You won’t see that headline even though it is a very plausible explanation of their actions. The reason is that newspapers will say that we can’t know the motives of politicians.
That is a good practice for newspapers to follow, but unfortunately, they don’t. During the tax debate, there have already been any number of stories that have told that us that Republicans “believe” that their tax cuts will boost growth or that they are proposing tax cuts “in order to” revitalize the economy. For some reason, they are fine with attributing motives when the effect is to put these politicians in a positive light, even if they refuse as a matter of principle to attribute motives when it would reflect poorly on them.
Of course, Republicans do say that their motive is to promote economic growth, but let’s imagine for a moment that their true motive is making their wealthy contributors even richer. Do we think Paul Ryan will announce his latest tax cut proposal by telling the public how much it will give to the Koch brothers and the Mercers?
That doesn’t seem very likely. He would instead make some claim about how the tax cuts benefit the public as a whole, regardless of how implausible it might be.
And in this case, it is pretty implausible. At best tax cuts can have a very modest impact in boosting growth. The best analysis of this issue was done by the Congressional Budget Office in 2005 when it was headed by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a Republican economist who was the chief economic adviser to Senator McCain in his presidential campaign. His analysis found that using the most favorable set of assumptions, additional growth could temporarily replace one-third of lost revenue. This revenue increase was largely offset by slower growth in the longer term.
So accepting the Republicans’ claims as to their true beliefs also requires accepting that they believe something that is not true. While this is possible, instead of engaging in speculation that assumes Republicans are ignoramuses when it comes to the economy, why not just stick to reporting what they say?
You won’t see that headline even though it is a very plausible explanation of their actions. The reason is that newspapers will say that we can’t know the motives of politicians.
That is a good practice for newspapers to follow, but unfortunately, they don’t. During the tax debate, there have already been any number of stories that have told that us that Republicans “believe” that their tax cuts will boost growth or that they are proposing tax cuts “in order to” revitalize the economy. For some reason, they are fine with attributing motives when the effect is to put these politicians in a positive light, even if they refuse as a matter of principle to attribute motives when it would reflect poorly on them.
Of course, Republicans do say that their motive is to promote economic growth, but let’s imagine for a moment that their true motive is making their wealthy contributors even richer. Do we think Paul Ryan will announce his latest tax cut proposal by telling the public how much it will give to the Koch brothers and the Mercers?
That doesn’t seem very likely. He would instead make some claim about how the tax cuts benefit the public as a whole, regardless of how implausible it might be.
And in this case, it is pretty implausible. At best tax cuts can have a very modest impact in boosting growth. The best analysis of this issue was done by the Congressional Budget Office in 2005 when it was headed by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a Republican economist who was the chief economic adviser to Senator McCain in his presidential campaign. His analysis found that using the most favorable set of assumptions, additional growth could temporarily replace one-third of lost revenue. This revenue increase was largely offset by slower growth in the longer term.
So accepting the Republicans’ claims as to their true beliefs also requires accepting that they believe something that is not true. While this is possible, instead of engaging in speculation that assumes Republicans are ignoramuses when it comes to the economy, why not just stick to reporting what they say?
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There has been much bizarre reporting on the Republican proposal for a big cut in taxes on income from pass-through businesses. The proposal would have a top tax rate on the income from pass-through businesses at 25 percent. This is routinely reported as a cut in taxes on businesses.
This makes zero sense as any fan of English and logic should be able to see right away. The tax cut is on income from “pass-through” businesses, as in businesses that don’t pay taxes. The tax break is for the individual that gets the money, not the business, which already pays zero tax.
Furthermore, since the overwhelming majority of the people who get income from pass-through businesses are not especially rich, they are already paying taxes at a 25 percent rate or less. The only people who would benefit from this lower tax rate are high-income people who are in a higher tax bracket.
It is bizarre that this is reported as a reduction in a tax on business. These businesses already pay zero tax. Their tax can’t be reduced further unless the government were to have a policy of subsidizing them.
This is a proposal to tax individual income received from owning a business at a lower rate than other income. This means that a lawyer who works for a law firm and receives a salary would be taxed at a higher rate than a lawyer who formed a pass-through corporation and received income from this corporation.
