Mike O'Brien

America's Climate Security Act is not sponsored by any of the current presidential candidates. This is particularly strange since each of them sponsorred a previous version of the bill which was substantially similar.

My previous post on the cap and trade explained the mechanics of the bill. The questions here are how much pork is really in this bill and is it worth it?

Bob Novak brings today's issue, the nomination of judges and justices.

Although John McCain has consistently stated he would select judges like John Roberts and Samuel Aliton, Novak questions rather those assurances would lead to candidates who could pass muster in the senate. Barack Obama has only spoken publically about judges a few times, and those comments are below the fold.

The issue for this week is tax policy. This issue is needlessly complicated, and accurate analysis, like education policy, requires a series of articles. In Part I, I will discuss the crowding out effect which explains the danger of unguarded deficits. Part II will explain the effect of spending on local projects which have no national significance (pork-barrell spending). Part III will focus on some of the taxes that are debated, and where the candidates stand. Finally, Part IV will explain the different alleged effects of these positions.

There is a threshold issue of whether the increase in spending has any effect on demand. Neoclassical economists argue it does not. Whether someone chooses to pay a dollar in tax today, or their decedents pay a dollar in tax with interest in the future, makes no difference. Alternately, others believe that increased spending of a dollar results in demand increasing by more than a dollar because that dollar will be spent and respent throughout the economy vastly increasing demand. In a broad sense, the crowding out effect asserts that rewards have hidden costs that will actually reduce intrinsic incentives to perform an action. Paying a friend for coming over for dinner will reduce the value of the friendship.

The issue for this week is tax policy. This issue is needlessly complicated, and accurate analysis, like education policy, requires a series of articles. In Part I, I discussed the crowding out effect which explains the danger of unguarded deficits. Part II will explain the effect of spending on local projects which have no national significance (pork-barrell spending). Part III will focus on some of the taxes that are debated, and where the candidates stand. Finally, Part IV will explain the different alleged effects of these positions.

Politicians tried to assuage the public by passing the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006. The law talked big, requiring OMB to set up a website to disclose who was recieving federal projects, but did it really do anything?

The issue for this week is tax policy. This issue is needlessly complicated, and accurate analysis, like education policy, requires a series of articles. In Part I, I discussed the crowding out effect which explains the danger of unguarded deficits. In Part II, I explained the effect of spending on local projects which have no national significance (pork-barrell spending). Part III will focus on some of the taxes that are debated, and where the candidates stand. Finally, Part IV will explain the different alleged effects of these positions.

This article will discuss different policies regarding social security, income, and capital gains taxes, which I think are the three most continuously debated.

The issue for this week is tax policy. This issue is needlessly complicated, and accurate analysis, like education policy, requires a series of articles. In Part I, I discussed the crowding out effect which explains the danger of unguarded deficits. In Part II, I explained the effect of spending on local projects which have no national significance (pork-barrell spending). Part III focused on some of the taxes debated, and where the candidates stand. Finally, Part IV will explain the different alleged effects of these positions.

Given all that I have discussed already, what's really going to happen?

Today's issue broke last week when the House of Representatives voted on an extension of unemployment benefits that the President has promised to veto. I have previously discussed the Social Security Act in detailhttp://mob.polireport.com/2008/05/social_security_1.html . Today's focus is on unemployment insurance. UI is a joint federal-state venture. 96% of the people who work are covered by unemployment insurance which is a joint state/federal venture. Employers pay a portion of tax to the federal government and to the state. The unemployment rate determines how much money each state is given by the feds. The principle is simple, the feds gather a war chest of money in boom times and pay it back in sour times.

So what is Congress doing to UI and why is it so controversial?

Today's issue comes from gossip style quips:from the presidential candidates about exactly who supports tax breaks for Big Oil. Here is the statute in question:

(a) TREATMENT AS EXPENSES.—A taxpayer may elect to treat 50 percent of the cost of any qualified refinery property as an expense which is not chargeable to capital account. Any cost so treated shall be allowed as a deduction for the taxable year in which the qualified refinery property is placed in service.

Simply, this allows owners of refineries to deduct 50% of operating cost of a refinery, thus not having to pay tax on it. So, which presidential candidate voted for the measure, and which one voted against it?

Protectionism in the Untied States originates in Alexander Hamilton's Report on Manufactures. On page 37 of the copy in the link Hammy discusses how a combination of tariffs and subsidies (or bounties) would enable fledging American industries to grow. The idea that American should protect certain industries for various reasons has been around ever since. However, since Richard Nixon the idea has lost nearly all serious support. In fact the few pockets where it remains are in Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, states where Barack Obama decided that heavy pandering was needed in order to get some votes to win the nomination. Now that he has it, he has decided his first position was a bit extreme.

Jimbo decided to make an issue of this speech of Senator Obama's which is nearly two years old. You may read Senator Obama's speech or listen to Jimbo's monologue at the links I have posted. Part I of this article will examine Jimbo's assertion that Obama's interpretation of scripture is absurd, Part II will examine Obama's response.

With regard to Part I, Jimbo found this portion of the speech particularly ludicrous:

[G]iven the increasing diversity of America's population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.

And even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson's, or Al Sharpton's? Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount - a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away, let's read our bibles. Folks haven't been reading their bibles.

Jimbo decided to make an issue of this speech of Senator Obama's which is nearly two years old. You may read Senator Obama's speech or listen to Jimbo's monologue at the links I have posted. Part I examined Jimbo's assertion that Obama's interpretation of scripture is absurd, Part II will examine Obama's response.

Obama said the speech made the argument that people of faith, like himself, "try to translate some of our concerns in a universal language so that we can have an open and vigorous debate rather than having religion divide us."