From Harvard’s Alberto Alesina and Silvia Ardagna:
Large changes in fiscal policy: taxes versus spending
We examine the evidence on episodes of large stances in fiscal policy, both in cases of fiscal stimuli and in that of fiscal adjustments in OECD countries from 1970 to 2007. Fiscal stimuli based upon tax [...]
This time were not just talking about Doug Holtz-Eakin, John McCain’s former chief economic advisor, this is June O’Neill, CBO director during the middle of the Clinton administration:
[...]“In discussions with dozens of health-care leaders and economists, I find near unanimity of opinion that, whatever its shape, the final legislation that will emerge from Congress will markedly accelerate national health-care spending rather than restrain it. Likewise, nearly all agree that the legislation would do little or nothing to [...]
“True, not everybody agrees that we need to use wartime measures against terrorists. But the Obama administration does. They’ve stepped up Predator strikes. They’re still allowing rendition. They’ve endorsed holding detainees near-indefinitely without putting them on trial. They’re treating Al Qaeda terrorists, in other words, as enemy [...]
“I think it’s pretty clear at this point that no bill from our Congress is going to meaningfully “bend the cost curve”. Every time I argue that cost control seems unlikely, I hear that no, the Senate bill is going to make some serious inroads into delivery system reform. Well, [...]
“What is frustrating to me is that many people would agree that the Massachusetts health experiment failed, and yet that is the experiment that is being used as the model for the current bill. The original promise in Massachusetts was that by eliminating the “free-riding” of the uninsured and by [...]
“Remember how we had to bail out Chrysler and give the company to Fiat because they were going to save American jobs and the environment with their awesome new electric cars? The electric cars that were going to start hitting the streets in 2010? Apparently, now that they’ve gotten [...]
In LA gets ugly:
As Los Angeles Unified contemplates turning more schools into charters, parents in a heavily immigrant neighborhood received an anonymous flier written in Spanish: “DO NOT SIGN ANY PETITIONS FOR A CHARTER SCHOOL BECAUSE YOU COULD BE DEPORTED.”
More here.
I’ve made the argument that gay marriage could in fact threaten religious liberties, Maggie Gallagher gives an example of how it could threaten civil liberties:
Case in point: Don Mendell, a school guidance counselor at Nokomis Regional High School in Maine, now faces ethics complaints for his decision to appear in [...]
“The bill is framed in terms of Republican attacks on the Democratic bill, not in terms of its own aims or methods. Which is fine, and to be expected. If I were a Republican, I wouldn’t spend my time crafting a health-care reform plan, either. Republicans don’t have the votes [...]
If Republicans were being responsible Republicans, this is the alternative they would argue for:
Here’s a better alternative. Let’s scrap the $220 billion annual health insurance tax subsidy, which is often used to buy the wrong kind of insurance, and use those budget dollars to provide insurance that protects American [...]
Harvard economist Martin Feldstein makes the case that high healthcare spending is better than government rationing:
The best solution to this problem of private overconsumption of health services would be to eliminate the tax rule that is causing the excessive insurance and the resulting rise in health spending. Alternatively, Congress [...]
“Here is the video where Obama uses the Post Office as an example of why the public option won’t hurt private competitors. His argument is that Fed Ex and UPS thrive even though there’s a Post Office. He forgets to mention that the Post Office has a legal monopoly [...]