This difference in tax rates, based on the source of income, is pretty much a textbook example of bad tax policy. It gives a strong incentive for people to play games with the tax system. This is a pure waste of resources on unproductive activity. It will slow economic growth.
It also makes the system less progressive since the only people who will be able to take advantage of these tax tricks are relatively wealthy. In addition, the people who run the tax gaming will also make lots of money since they will get a cut of the tax savings. Tax gaming is a major source of inequality since the people who run the tax games get rich. (Think of private equity partners.)
Anyhow, there is no reason for the media to help this tax cut proposal gain public support by calling it a tax cut on business. It isn’t.
There has been much bizarre reporting on the Republican proposal for a big cut in taxes on income from pass-through businesses. The proposal would have a top tax rate on the income from pass-through businesses at 25 percent. This is routinely reported as a cut in taxes on businesses.
This makes zero sense as any fan of English and logic should be able to see right away. The tax cut is on income from “pass-through” businesses, as in businesses that don’t pay taxes. The tax break is for the individual that gets the money, not the business, which already pays zero tax.
Furthermore, since the overwhelming majority of the people who get income from pass-through businesses are not especially rich, they are already paying taxes at a 25 percent rate or less. The only people who would benefit from this lower tax rate are high-income people who are in a higher tax bracket.
It is bizarre that this is reported as a reduction in a tax on business. These businesses already pay zero tax. Their tax can’t be reduced further unless the government were to have a policy of subsidizing them.
This is a proposal to tax individual income received from owning a business at a lower rate than other income. This means that a lawyer who works for a law firm and receives a salary would be taxed at a higher rate than a lawyer who formed a pass-through corporation and received income from this corporation.
This difference in tax rates, based on the source of income, is pretty much a textbook example of bad tax policy. It gives a strong incentive for people to play games with the tax system. This is a pure waste of resources on unproductive activity. It will slow economic growth.
It also makes the system less progressive since the only people who will be able to take advantage of these tax tricks are relatively wealthy. In addition, the people who run the tax gaming will also make lots of money since they will get a cut of the tax savings. Tax gaming is a major source of inequality since the people who run the tax games get rich. (Think of private equity partners.)
Anyhow, there is no reason for the media to help this tax cut proposal gain public support by calling it a tax cut on business. It isn’t.
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Dana Milbank had a column in the paper with the headline, “Is it really ethical to expect Tom Price to fly coach?” (The title is slightly different in the online edition.) The problem with this title is that the issue is not whether Price should fly coach or first class, the issue is his use of private jets for government travel.
People reading the piece would learn this fact, but of course, a large percent of readers will only see the headline. (Since this is a Dana Milbank column, that is likely to be a very large percent.) These readers will think this is a relatively trivial point about whether cabinet secretaries should be able to fly first class, as opposed to the actual issue of taking a private plane, which might cost one hundred times as much.
Dana Milbank had a column in the paper with the headline, “Is it really ethical to expect Tom Price to fly coach?” (The title is slightly different in the online edition.) The problem with this title is that the issue is not whether Price should fly coach or first class, the issue is his use of private jets for government travel.
People reading the piece would learn this fact, but of course, a large percent of readers will only see the headline. (Since this is a Dana Milbank column, that is likely to be a very large percent.) These readers will think this is a relatively trivial point about whether cabinet secretaries should be able to fly first class, as opposed to the actual issue of taking a private plane, which might cost one hundred times as much.
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Well, sort of, at least you can say that if the NYT columnist had any idea of what he was talking about. Friedman filled his column today with typical Friedmanesque nonsense, which included this paragraph:
“We’re going through a change in the ‘climate’ of globalization — going from an interconnected world to an interdependent one, from a world of walls where you build your wealth by hoarding the most resources to a world of webs where you build your wealth by having the most connections to the flow of ideas, networks, innovators and entrepreneurs. In this interdependent world, connectivity leads to prosperity and isolation leads to poverty. We got rich by being ‘America Connected’ not ‘America First’ (emphasis in original).”
If it’s actually the case that we build wealth by “having the most connections” and not having walls and hoarding, then we certainly should be opposed to patent and copyright monopolies. These monopolies, which often take the form of walls (paywalls), are quite explicitly designed to limit connections. They are hoarding.
Of course, Mr. Friedman has probably never given a moment’s thought to the efficiency of patent and copyright protection in the modern world. After all, he is not expected to have serious ideas on important issues, he is just a newspaper columnist.
