Reconciliation: How the Democrats Can Run the Table
Congressional Democrats will take office in January with the broadest mandate since the post-Watergate midterms in 1974—twice the popular-vote margin the Contract-with-America Republicans won in 1994. The work begins with dismantling most of what Donald Trump and his corrupt, incompetent administration have done over the past two years. Much of what Trump wrought came through his One Big Beautiful (sic)… Continue reading
Does Science Prove that the Modern GOP Favors the Rich?
Virtually everyone outside the Trump administration agrees that the GOP tax plans passed by the House and the Senate will aggravate income inequality. In fact, the party-line votes on both plans are the latest instance of a remarkable fact: Over the last 40 years, income inequality has accelerated when Republicans held the White House, the Congress or both, and slowed…Continue reading
Evaluating the Claim that Cutting Corporate Taxes Will Raise Your…
Real disputes among professional economists rarely make their way into political debates. But that’s what’s happened with the issue of whether the Trump administration’s proposal to cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent would mainly benefit shareholders or workers. Both sides make coherent arguments – but in the end, the evidence supports the proposal’s opponents. Those…Continue reading
Blame the Economy for Widening Inequality – And Washington for…
America’s widening income inequality has become a subtext across most debates in domestic policy. GOP plans to repeal and replace Obamacare failed in large part because virtually every expert warned that the changes would end coverage for millions of people with modest incomes and cut taxes for high-income people. President Donald Trump’s push to cut business taxes will likely meet…Continue reading
A New GOP Nightmare: Trump and Democrats Cut a Deal…
Here they go again. Despite the Republicans’ control of the presidency and both houses of Congress, their internal divisions keep on frustrating their plans to accomplish anything of consequence. So, the most polarizing GOP president since Abraham Lincoln has come up with a startling work-around: Cut deals with the Democrats on selected major matters, including funding the government, raising the…Continue reading
The Three Choices for Tax Reform
Trump administration officials and GOP leaders in Congress are still putting together their tax plan. Nevertheless, the early signs point to decisions that could sink the project or produce changes that would jeopardize economic growth. Congress can approach changing the corporate tax in one of three ways. It can try to simplify the code, it can reform it, or it…Continue reading
The Trump Administration is Disrupting the 2020 Census – And…
The decennial Census is a genuinely powerful institution in American life. I didn’t understand its impact until I oversaw the Census Bureau as it prepared and carried out the 2000 decennial Census, when I was Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs. Believe me, the upcoming 2020 decennial Census will matter more than you think. Yet, Congress and now the…Continue reading
It’s Still the Economy, Stupid!
Republicans know that the terrain for next year’s midterm elections could be treacherous. Off the record, they bemoan their inability to enact their agenda and mourn President Donald Trump’s unpopularity. In principle, the GOP still might get its act together and pass a tax reform with new tax breaks for middle class taxpayers. Events unforeseen and unimagined could offer Trump…Continue reading
How to Raise Incomes and Delay the Next Recession
Last October, mulling over the economic environment the next President would face, I sent Hillary Clinton memos on how she should provide some stimulus to sustain the current expansion and raise incomes by boosting business investment and productivity. Alas, she did not become President; but that didn’t change our current economic challenges. To be sure, President Trump’s manifold troubles may…Continue reading