“My procedural complaints are somewhat more obscure. The biggest one is that I am beginning to believe that in order to get this bill passed, the Democrats basically gutted the CBO. Not because they were working with the CBO to get estimates–that’s the CBO’s job, to provide Congress with a cost. But rather, because this […]
Archive for 2009
Dec14th2009
How The Minimum Wage Harms Minorities The Most
Published by in Economics, Hispanics (Minority Issues) and Minimum Wage. 18 CommentsA while back I explained this in a post titled, “The Minority Case Against The Minimum Wage“, see here. Economist Steven Horwitz makes the same argument with less verbiage:
During his campaign for the presidency, Barack Obama promised that, in contrast to his predecessor, his presidency would be a “science presidency.” In his first year, […]
Dec8th2009
“One way to quickly improve any university would be to eliminate the bottom 25 percent of teachers and replace them with online instruction from outside the university. Maybe online instructors cannot compete with high-quality in-person professors, but they can certainly replace the worst.” — Arnold Kling
Nov30th2009
More On Tax Cuts Vs Fiscal Stimulus
Published by in Economics, Fiscal Stimulus, ModernPolitics and Taxes. 0 CommentsFrom Harvard’s Alberto Alesina and Silvia Ardagna:
Large changes in fiscal policy: taxes versus spending
We examine the evidence on episodes of large stances in fiscal policy, both in cases of fiscal stimuli and in that of fiscal adjustments in OECD countries from 1970 to 2007. Fiscal stimuli based upon tax cuts are more likely to increase […]
Nov25th2009
This time were not just talking about Doug Holtz-Eakin, John McCain’s former chief economic advisor, this is June O’Neill, CBO director during the middle of the Clinton administration:
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Nov24th2009
“In discussions with dozens of health-care leaders and economists, I find near unanimity of opinion that, whatever its shape, the final legislation that will emerge from Congress will markedly accelerate national health-care spending rather than restrain it. Likewise, nearly all agree that the legislation would do little or nothing to improve quality or change health-care’s […]
Nov23rd2009
“True, not everybody agrees that we need to use wartime measures against terrorists. But the Obama administration does. They’ve stepped up Predator strikes. They’re still allowing rendition. They’ve endorsed holding detainees near-indefinitely without putting them on trial. They’re treating Al Qaeda terrorists, in other words, as enemy combatants. And enemy combatants shouldn’t receive criminal trials. […]
Nov21st2009
“I think it’s pretty clear at this point that no bill from our Congress is going to meaningfully “bend the cost curve”. Every time I argue that cost control seems unlikely, I hear that no, the Senate bill is going to make some serious inroads into delivery system reform. Well, according to the CBO, the […]
Nov17th2009
“What is frustrating to me is that many people would agree that the Massachusetts health experiment failed, and yet that is the experiment that is being used as the model for the current bill. The original promise in Massachusetts was that by eliminating the “free-riding” of the uninsured and by setting up an efficient government […]
Nov13th2009
“Remember how we had to bail out Chrysler and give the company to Fiat because they were going to save American jobs and the environment with their awesome new electric cars? The electric cars that were going to start hitting the streets in 2010? Apparently, now that they’ve gotten the money, it’s festina lente; Fiat […]
Nov12th2009
In LA gets ugly:
As Los Angeles Unified contemplates turning more schools into charters, parents in a heavily immigrant neighborhood received an anonymous flier written in Spanish: “DO NOT SIGN ANY PETITIONS FOR A CHARTER SCHOOL BECAUSE YOU COULD BE DEPORTED.”
More here.
Nov11th2009
I’ve made the argument that gay marriage could in fact threaten religious liberties, Maggie Gallagher gives an example of how it could threaten civil liberties:
Case in point: Don Mendell, a school guidance counselor at Nokomis Regional High School in Maine, now faces ethics complaints for his decision to appear in a TV ad for the […]
Nov10th2009
“The bill is framed in terms of Republican attacks on the Democratic bill, not in terms of its own aims or methods. Which is fine, and to be expected. If I were a Republican, I wouldn’t spend my time crafting a health-care reform plan, either. Republicans don’t have the votes to pass a bill, and […]
Nov9th2009
Here is a blog devoted to explaining it.
Nov6th2009
Dont Copy Europes Healthcare
Published by in Economics, HealthCare, ModernPolitics and Myths. 9 CommentsSo says a European:
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Nov5th2009
A Healthcare Plan I Could Support
Published by in Economics, HealthCare and ModernPolitics. 0 CommentsIf Republicans were being responsible Republicans, this is the alternative they would argue for:
Here’s a better alternative. Let’s scrap the $220 billion annual health insurance tax subsidy, which is often used to buy the wrong kind of insurance, and use those budget dollars to provide insurance that protects American families from health costs that exceed […]