Well, sort of, at least you can say that if the NYT columnist had any idea of what he was talking about. Friedman filled his column today with typical Friedmanesque nonsense, which included this paragraph:
“We’re going through a change in the ‘climate’ of globalization — going from an interconnected world to an interdependent one, from a world of walls where you build your wealth by hoarding the most resources to a world of webs where you build your wealth by having the most connections to the flow of ideas, networks, innovators and entrepreneurs. In this interdependent world, connectivity leads to prosperity and isolation leads to poverty. We got rich by being ‘America Connected’ not ‘America First’ (emphasis in original).”
If it’s actually the case that we build wealth by “having the most connections” and not having walls and hoarding, then we certainly should be opposed to patent and copyright monopolies. These monopolies, which often take the form of walls (paywalls), are quite explicitly designed to limit connections. They are hoarding.
Of course, Mr. Friedman has probably never given a moment’s thought to the efficiency of patent and copyright protection in the modern world. After all, he is not expected to have serious ideas on important issues, he is just a newspaper columnist.
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This is an important point that was left out of a NYT piece discussing Janet Yellen plans for the Federal Reserve Board’s interest rate policy. The piece gave Yellen’s comment that it would be bad policy to wait until inflation was at 2.0 percent before more aggressively raising interest rates.
While Yellen may have been using shorthand, as she has repeatedly pointed out, the Fed views the 2.0 percent average inflation as a target. The 2.0 percent figure is not viewed as a ceiling. This means that it should be prepared to tolerate and even want periods in which inflation is somewhat above 2.0 percent. Since there will be a recession at some point, and inflation is expected to fall in a recession, to maintain a 2.0 percent average inflation rate, the rate should be somewhat above 2.0 percent before the next recession.
Given this reality, the Fed has been falling substantially short of the inflation target it set for itself.
This is an important point that was left out of a NYT piece discussing Janet Yellen plans for the Federal Reserve Board’s interest rate policy. The piece gave Yellen’s comment that it would be bad policy to wait until inflation was at 2.0 percent before more aggressively raising interest rates.
While Yellen may have been using shorthand, as she has repeatedly pointed out, the Fed views the 2.0 percent average inflation as a target. The 2.0 percent figure is not viewed as a ceiling. This means that it should be prepared to tolerate and even want periods in which inflation is somewhat above 2.0 percent. Since there will be a recession at some point, and inflation is expected to fall in a recession, to maintain a 2.0 percent average inflation rate, the rate should be somewhat above 2.0 percent before the next recession.
Given this reality, the Fed has been falling substantially short of the inflation target it set for itself.
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The debate over prescription drug pricing is a great testament to how deeply propaganda can affect people’s thinkings. The NYT had a piece on lowering prescription drug prices by Jay Hancock, a reporter for Kaiser News Service.
Hancock runs through a range of mechanisms that the government can pursue to make drug prices lower. Incredibly, he never mentions what would almost certainly be the most simple route: stop making drugs expensive with patent monopolies.
Drugs are almost invariably cheap to manufacture. The reason they are expensive is that we give drug companies patent monopolies and related protections which severely restrict competition in the market. We will spend roughly $450 billion this year on prescription drugs. If drugs were sold in a free market, without patents or related protections, these drugs would almost certainly cost less than $80 billion. The difference of $370 billion is a bit less than 2.0 percent of GDP, it is more than five times the annual food stamp budget. In other words, it is real money.
We do have to pay for the research, but there are other more efficient mechanisms, most obviously direct government funding. We currently spend more than $30 billion a year on research through the National Institutes of Health. If we tripled this figure we could likely replace the $50 billion that the industry claims to spend on research each year. (A mechanism for funding is described in my book Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer [it’s free].)
Anyhow, it is incredible that the idea of not having the government grant the monopolies that make drugs expensive in the first place never even made Hancock’s list. This is not a new idea, it has been pushed by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joe Stiglitz, cited as a route for future funding by a UN panel, and even considered seriously by an OECD meeting on the topic. It should at least warrant a few sentences in what is supposed to a far-reaching NYT piece on drug pricing.
The debate over prescription drug pricing is a great testament to how deeply propaganda can affect people’s thinkings. The NYT had a piece on lowering prescription drug prices by Jay Hancock, a reporter for Kaiser News Service.
