Dean Baker

I am not a deficit hawk, but the Bush deficits are larger than can be sustained. I will not explain this further, because I trust that BTP readers know arithmetic. The tax cuts contributed to this deficit. There is no serious economic model that shows tax cuts paying for themselves. The Congressional Budget Office (under […]

In today’s column (Times Select) John Tierney asks what organization has lifted more people out of poverty than Wal-Mart. He points to the large number of poor people in the developing world who have seen substantial improvements in their living standards because they were able to work in factories producing goods for export to rich […]

In a report on a congressional race this morning, NPR mentioned the candidates views on the estate tax. It noted that Republican incumbant was opposed to “taxation without respiration [good line].” It then reported that the Democratic candidate claims that the estate tax did not harm small farms and businesses because it has exemptions of […]

USA Today had an article this morning on rising U.S. health care costs. It never mentions the fact that the United States pays more than twice as much per person as the average among other wealthy countries, yet has shorter life expectancies. I guess we can attribute this to protectionism. There are enormous potential gains […]

Today’s NYT has a column reporting on the redistribution from wages to profits that has taken place in most wealthy countries over the last quarter century. While the piece is useful in calling attention to an important trend, it is somewhat sloppy because it fails to adjust for cyclical effects. This is important because profits […]

Can you find the words �Social Security� in this text? So what�s our exit strategy from Iraq? Why do our soldiers have to keep dying? What about affordable health care? Can�t we support stem cell research? Why did we let down Katrina victims? Why won�t Congress do anything? Pass a decent minimum wage? Why are […]

The latest Fed Beige Book, which gives assessments on current economic conditions from the Fed’s 12 regional banks, reportedly finds that the impact of falling gas prices is offsetting the impact of the weak housing market. This one doesn’t sound quite right. The country buys approximately 130 billion gallons of gas annually. If we say […]

Yes, Thomas Friedman is back (it’s Times Select, so there’s no linking). Mr. Friedman reports that voters want energy independence, but they are not prepared to support higher gas or BTU taxes. Instead he tells us that they want higher mileage standards and energy use regulations of the sort put in place by Governor Arnold […]

While the Bush administration is still touting the good news on the budget deficit, the Commerce Department released data showing that the trade deficit hit another all-time high in August. The current account deficit (the broadest measure of the trade deficit) is now projected to be close to $900 billion in 2006 or 6.6 percent […]

CEPR has posted my short note showing that part of the reason that the strong productivity growth of the last six years has not translated into wage growth is due to a graowing share of depreciation in gross output and the difference between the output deflator and the consumer price index. After adjusting for these […]