Update: Nouriel Roubini front pages this post on Euromonitor here. The ECB dove in and hiked its policy rate by 25 basis points to 1.25%. I had the pleasure of listening to Wolfgang Munchau on Thursday, and he reiterated what I reluctantly understood: the ECB’s strict inflation target is ridiculously simple for such a complex […]
AP’s Andrew Taylor describes a part of the federal budget debate that needs clarification for the average voter and others regarding this current round of ‘negotiations’: Some $18 billion of the spending cuts involve cuts to so-called mandatory programs whose budgets run largely on autopilot. To the dismay of budget purists, these cuts often involve […]
The Tax Policy Center The Supreme Court Says Tax Expenditures aren’t Goverbment Spending points us to a notable decision by the Supreme Court that has been lost in the federal budget fracas. Ever since Stanley Surrey popularized the concept of tax expenditures nearly half a century back, economists have argued that many tax breaks are […]
Today RJs Aggregator presents opinion across the web regarding proposed Republican budget cuts for fiscal year 2012. Of note, AB authors Ken Houghton and Kash also contributed to the debate. Guest Post: The RJs Aggregator – The Ryan Plan by RJ House Republicans Propose $4 Trillion in Cuts Over Decade – “House Republicans plan this […]
by Michael Halasy Health Policy Analyst and Emergency Medicine PA Regional Disparities in Health Spending… Jason Shafrin, over at the Healthcare Economist, brings up an interesting paper examining the data from the Dartmouth Atlas. For those that are unfamiliar, the Dartmouth Atlas is a compendium of data examining Medicare spending per beneficiary, and then comparing […]
by Beverly Mann I Wonder What John Yoo Thinks of All This Most of you, I’m sure, know of the controversy concerning Freedom of Information requests by Wisconsin Republican officials to University of Wisconsin professor history and environmental studies professor William Cronon, in retaliation for certain postings on his new blog and for a New […]
Guest post by Steve Roth Want a Flat Tax? I Got a Flat Tax for You crossposted with Asymptosis One percent of financial assets. Personal and corporate. Annually. With somewhere north of $55 trillion in U.S. financial assets out there (2009, down from $63 trillion in 2007), a Financial Assets Tax would generate more than […]
by Daniel Becker This is an interview of Joseph Stiglitz on Democracy Now regarding his article in the current Vanity Fair. He discuss the issue of income inequality, taxes, etc and how it has set us up to be less of a land of oportunity than what old Europe was. A few quotes: The question […]
This is new. This post by Matthew Ygelsias isn’t about monetary policy, and I don’t find it convincing at all. He wrote if you raise high-end marginal rates while leaving deductions alone, what you do is massively increase the value of the deductions. The home mortgage interest tax deduction, for example, is both distributively regressive […]