Hancock runs through a range of mechanisms that the government can pursue to make drug prices lower. Incredibly, he never mentions what would almost certainly be the most simple route: stop making drugs expensive with patent monopolies.
Drugs are almost invariably cheap to manufacture. The reason they are expensive is that we give drug companies patent monopolies and related protections which severely restrict competition in the market. We will spend roughly $450 billion this year on prescription drugs. If drugs were sold in a free market, without patents or related protections, these drugs would almost certainly cost less than $80 billion. The difference of $370 billion is a bit less than 2.0 percent of GDP, it is more than five times the annual food stamp budget. In other words, it is real money.
We do have to pay for the research, but there are other more efficient mechanisms, most obviously direct government funding. We currently spend more than $30 billion a year on research through the National Institutes of Health. If we tripled this figure we could likely replace the $50 billion that the industry claims to spend on research each year. (A mechanism for funding is described in my book Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer [it’s free].)
Anyhow, it is incredible that the idea of not having the government grant the monopolies that make drugs expensive in the first place never even made Hancock’s list. This is not a new idea, it has been pushed by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joe Stiglitz, cited as a route for future funding by a UN panel, and even considered seriously by an OECD meeting on the topic. It should at least warrant a few sentences in what is supposed to a far-reaching NYT piece on drug pricing.
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I have a hot tip for Washington Post reporters: politicians aren’t always honest. As a result when they say they believe something, it doesn’t mean they really believe it.
This means that the Washington Post likely misled its readers in a discussion of Republican tax cut proposals when it told them:
“Republicans believe the corporate rate cut and other incentives will stimulate economic growth, offsetting the revenue loss.”
The reality is the Washington Post’s reporters have no clue what the Republicans pushing tax cuts really believe about the impact of tax cuts on growth. If these Republicans were at all familiar with with the evidence, they would not expect their tax cuts to have much, if any, positive impact on growth.
So while it is possible that Republicans believe in something that is not true, it is possible that they are deliberately deceiving the public. It is also possible that they have no clue whatsoever about the impact of tax cuts on the economy, just as they have no clue about the impact of their health care proposals. They are simply voting as their funders are telling them to.
Newspapers are supposed to report the facts, not make them up, as the Post is doing here.
I have a hot tip for Washington Post reporters: politicians aren’t always honest. As a result when they say they believe something, it doesn’t mean they really believe it.
This means that the Washington Post likely misled its readers in a discussion of Republican tax cut proposals when it told them:
“Republicans believe the corporate rate cut and other incentives will stimulate economic growth, offsetting the revenue loss.”
The reality is the Washington Post’s reporters have no clue what the Republicans pushing tax cuts really believe about the impact of tax cuts on growth. If these Republicans were at all familiar with with the evidence, they would not expect their tax cuts to have much, if any, positive impact on growth.
So while it is possible that Republicans believe in something that is not true, it is possible that they are deliberately deceiving the public. It is also possible that they have no clue whatsoever about the impact of tax cuts on the economy, just as they have no clue about the impact of their health care proposals. They are simply voting as their funders are telling them to.
Newspapers are supposed to report the facts, not make them up, as the Post is doing here.
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Paul Krugman does a nice job dissecting the logic, or lack thereof, of Republican efforts to dismantle Obamacare. He points out that one of the games played by the Republicans is claiming that the Graham-Cassidy bill would increase Medicaid spending. It makes this claim based on the fact that nominal Medicaid spending would increase under the bill. While this is true, the bill would hugely cut spending compared with the baseline which factors in both projected increases in the number of people covered and the medical cost inflation.
It might be harder to get away with this cheap trick if papers like the New York Times used budget reporting to actually inform readers. As it is, budget reporting usually doesn’t put numbers in any context, which makes them absolutely meaningless to the vast majority of readers. This point was acknowledged a few years back by both Margaret Sullivan and David Leonhardt, who were at the time the NYT’s public editor and Washington editor.
In spite of the acknowledgment that its budget reporting does nothing to inform the vast majority of its readers, the paper has done nothing to change the practice. (Does the paper really find it hard to find reporters who know basic arithmetic?) As a result, it is much easier for Republicans to lie when they want to do something like massively cutting back Medicaid spending.
