to be driven by cheaper housing than by lower […]

by Kenneth Thomas Guest post: Basics: How Overrepresented Are Rural and Low-Population States? We all kinda sorta know it: rural and small states are overrepresented in the Senate and, to a lesser extent, the Electoral College.This has deep roots in American history, of course: when the United States Constitution was drafted, small states demanded the […]

by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt Health Care Thoughts: Small Business, Obamacare, Tax Credits I am still struggling to get my arms around whether or not small businesses will dump employees into health exchanges rather than continue health care coverage. And still looking at related issues. So what to make of the AP tax credit story […]