Credit Where it’s Due In this instance, to Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) who, given that a $350b tax cut is a fait accompli, actually came up with a pretty reasonable proposal on dividend taxes: Bush says his proposal to eliminate dividend taxes would boost stock prices and create jobs [on this point, see my earlier […]

Well Worth Reading… …and then buying. Salon has excerpts from Sidney Blumenthal new book, The Clinton Wars. Of course, why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? (just kidding, I think). Now, if I could just figure out how to get the kickbacks from Amazon for the thousands of click-through sales […]

The Search for WMJ Many times over the last few years, current events brought a scene from the Simpsons to mind: Homer, reporting on the results of Springfield’s attempt to rid the town of bears: “There’s not a single bear in sight–the ‘Bear Patrol’ is working like a charm” “That’s specious reasoning,” Lisa retorts. “Thanks, […]

More Buffet As reported by Matt Stoller at ISTE, Warren Buffet recently came out strongly against the Bush tax cuts, going so far as to say “I don’t think enough of it [federal revenue] comes from people like me and too much comes from people who work in our shoe factories.” Is Buffet just some […]

New Links Just added: It’s Still the Economy and A Taxing Blog. The former is a team blog devoted to the economy, currently with me, Matt Stoller, and MB of Wampum as contributors, but look for that group to expand. The latter is also a team blog, with the motto, “A Tax Policy Blog — […]

Life in the Land of Programming Executives So I’m a bit late on this one, but in the wake of hiring noted Jackass Michael Weiner/Savage, MSNBC now has added Peggy Noonan (visit TBogg or Pandagon for amusing Noonan stories). It’s somewhat amusing to watch programming decisions, because there really is an obvious herd mentality. The […]

Must be time for more tax cuts CNN/Money has a special feature up, Jobless in America. I’ll have comments after I have time to read it (the day job is getting in the way), but in the meantime, here’s some titles of the stories in the feature: News: Job cuts soar Job-search hell It’s the […]

More Liberal Media The NYT managed to put out a 26 paragraph story on the rise and fall of Ashleigh Banfield without ever mentioning noted jackass, Michael Weiner (a.k.a. Michael Savage), and his asinine “mind-slut” comments. The NYT did attribute the fall to a number of factors other than her saying “It [War on Iraq […]

McKinsey on Dividend Taxes McKinsey is one of the top, many say the best, management consulting firms–hardly a left-wing industry. Among their various activities, they distribute a newsletter, The McKinsey Quarterly. In the latest issue, they have a short piece entitled Eliminating the double taxation of dividends is more notable for what it won’t do […]

Precursor to The Next House Un-American Activities Commission Disloyal Activites Commission? Matt Yglesias found it first, at least among bloggers I read. I’ll just echo his sentiment: “Holy Shit!”. For the most part the wording is innocuous–though I am tempted to Fisk it–but the title alone is scary enough. AB P.S. This looks like a […]