March 23, 2016
Arthur Brooks, the President of the American Enterprise Institute and a regular New York Times columnist told readers that he doesn’t have access to the Internet. This admission came in the context of a published exchange with Gail Collins, another New York Times columnist.
This fact was revealed in the context of a discussion of the Republican presidential candidates’ proposals to have large tax cuts and then make up the lost revenue from waste, fraud, and abuse. Brooks acknowledged this was ridiculous, but then commented:
“The cognitive dissonance isn’t just on the Republican side, however. Sanders proposes showering cash out of helicopters, and as far as I can tell, he is really only proposing higher taxes on the much-regretted billionaires. The truth is that middle-class taxes would have to rise under his spending scenarios.”
Actually, if Brooks had access to the Internet he would have been able to discover that Senator Sanders has actually proposed very specific tax increases on the non-billionaire population. He has proposed an increase in the payroll tax to finance his proposal for paid family leave and he also proposed an increase in the payroll tax to pay for his universal Medicare plan.
Sanders does propose to have the bulk of the revenue for his agenda come from taxing the wealthy, but he is quite explicit on this point. The wealthy have been the big gainers from economic growth over the last 35 years, so it doesn’t seem absurd on its face to envision that they should bear the bulk of the burden from any need for increased revenue.
Since this conversation expressed a concern with unrealistic proposals from the presidential candidates it is surprising that no one mentioned the Federal Reserve Board. Several candidates have suggested that they would have substantially more rapid growth and job creation. The Fed has made it quite clear that it does not want to see more rapid job creation. They have expressed concern that if the unemployment rate fell substantially below current levels that it would lead to an inflationary spiral. In order to ensure that such a spiral does not develop most members of the Federal Reserve Board’s Open Market Committee (FOMC) have indicated a willingness to raise interest rates to keep the unemployment rate from falling.
Given the views of FOMC members, any candidate who indicates a desire to substantially lower the unemployment rate without addressing the Fed’s plans is engaged in magical thinking. (Senator Sanders has criticized the Fed’s plans to raise interest rates.) For some reason no one in the media has chosen to write about this obvious inconsistency in the plans of the presidential candidates.
Thanks to Robert Salzberg for calling this to my attention.
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