Daily Clips: November 2nd, 2015

DO NOT FORGET TO VOTE! IT IS YOUR CIVIC OBLIGATION. US manufacturing slows; construction-spending at 7 year high:  Reuters reports that US manufacturing activity slowed for the fourth straight month. Manufacturing accounts for 12 percent of the economy and has “been slammed by business efforts to reduce an inventory overhang and slowing demand overseas.” Paul Krugman looks at how the economy fares under Democratic leadership:  Krugman points out that Hillary Clinton is “completely right about the record: historically, the economy has indeed done better under Democrats.” But he wonders why this doesn’t stop Republican candidates from “claiming that his [or her] tax plan would produce a huge growth surge – a claim that has no basis in historical experience.” Krugman concludes that this is because “modern conservatives generally live in a bubble into which inconvenient facts can’t penetrate.” He’s not wrong. Middle-class tax increases? Robert Samuelson believes both Republicans and Democrats are duping the American people into believing their tax policies. Samuelson argues that “both parties have constructed rationales for avoiding middle-class tax increases” because they would be “highly unpopular.” He decries the fact that both parties’ tax plans will ultimately be insufficient in supporting the US government. He notes that Republican tax plans will “lose gobs of tax revenues…The loss over a decade is $10 trillion for Trump’s package, $2.4 trillion for Rubio’s and $1.6 trillion for Bush’s.” He then says that Democratic plans won’t raise enough money by “soaking the rich.” In this way, both plans are inadequate. While that is certainly true, it sure does sound like the Democratic plan would be a lot better. One party has a tax plan that won’t raise enough money and the other party has a plan that will lose a lot of money…and Samuelson equally has a problem with both? Huh? Republicans shoot themselves in foot with Latinos, again: Republicans hate to be confronted with individuals who disagree with what they believe, so they have decided to pull “out of their only scheduled debate”
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