MINDBOGGLING. I am learning more than I ever wanted to know about government contracting in Iraq from the hearings headed by Congressman Henry Waxman, but I still have difficulty with the last sentence (in parentheses) of this quote from Melinda Henneberger at the Huffington Post: The committee chairman, Congressman Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, noted […]
J. Goodrich
J. Goodrich is a recovering economist and the sole proprietor of the political blog Echidne of the Snakes. She also blogs for TAPPED.
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Falling Flat
Remember the flat tax proposals of the 1990s? Well, they’re ba-a-a-ck! Both Kansas Senator Sam Brownback and Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee have adopted the federal flat tax as part of their 2008 presidential campaign platforms. Neither candidate has released details, but usually such plans consist of a fixed percentage tax levied on all incomes over […]
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A WORLD OF PHDs
A WORLD OF PHDs. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke seems to think that increasing education is the miracle wand which will keep rising income inequality in this country within “acceptable” bounds. Why? Because of this: But now for the bad news: inequality also continues to widen. In real terms, Bernanke pointed out, the earnings at […]
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BLONDECTOMY
BLONDECTOMY. Mayor Gavin Newsom checked into a San Francisco hospital last night for an emergency blondectomy. Just kidding. But Newsom has stated that he is going to enter rehabilitation for alcoholism. In that he follows in the large footsteps of many other politicians who have been caught (for the lack of a better term) red-handed, […]
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CORPORATE WELFARE
CORPORATE WELFARE. The 1990s may have succeeded in making welfare for the poor a dirty term but corporate welfare is still thriving. Matthew Yglesias makes a good point about its recent explosion under the Bush administration: The trouble with government work, as opposed to the private sector is that there’s a lack of efficiency. It’s […]
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THE OBAMA MESSIAH WATCH
THE OBAMA MESSIAH WATCH. Timothy Noah of Slate is planning to make this a regular feature: I therefore inaugurate the Obama Messiah Watch, which will periodically highlight gratuitously adoring biographical details that appear in newspaper, television, and magazine profiles of this otherworldly presence in our midst. What a wonderful idea! I’m sure that Noah had […]
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MOLLY IVINS, RIP.
MOLLY IVINS, RIP. She wrote beautifully, making something very difficult look deceptively easy: the combination of intelligence with guts and humor and compassion. She wrote with an earthy enjoyment and love of all humankind, including its follies, and she wrote with the courage to make any point she felt needed making, and the courage to […]
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THE RICH AREN’T THAT MUCH HAPPIER.
THE RICH AREN’T THAT MUCH HAPPIER. So says Tyler Cowen in a New York Times opinion piece which argues that income inequality in the United States isn’t such a bad thing, really. Cowen presents many arguments but the one I want to highlight here is the idea that inequality in happiness is not as great […]
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A GUY THING?
A GUY THING? Joe Klein‘s take on Jim Webb‘s SOTU response is on the surface all about class, about who sips chablis and who gulps down a beer or two. Webb is a more genuine voice for the Democrats because he is not (how does Klein know this?) a chablis connoisseur. But I started feeling […]
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ON THE HEALTH INSURANCE DEBATE
ON THE HEALTH INSURANCE DEBATE: Ezra‘s post here on Tapped, Paul Krugman’s column (behind the firewall at the New York Times) and Joe Klein‘s contribution on the same issue make a good beginning for another round of debates on how to cure the health insurance crisis in this country. But I’m wondering why it is […]
