Trump’s Year of Magical Economic Thinking

 It is a relief that Donald Trump has finally turned to policy. Because now we can see, finally, that his policy ideas are as frothy, bombastic and detached from the world as the rest of his rhetoric. What the GOP candidate outlined in his big economic speech in Detroit on Monday relies entirely on an outdated theory (trickle-down economics)

Read more

Online Sales Taxes: A Good Idea Done Badly

On Monday, by a comfortable 69-27 majority, the U.S. Senate passed a controversial bill that will require online retailers with annual sales of more than $1 million to collect state sales taxes. Said Republican Mike Enzi of Wyoming: "This bill is about fairness. It's about leveling the playing field between the brick-and-mortar and online companies, and it's about collecting a tax that's already due. It's not about raising taxes."

Read more

Obama, Romney Tax Returns Unleash Worst Political Instincts

So it would seem that President Obama and his family are experiencing downward mobility. The Obamas released their 2011 tax return today, and showed that they earned $789,674. That is a healthy income and places the president well in the top 1 percent of all earners in the United States. He and Michelle paid $162,000 in federal income tax, at a rate of just over 20 percent. That is less than what the president recently proposed as the minimum rate for the very affluent. In addition, the Obamas donated more than 20 percent of their income to various charities.

Read more

Obama Call for Buffett Rule Is Potent Politics but an Economic Pitfall

Tuesday was a signal day for the 2012 presidential election: Mitt Romney conclusively became the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party after Rick Santorum suspended his campaign, and President Obama launched a full-throated attack on wealth and privilege, setting the stage for a campaign that will use the gap between rich and poor as a centerpiece.

Read more

Obama Embraces Warren Buffett’s Call for Higher Taxes on the Very Rich

At a press briefing at the White House Monday, President Obama formally announced a package revealed over the weekend to trim $3 trillion off the federal deficit over the next several years. Picking up on the theme of his recent jobs speech, Obama demanded that Congress move on the act immediately.

Read more

Obama’s Deficit Plan Falls Short

This is becoming like the War of the Roses. President Obama advanced the needle on deficit reduction and budget negotiations by providing a new set of proposals this morning for what the White House calculates will be $3 trillion in reduced spending over the next 10 years. That follows his congressional address last week calling for additional spending and tax breaks to boost economic activity, which in turn followed months of Washington stalemate on the debt ceiling.

Read more

Obama Jobs Speech: Nothing New, Is Incidental to Creating Jobs

President Obama’s speech to Congress hewed closely to the details that had already been leaked, save for the dollar amounts, which were considerably larger. Even so, the $450 billion price tag is somewhat misleading in that much of that is not new spending or new tax breaks but rather an extension of breaks and unemployment benefits that are already in place. Given that payroll tax cuts have not generated employment in the past two years, it’s is a stretch to see how they will suddenly do so now.

Read more

The End of The Ownership Society

Remember the ownership society? It was a vision woven by President George W. Bush when he was running for re-election in 2004, which saw every American family in a home, and a government that stayed out of the way of the American Dream. The families were, of course, conservative, or at a minimum traditional and nuclear, consisting of a heterosexual married couple and at least two kids living in a stand-alone home with a yard,

Read more