Paul Krugman does a nice job dissecting the logic, or lack thereof, of Republican efforts to dismantle Obamacare. He points out that one of the games played by the Republicans is claiming that the Graham-Cassidy bill would increase Medicaid spending. It makes this claim based on the fact that nominal Medicaid spending would increase under the bill. While this is true, the bill would hugely cut spending compared with the baseline which factors in both projected increases in the number of people covered and the medical cost inflation.
It might be harder to get away with this cheap trick if papers like the New York Times used budget reporting to actually inform readers. As it is, budget reporting usually doesn’t put numbers in any context, which makes them absolutely meaningless to the vast majority of readers. This point was acknowledged a few years back by both Margaret Sullivan and David Leonhardt, who were at the time the NYT’s public editor and Washington editor.
In spite of the acknowledgment that its budget reporting does nothing to inform the vast majority of its readers, the paper has done nothing to change the practice. (Does the paper really find it hard to find reporters who know basic arithmetic?) As a result, it is much easier for Republicans to lie when they want to do something like massively cutting back Medicaid spending.
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The Washington Post misled readers in its discussion of Republican claims that its tax cuts will lead to a large boost to GDP growth. The piece quotes Kent Smetters, an economist at the University of Pennsylvania, as saying the Republican growth projections did not take account of debt. This is wrong.
The real issue is whether the projections take account of how close the U.S. economy is to its potential level of output. If the current level of demand is near the point where the economy is hitting serious supply constraints, then the Republican tax cuts will not have much impact on growth. On the other hand, if there is still considerable excess capacity in the form of unemployed and underemployed workers, then it may be possible to increase growth by increasing demand, such as the tax cuts.
Debt is a meaningless concept in this context. Debt would only matter insofar as the flow of income in the form of interest payments on bonds create a source of demand that pull resources away from other uses. With interest payments near a post-war low as a share of GDP, this should not be a major issue for the foreseeable future.
Also, direct debt is only one way in which the government commits flows of future income. Government-granted patent and copyright monopolies are actually much more important in determining future flows of income than debt. In the case of prescription drugs alone, patent and related protections raise the price of drugs by close to $370 billion a year over the free market price, a bit less than 2.0 percent of GDP. This is considerably larger than the current interest burden of the debt, which is approximately 1.6 percent of GDP, net of money refunded from the Federal Reserve Board to the Treasury.
These monopolies are effectively like privately collected taxes. The government grants them as a way to pay for research and creative work. If anyone were really concerned about the burden created by government debt, they would factor in the cost of these monopolies to the public. The decision not to include the costs from patent and copyright monopolies in assessments of the debt makes for a fundamentally dishonest discussion of the issue.
The Washington Post misled readers in its discussion of Republican claims that its tax cuts will lead to a large boost to GDP growth. The piece quotes Kent Smetters, an economist at the University of Pennsylvania, as saying the Republican growth projections did not take account of debt. This is wrong.
The real issue is whether the projections take account of how close the U.S. economy is to its potential level of output. If the current level of demand is near the point where the economy is hitting serious supply constraints, then the Republican tax cuts will not have much impact on growth. On the other hand, if there is still considerable excess capacity in the form of unemployed and underemployed workers, then it may be possible to increase growth by increasing demand, such as the tax cuts.
Debt is a meaningless concept in this context. Debt would only matter insofar as the flow of income in the form of interest payments on bonds create a source of demand that pull resources away from other uses. With interest payments near a post-war low as a share of GDP, this should not be a major issue for the foreseeable future.
Also, direct debt is only one way in which the government commits flows of future income. Government-granted patent and copyright monopolies are actually much more important in determining future flows of income than debt. In the case of prescription drugs alone, patent and related protections raise the price of drugs by close to $370 billion a year over the free market price, a bit less than 2.0 percent of GDP. This is considerably larger than the current interest burden of the debt, which is approximately 1.6 percent of GDP, net of money refunded from the Federal Reserve Board to the Treasury.
These monopolies are effectively like privately collected taxes. The government grants them as a way to pay for research and creative work. If anyone were really concerned about the burden created by government debt, they would factor in the cost of these monopolies to the public. The decision not to include the costs from patent and copyright monopolies in assessments of the debt makes for a fundamentally dishonest discussion of the issue.
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