Friday, July 22, 2011
The Best Defense 'worst president' of the 20th century contest - By Tom Ricks | The Best Defense
So it came down to a guy named 'Wilson' and a guy with 'Wilson' in his name. Interesting.
Stephen Colbert (Out of character) - It Gets Better Project
Stephen Colbert records a YouTube video (out of character) for the It Gets Better Project to combat bullying of LGBT youths:
President Obama recorded a video for the project a few months ago as well:
President Obama recorded a video for the project a few months ago as well:
Can't someone else do it?
The Fix blog has a post about how the Republicans ran the type of election in 2010 that Homer Simpson did when he ran for Garbage Commissioner in a Simpsons episode. The parallels are very interesting.
There is one more thing the article doesn't mention from the episode that is also similar to the way Republicans run for office. They claim the mantle of fiscal conservatism but do the exact opposite when they get elected, like this exchange between Marge and Homer:
Marge: How could you blow through a year's budget in just one month?
Homer: They let me sign checks with a stamp, Marge. WITH A STAMP!!
Kind of like rubber-stamping everything that the "fiscal conservative" George W. Bush did in his eight years as President.
There is one more thing the article doesn't mention from the episode that is also similar to the way Republicans run for office. They claim the mantle of fiscal conservatism but do the exact opposite when they get elected, like this exchange between Marge and Homer:
Marge: How could you blow through a year's budget in just one month?
Homer: They let me sign checks with a stamp, Marge. WITH A STAMP!!
Kind of like rubber-stamping everything that the "fiscal conservative" George W. Bush did in his eight years as President.
TheOnion.com: Congress Continues Debate Over Whether Or Not Nation Should Be Economically Ruined
You can always count on The Onion to get it right.
Washington's Dirty Little Secret
Ezra Klein uncovers something most people don't realize: tax expenditures and government spending are really the same thing:
"The government pays employers $700 billion to offer health insurance to their employees, which no economist would say is a good idea. We’re subsidizing select parts of the energy sector, spending almost $2 billion, for instance, to subsidize “open-loop biomass” rather than simply pricing carbon emissions and letting the market work out the details, and we’re handing $4 billion to oil and gas companies that explore for new reserves.
Midway through my excavation, however, when I was really just getting warmed up, I realized I had made a mistake. I wasn’t looking at the federal budget — I was looking at the U.S. tax code. So cutting all those costly programs wouldn’t count as cutting spending to Republicans in Washington. It would count as raising taxes.
All those programs are tucked in the tax code, classified as “tax expenditures.” Like traditional government spending, the point is to achieve specific ends by throwing money at a problem. The only difference is that the beneficiaries don’t receive checks from the government, they simply have their tax liabilities reduced. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that, in 2010 alone, tax expenditures cost the government more than $1 trillion — more than Medicaid and Medicare combined."
"The government pays employers $700 billion to offer health insurance to their employees, which no economist would say is a good idea. We’re subsidizing select parts of the energy sector, spending almost $2 billion, for instance, to subsidize “open-loop biomass” rather than simply pricing carbon emissions and letting the market work out the details, and we’re handing $4 billion to oil and gas companies that explore for new reserves.
Midway through my excavation, however, when I was really just getting warmed up, I realized I had made a mistake. I wasn’t looking at the federal budget — I was looking at the U.S. tax code. So cutting all those costly programs wouldn’t count as cutting spending to Republicans in Washington. It would count as raising taxes.
All those programs are tucked in the tax code, classified as “tax expenditures.” Like traditional government spending, the point is to achieve specific ends by throwing money at a problem. The only difference is that the beneficiaries don’t receive checks from the government, they simply have their tax liabilities reduced. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that, in 2010 alone, tax expenditures cost the government more than $1 trillion — more than Medicaid and Medicare combined."
Did you know Carlos Beltran will be traded any day now?
Jon Heyman's column in Sports Illustrated the other day makes me wonder not so much why the Mets would trade Carlos Beltran within their own division but rather, why would a division rival send a top prospect to another team within its own division when that prospect could come back to haunt them for the next 7-10 years?
On a side note about Beltran, Will Leitch of New York Magazine makes an interesting observation:
"Within the next eleven days, the Mets are going to trade Carlos Beltran. When that happens, we will all write obituaries to his seven-year Mets career, the high times, the low times, the injuries, the last out of the 2006 NLCS."
