Category Archives: Entitlements

Paul Krugman and the Inequality Deniers

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Recent criticism of Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Centruy has drawn the ire of the splenetic Paul Krugman. [Credit: National Review]

Recent crit­i­cism of Thomas Piket­ty’s Cap­i­tal in the 21st Cen­tu­ry has drawn the ire of the sple­net­ic Paul Krug­man. [Cred­it: Nation­al Review]

There is grow­ing con­cern among peo­ple on the Right and Left about income inequal­i­ty. But you wouldn’t know that from read­ing Paul Krugman’s lat­est screed.

What stirred Krugman’s bile this week was crit­i­cism of econ­o­mist Thomas Piketty’s book, Cap­i­tal in the 21st Cen­tu­ry, a work that has attained canon­i­cal sta­tus among the Left on both sides of the Atlantic. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Frenemies of the Poor

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The 50th anniversary of the President Johnson's declaration of a War on Poverty has provoked strong views on whether it has succeeded or failed. The truth lies somewhere between. [Credit: Huffington Post]

The 50th anniver­sary of the Pres­i­dent John­son’s dec­la­ra­tion of a War on Pover­ty has pro­voked strong views on whether it has suc­ceed­ed or failed. The truth lies some­where between. [Cred­it: Huff­in­g­ton Post]

It’s not much of an exag­ger­a­tion to say that right now Repub­li­cans are doing all they can to hurt the poor, and they would have inflict­ed vast­ly more harm if they had won the 2012 elec­tion. More­over, GOP harsh­ness toward the less for­tu­nate isn’t just a mat­ter of spite (although that’s part of it); it’s deeply root­ed in the party’s ide­ol­o­gy.  Paul Krug­man, “Ene­mies of the Poor,” Jan­u­ary 12, 2014

The 50th anniver­sary of Pres­i­dent Johnson’s War on Pover­ty has occa­sioned a good deal of moral exhi­bi­tion­ism. Lib­er­als heap praise on the pro­grams and flat­ter them­selves for sup­port­ing the trans­fer of an esti­mat­ed $20.7 tril­lion (in 2011 dol­lars) in cash and non-cash ben­e­fits from those who earned it to those who did not. And they are rel­ish­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty to denounce con­ser­v­a­tives as ene­mies of the poor, moti­vat­ed by ide­ol­o­gy and spite.

Some con­ser­v­a­tives, like the Her­itage Foundation’s Robert Rec­tor, are using the anniver­sary to declare the War on Pover­ty lost. Rec­tor recent­ly was quot­ed as say­ing that “the War on Pover­ty has been a com­plete cat­a­stro­phe.” Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Unemployment Benefits and Harry Reid’s Pain

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Harry Reid has embraced the pain of sequestration in his proposal to extend jobless benefits. But does it address the problem? [Credit: Roll Call]

Har­ry Reid has embraced the pain of seques­tra­tion in his pro­pos­al to extend job­less ben­e­fits. But does it address the prob­lem? [Cred­it: Roll Call]

“I think it’s real­ly unfair that it would be so easy to turn the sequester around and allow us to do some­thing for the long term to take care of this issue. But no, the Repub­li­cans like the pain. They like the pain.”  — Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Har­ry Reid, April 24, 2013

Har­ry Reid (D‑NV) has late­ly embraced the pain of sequester. On Thurs­day, Reid advanced a pro­pos­al to off­set the cost of extend­ing “emer­gency” unem­ploy­ment ben­e­fits with auto­mat­ic cuts in med­ical spend­ing for the elder­ly and dis­abled. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Should Obamacare Evolve Into “Medicare for All?”

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Federal agents storm a Los Angeles hospital engaged in a scheme to defraud Medicare. Such fraud is rampant, raising the question of whether "Medicare for All" is a good idea. [Credit: LA Times]

Fed­er­al agents storm a Los Ange­les hos­pi­tal engaged in a scheme to defraud Medicare. Such fraud is ram­pant, rais­ing the ques­tion of whether “Medicare for All” is a good idea. [Cred­it: LA Times]

Estill Mitts, a 68-year-old from Los Ange­les, came up with an enter­pris­ing idea some years back that made him mil­lions: pay home­less peo­ple from the city’s “Skid Row” dis­trict who were eli­gi­ble for Medicare or Med­ic­aid to check into local hos­pi­tals, even if they didn’t need to be there.

