The Buffett Ruse
Obama's ploy means the highest capital gains tax rate since 1978.
Here we are four years later, and President Obama on Tuesday night linked the term "fair" to U.S. tax and economic policy seven times. The U.S. economy is still hobbling out of recession, real family incomes are falling and 14 million Americans are unemployed, but Mr. Obama declared that his top priority is not to reform the tax code to promote growth and job creation. His overriding goal is redistributing income.
Mr.
Obama endorsed the political ruse he calls the Buffett rule, which
asserts as a matter of moral principle that millionaires should not pay a
lower tax rate than middle-class wage earners. Specifically, Mr. Obama
is proposing that anyone earning more than $1 million pay at least 30%
of that income to Uncle Barack.
The GOP Goes MAD
The candidates go thermonuclear, but the party itself may get hit.
For nearly three decades, the American and Soviet nuclear arsenals cohabitated uneasily inside a policy of Mutual Assured Destruction without blowing each other up. MAD was insane, but the players were not. Campaigning politicians operate under no such rational constraint. We are hours away from the second Florida primary debate in which Newt Gingrich will give Mitt Romney a lesson in massive retaliation for the governor's Gatling-gun attack on the speaker last Monday night.
Martin Kozlowski
Traditionalists
will dismiss the idea that the GOP is in the process of blowing itself
up. Campaign politics has always been about the rough and tumble, old
boy. It was ever thus.The State of the Union Is Angry
What Obama and Gingrich have in common.
By JAMES TARANTO
We were tired when we got home last night, too tired to pay much attention to the substance of President Obama's State of the Union Address. But we dutifully sat through all 65 minutes of it, and they made a strong emotional impression: This guy is angry. And it was a vigorous sort of anger, not the thin-skinned petulance to which this president has accustomed us. The tone was not whiny but combative. Obama reminded us of Newt Gingrich.Europe’s Debt Crisis Is Still Likely to End Badly: Simon Johnson
There are two main schools of
thought on what may happen next with Europe’s debt crisis. Some
well-informed people strongly believe that everything will work
out just fine, and without much of an economic slowdown. Other,
equally well-informed people believe just as strongly that the
euro area will break apart in a traumatic manner. When it comes
to predicting Europe’s future, not many people occupy the middle
ground.
Bernanke’s Housing-Market Meddling Tarnishes Trust: Amity Shlaes
In 2009, an economist named Paola Sapienza came up with an image to describe the challenge the
U.S. economy faced after the financial crisis. The economy was
like a board game, Sapienza, a professor at Northwestern
University, told me. Especially like the old favorite
“Monopoly.”
Despite the name, “Monopoly” isn’t really about antitrust. It’s about trust. Trust and commerce, Sapienza said. If people want to buy properties, if renters pay their rents and the bank acts predictably, then the game will move merrily forward, and hotels will replace houses on the board.
But if the bank can’t be trusted -- if it cheats or proves too erratic -- there is a problem. The players walk away from the table.
Despite the name, “Monopoly” isn’t really about antitrust. It’s about trust. Trust and commerce, Sapienza said. If people want to buy properties, if renters pay their rents and the bank acts predictably, then the game will move merrily forward, and hotels will replace houses on the board.
But if the bank can’t be trusted -- if it cheats or proves too erratic -- there is a problem. The players walk away from the table.
Gingrich’s Ideas Collapse Under Weight of Logic: Ramesh Ponnuru
Even Newt Gingrich’s toughest
critics concede that the former speaker of the House, now
enjoying his second comeback in the Republican presidential
race, is a font of ideas.
Republican voters who listen to him hear proposals they have never heard before: bold, exciting proposals, made with complete confidence in their workability. His originality is a big part of his appeal. But even his fans concede that not all of his ideas are good.
Everyone has good and bad ideas, of course. Getting them all tangled up with each other is one of the chief characteristics of Gingrich’s intellectual style.
Republican voters who listen to him hear proposals they have never heard before: bold, exciting proposals, made with complete confidence in their workability. His originality is a big part of his appeal. But even his fans concede that not all of his ideas are good.
Everyone has good and bad ideas, of course. Getting them all tangled up with each other is one of the chief characteristics of Gingrich’s intellectual style.
Harvard MBA Degree Earns Romney ‘C-’ on Tax Plan: Caroline Baum
Conventional wisdom holds that
presidential candidates, once they secure their party’s
nomination, tack to the center for the general election. Having
appeased the more extreme elements that come out to vote in
primary elections, a candidate can drop the pretense of being a
far right- or left-winger and don the mantle of reasonable
centrist in order to garner the ever-growing share of the
independent vote.
Not so for Mitt Romney. With the inevitability of his candidacy increasing with each passing primary, the founder of Bain Capital is going to have to demonstrate his conservative bona fides, especially in the area of tax policy, if he wants to convince the public he represents a clear break with the past. (“Governor of Massachusetts” on the resume just doesn’t cut it.)
