Category Archives: Taxes

When Dead Men Rule

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G.K. Chesterton worried that our predecessors would have too little influence on our politics. But Gene Steuerle says that they have too much. [Credit: christiancompletely blog]

G.K. Chester­ton wor­ried that our ances­tors would have too lit­tle influ­ence on our soci­ety. But a new book by the Urban Insti­tute’s Gene Steuer­le says that they exert too much con­trol over our pol­i­tics. [Cred­it: chris­tian­com­plete­ly blog]

“Tra­di­tion means giv­ing votes to the most obscure of all class­es, our ances­tors.  It is the democ­ra­cy of the dead.” – G.K. Chester­ton

Chester­ton fret­ted that mod­ern democ­ra­cies might show too lit­tle def­er­ence to past gen­er­a­tions.  But accord­ing to the Urban Institute’s Gene Steuer­le, the very oppo­site is true: in Amer­i­can democ­ra­cy, dead men rule. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

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 →

Maximum Wage: Solution to Inequality?

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The Swiss campaign to limit executive pay fell short, but are there good solutions to the problem of income inequality?

The Swiss cam­paign to lim­it exec­u­tive pay fell short, but are there good solu­tions to the prob­lem of income inequality?

We know that people’s frus­tra­tions run deep­er than these most recent polit­i­cal bat­tles. … They expe­ri­ence in a very per­son­al way the relent­less, decades-long trend. … And that is a dan­ger­ous and grow­ing inequal­i­ty and lack of upward mobil­i­ty that has jeop­ar­dized mid­dle-class America’s basic bar­gain — that if you work hard, you have a chance to get ahead. .I believe this is the defin­ing chal­lenge of our time: mak­ing sure our econ­o­my works for every work­ing Amer­i­can. It’s why I ran for Pres­i­dent. It was at the cen­ter of last year’s cam­paign. It dri­ves every­thing I do in this office. — Pres­i­dent Obama

Eco­nom­ic inequal­i­ty is a polit­i­cal­ly potent issue.  Van­der­bilt Uni­ver­si­ty pro­fes­sor Lar­ry Bar­tels believes that it was a crit­i­cal one in the 2012 Pres­i­den­tial race, adding 2 to 3 per­cent­age points to Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s share of the vote and 1 per­cent in bat­tle­ground states.  The Pres­i­den­t’s advan­tage on this issue, Bar­tels says, was large­ly sym­bol­ic, hav­ing more to do with the per­cep­tion that his oppo­nen­t’s great wealth had detached him from the con­cerns of ordi­nary vot­ers. Peo­ple moti­vat­ed to vote for the Pres­i­dent because of this issue did so more because of who they believed Mitt Rom­ney was than because of what the Pres­i­dent pro­posed to do. 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 →