Set­ting up shop at a faux med­ical facil­i­ty that he dubbed the ”Assess­ment Cen­ter,” Mitts hired what he called “stringers” to pay home­less peo­ple small sums of mon­ey to go to one of three med­ical facil­i­ties that were in on the scam – City of Angels, LA Met­ro­pol­i­tan and Tustin Hos­pi­tal and Med­ical Cen­ter – where they were admit­ted whether or not they actu­al­ly required care. The hos­pi­tals billed Medicare or Med­ic­aid for the inpa­tient stays and made kick­back pay­ments to Mitts. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Politics as the Art of Spurning Compromise

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It may take a bigger gavel for House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) and his Senate counterpart Patty Murray (D-WA) to hammer out a budget agreement. (Credit: Swampland Times)

It may take a big­ger gav­el for House Bud­get Com­mit­tee Chair­man Paul Ryan (R‑WI) and his Sen­ate coun­ter­part Pat­ty Mur­ray (D‑WA) to ham­mer out a bud­get agree­ment. (Cred­it: Swamp­land Times)

Bud­get nego­tia­tors have strug­gled for near­ly two months to find agree­ment on the out­lines of a spend­ing bill that would fund the gov­ern­ment after Jan­u­ary 15.  The tar­get date for a deal is next Fri­day. They hope to meet it.

The agree­ment that con­tin­ues to elude them, if it comes at all, would be a small one. Gone are aspi­ra­tions for a “grand bar­gain” that would reform enti­tle­ments and the tax code and replace future across-the-board cuts with some­thing less mind­less. Changes to Medicare, Med­ic­aid, Social Secu­ri­ty and oth­er “manda­to­ry” spend­ing pro­grams, which togeth­er con­sti­tute 63 per­cent of non-inter­est gov­ern­ment spend­ing, are off the table.  So, too, are tax­es. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Could A Wealth Tax Solve the Problem of Government Debt?

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A recent IMF report suggests that this man's enormous wealth might help resolve the government's debt problem. [Credit: NY Post]

A recent IMF report sug­gests that this man’s enor­mous wealth might help resolve the gov­ern­men­t’s debt prob­lem. [Cred­it: NY Post]

The Inter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF) recent­ly report­ed that Euro­pean gov­ern­ments could reduce their debt back to pre-Great Reces­sion lev­els by con­fis­cat­ing 10 per­cent of the wealth held by their rich­est cit­i­zens. IMF isn’t rec­om­mend­ing that, of course.

They’re just sayin’. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Syria and the Budget: Putting Our Money Where Our Morality Is

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credit telegraph

The Pres­i­dent delib­er­at­ed for weeks before decid­ing to ask Con­gress for autho­riza­tion to attack Syr­ia. He’s work­ing the phones to gath­er votes but will his bud­get pro­vide future Pres­i­dents with the resources to car­ry out sim­i­lar actions? (Cred­it: Telegraph)

On August 14, the Sec­re­tary of the Army gave his sub­or­di­nates an order: pro­duce a list of cuts that will reduce spend­ing by 25 percent.

A week lat­er, a chem­i­cal weapons attack near Dam­as­cus left an esti­mat­ed 1,429 dead,  mov­ing the Pres­i­dent to ask the mil­i­tary to pre­pare for a retal­ia­to­ry strike against the Assad gov­ern­ment. Even a lim­it­ed assault would cost hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars, accord­ing to defense experts. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Welfare or Work: A Difficult Choice

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The choice between welfare and work is not always an easy one, according to a new study by the Cato Institute. (Credit: LA Times)

The choice between wel­fare and work is not always an easy one, accord­ing to a new study by the Cato Insti­tute. (Cred­it: LA Times)

(NOTE: This post was updat­ed on Sep­tem­ber 23 to incor­po­rate the gov­ern­men­t’s new­ly-released pover­ty rate data.)

If forced to choose between a full-time job that paid $24.40 per hour and enrolling in a pack­age of gov­ern­ment ben­e­fits that paid a com­pa­ra­ble amount, which would you choose? Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Republicans Getting Deficit Reduction, But President Getting His Way

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The President and Speaker are headed for another budget confrontation. [Credit: Fox News]

The Pres­i­dent and Speak­er are head­ed for anoth­er bud­get con­fronta­tion. [Cred­it: Fox News]

Con­gress is on hol­i­day, rest­ing up for the next round of bud­get wars that will resume after Labor Day. The issues they will face when they return are famil­iar: the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is about to lose author­i­ty to do what it does best (or, at least, most nat­u­ral­ly) – bor­row and spend. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

What Will The Poor Pay for Obamacare?

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Credit Huffington Post

Mil­lions of unin­sured Amer­i­cans with low incomes will find that cov­er­age under Oba­macare isn’t free. How they react to that brac­ing bit of news will help deter­mine whether the law suc­ceeds. [Cred­it: Huff­in­g­ton Post]

Pres­i­dent Oba­ma promised change.  Oba­macare will bring it.  But one of its most far-reach­ing changes has noth­ing to do with health care.  Con­tin­ue read­ing →