Not so for Mitt Romney. With the inevitability of his candidacy increasing with each passing primary, the founder of Bain Capital is going to have to demonstrate his conservative bona fides, especially in the area of tax policy, if he wants to convince the public he represents a clear break with the past. (“Governor of Massachusetts” on the resume just doesn’t cut it.)
Gingrichonomics Equals Nothing but Dysfunction: View
Photograph by Peter Foley/Bloomberg; Illustration by Bloomberg VIew
By
the Ed
Newt Gingrich, unexpectedly, has
become a serious contender for the Republican presidential
nomination. He won the South Carolina primary and is now the
front-runner in some polls nationally. He has been debating
well, shaking off criticism of his personal life and doing his
best to bolster his reputation as an ideas man.
‘Fool in the Shower’ to Give Fed a Good Scalding: Caroline Baum
Photograph by Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg; Illustration by Ryan Thacker
Long and variable lags. That’s all I
could think of yesterday when I read the Federal Reserve
statement and learned that economic conditions “are likely to
warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate at
least through late 2014.”
Corporate Citizens Can Do Well by Doing Good: Richard H. Thaler
Illustration by Kelsey Dake
By
Richard H. Thaler
Although the phrase is now somewhat
out of fashion, the issue of corporate responsibility is at the
heart of many of the debates on economic policies around the
world. Should corporations simply maximize profits and let the
invisible hand do its wonders, or do they have some obligation
to be good corporate citizens as well?
‘Stop-Newt’ Republicans Confront New Base. By Julie Hirschfeld Davis
Two days after Newt Gingrich
defeated Mitt Romney in the South Carolina presidential primary
one of Romney’s big-name backers offered a grim prediction for
his fellow Republicans.
“The possibility of Newt Gingrich being our nominee against Barack Obama I think is essentially handing the election over to Obama,” former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty told reporters on a Jan. 23 conference call. “I think that’s shared by a lot of folks in the Republican Party.”
Pawlenty’s comments echoed those being uttered publicly and behind the scenes by elected Republicans, party activists, fundraisers and pundits, who represent a portion of the party establishment -- a “stop-Newt” caucus -- populated largely by people who have known the former U.S. House speaker for decades.
The question is: Can they?
“The possibility of Newt Gingrich being our nominee against Barack Obama I think is essentially handing the election over to Obama,” former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty told reporters on a Jan. 23 conference call. “I think that’s shared by a lot of folks in the Republican Party.”
Pawlenty’s comments echoed those being uttered publicly and behind the scenes by elected Republicans, party activists, fundraisers and pundits, who represent a portion of the party establishment -- a “stop-Newt” caucus -- populated largely by people who have known the former U.S. House speaker for decades.
The question is: Can they?
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Do We Need a Law to Make People Think? Virginia's hypocrisy on gun rights versus abortion rights. A. Barton Hinkle
“I think people should make informed choices, and I think this
bill would accomplish that.” So said Del. Mark Cole the other day
about his bill to force anyone seeking a firearm or concealed-carry
permit in Virginia to look at autopsy pictures of shooting
victims.
Autopsy pictures of gunshot wounds aren’t pretty, especially those of head shots. But maybe looking at a few would make some of the more thoughtless, irresponsible gun buyers think about the potential consequences of their actions.
You disagree? Well, so does Cole, actually. In fact, he has not introduced any such legislation. To the contrary, he has introduced a bill (HB140) that would allow people to carry concealed firearms without a permit. This would clear away “a little bit of bureaucratic red tape,” he says. Cole is a gun-rights kind of guy, and good for him.
Autopsy pictures of gunshot wounds aren’t pretty, especially those of head shots. But maybe looking at a few would make some of the more thoughtless, irresponsible gun buyers think about the potential consequences of their actions.
You disagree? Well, so does Cole, actually. In fact, he has not introduced any such legislation. To the contrary, he has introduced a bill (HB140) that would allow people to carry concealed firearms without a permit. This would clear away “a little bit of bureaucratic red tape,” he says. Cole is a gun-rights kind of guy, and good for him.
The Eternal State of the Union
Why does every SOTU sound eerily familiar? Because presidents have been saying the same things for a half-century.
What will President Barack
Obama's State of the Union Address look like tonight? We can be
pretty sure Obama will talk about improving the economy, creating
jobs for the 21st century, achieving energy independence, improving
our schools, confronting America's enemies, championing the global
cause of freedom, tackling long-term entitlements, and building
bipartisan coalitions to rise above political bickering and do the
people's work, at this hinge point in history.That's because every State of the Union has contained all or most of these nostrums stretching back a half-century. In fact, starting with John F. Kennedy's address to a joint session of Congress in 1961, you could take one sentence from each SOTU since, in chronological order, and cobble together a speech that will likely resemble much of what you'll hear tonight.
So that's precisely what I've done. Without further ado.
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