Later in the same post, he writes:
"And in his first chance as closer, Jason Isringhausen, of all people, nailed down the save. Mets fans of course know Isringhausen as the onetime starting prospect burnout, but Cardinals fans know him as the agonizingly inconsistent closer whose injury allowed Adam Wainwright to become the Cardinals closer in 2006, which led to that 2006 NLCS Game 7, which leads us back to Beltran. This post just went full circle and blew your mind."
On a side note about Beltran, Will Leitch of New York Magazine makes an interesting observation:
"Within the next eleven days, the Mets are going to trade Carlos Beltran. When that happens, we will all write obituaries to his seven-year Mets career, the high times, the low times, the injuries, the last out of the 2006 NLCS."
Later in the same post, he writes:
"And in his first chance as closer, Jason Isringhausen, of all people, nailed down the save. Mets fans of course know Isringhausen as the onetime starting prospect burnout, but Cardinals fans know him as the agonizingly inconsistent closer whose injury allowed Adam Wainwright to become the Cardinals closer in 2006, which led to that 2006 NLCS Game 7, which leads us back to Beltran. This post just went full circle and blew your mind."
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
The magic 18% number and its (un)reality...
A blog post at The Incidental Economist as well as Matt Miller's column in The Washington Post both talk about how capping taxes at 18% of GDP is a pipe dream:
"...if we maintain our 40 year historical average of 18 percent of GDP raised in taxes, the we will have a deficit simply due to paying for interest, health care, social security and defense in 2021. That means that even with no FBI, FAA, NIH, NEA, Homeland Security, and nothing else but these line items–18% of GDP collected in taxes still won’t be enough to produce a balanced budget. With NO federal spending other than these categories, we will have a deficit in 10 years if our tax code brings in 18% of GDP."
Miller goes on to write about how capping federal spending at 18% is not possible in this day-and-age either:
"The “cap, cut and balance” plan passed by the House Tuesday night captures Republican denial perfectly. The plan would cap federal spending at 19.9 percent of GDP by 2018, with the goal of lowering it to18 percent over time. Similar caps have been endorsed by most of the GOP’s presidential candidates.
You’d never know from listening to Republicans that these goals are mathematically and politically unattainable.
But they are. Why? If there’s one fact you need to emblazon in your mind to make sense of the current debate, it is that Ronald Reagan ran the federal government at 22 percent of GDP back when our population was much younger. (Under President Obama, the extraordinary measures enacted to fight the recession – plus a collapse in the denominator, GDP -- have boosted spending to around 24 percent, while revenue has dropped to 15 percent from its 18-19 percent longtime average).
It is simply not plausible to argue that as we double the number of seniors on Social Security and Medicare, Uncle Sam will be able to operate at spending levels 10 to 20 percent below those over which America’s modern conservative icon presided. (Though, as [The Washington Post's] Dana Milbank notes, Reagan agreed to raise taxes 11 times.) Today there’s no question: Taxes must rise."
Read both articles. You'll be much smarter having done so.
"...if we maintain our 40 year historical average of 18 percent of GDP raised in taxes, the we will have a deficit simply due to paying for interest, health care, social security and defense in 2021. That means that even with no FBI, FAA, NIH, NEA, Homeland Security, and nothing else but these line items–18% of GDP collected in taxes still won’t be enough to produce a balanced budget. With NO federal spending other than these categories, we will have a deficit in 10 years if our tax code brings in 18% of GDP."
Miller goes on to write about how capping federal spending at 18% is not possible in this day-and-age either:
"The “cap, cut and balance” plan passed by the House Tuesday night captures Republican denial perfectly. The plan would cap federal spending at 19.9 percent of GDP by 2018, with the goal of lowering it to18 percent over time. Similar caps have been endorsed by most of the GOP’s presidential candidates.
You’d never know from listening to Republicans that these goals are mathematically and politically unattainable.
But they are. Why? If there’s one fact you need to emblazon in your mind to make sense of the current debate, it is that Ronald Reagan ran the federal government at 22 percent of GDP back when our population was much younger. (Under President Obama, the extraordinary measures enacted to fight the recession – plus a collapse in the denominator, GDP -- have boosted spending to around 24 percent, while revenue has dropped to 15 percent from its 18-19 percent longtime average).
It is simply not plausible to argue that as we double the number of seniors on Social Security and Medicare, Uncle Sam will be able to operate at spending levels 10 to 20 percent below those over which America’s modern conservative icon presided. (Though, as [The Washington Post's] Dana Milbank notes, Reagan agreed to raise taxes 11 times.) Today there’s no question: Taxes must rise."
Read both articles. You'll be much smarter having done so.
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