Six long years into presidency, Barack Obama has finally made the middle-class an explicit priority— placing “middle-class economics,” as he called it repeatedly in Tuesday’s State of the Union address, front and center on his agenda. But what the president is asking for may be too little and it’s arriving far too late. While his proposals are sensible— lowering the tax burden on middle-class families and expanding access to education, job training and retirement, in part by closing loopholes and raising taxes on capital gains—very few of them have much chance of passing.
Read moreA Dynamic World Demands Dynamic Scoring
One of the first things the new Republican Congress voted on this week was to mandate a change in how the Congressional Budget Office analyzes (“scores”) spending bills. A technocratic change in how Congress assesses the impact of its proposed bills is not typically the stuff of great drama. This time is different.
Read moreWill Politics in 2015 Catch Up with the Economy?
In the waning moments of 2014, something happened that had been a long-time coming but seemed it might never arrive: the public mood in America shifted, ever so slightly yet significantly, from negativity and pessimism about the arc of the economy to something approximately hope about the future. If that holds, 2015 is going to look and feel rather different, and rather better, than things have in years.
Read moreNo, This is NOT the ’90s Economy Again
With only one more report left, 2014 is shaping up to be the best year for job creation since 1999. Predictably enough, last week’s strong numbers (321,000 jobs added) inspired some commentators to suggest that the report was not just good news,
Read moreHow The Ruble Crash Could Strengthen Putin
The ruble is crashing, but the Russian government isn’t going to any time soon. Ironically, Russia's economic distress might even make Vladimir Putin stronger.
The reasons for the ruble’s rapid decline – it’s dropped by nearly 13 percent against the dollar in November alone, and this week has seen more of the same—are neither obscure or surprising.
Read moreWhy Keystone is a Canard
Sideshows can be immensely entertaining and highly distracting. Old-time circuses had bearded ladies, freaks and strongmen; today in America we have the Keystone XL pipeline. It is the ultimate sideshow, one masquerading as a solution to real problems when, in fact, it is largely symbolic, and not particularly potent symbolism at that.
Read moreWhose Economy Will It Be in 2016?
The ugly midterm campaign season provided one area of common ground: Americans and their candidates were almost universal in their disdain for the country’s economic performance over the past six years. In exit polls on Election Day, 78 percent of voters said they were worried about the economy, and clearly the Democrats took most of the blame.
Read moreU.S. vs. China? Grow Up!
Last week, it was reported that China is poised to supplant the United States as the world’s largest economy much sooner than expected, perhaps as early as next year. These reports were derived from a new release by the World Bank that revised previous estimates of the size of China’s gross domestic product
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