Daily Clips: October 31st, 2016

Daily Clips: October 31st, 2016

Hillary Clinton should add to the national debt:  She has promised the American people that, “I am not going to add a penny to the national debt.” Politically, such a promise makes sense. But economically? Not so much. It’s particularly disappointing that Mrs. Clinton is tying her promise not to add to the debt directly to her infrastructure plan, which offers perhaps the best bang for a government-borrowed buck. That becomes even more important if the economy careens into a ditch again, which some experts think we are due for soon. The best thing she could do would be to put forward a stimulus package with significant spending on building projects — and she would need to finance it by adding plenty of pennies to the debt. Speaking on infrastructure… Can we finally think big?   Unfortunately, neither Clinton’s five-year, $275 billion plan nor Trump’s “at least double her numbers” calculation begin to address the trillions needed in leaky pipes, corroded tracks, decrepit trains, and faulty wiring, much less 21st-century smart grids, protections against sea-level rise, and innovative green investments. US consumer spending increases:  “When adjusted for inflation, consumer spending rose 0.3 percent after falling 0.2 percent in August.” Gun ownership is not a human right:  Absurd that this has to be stated over and over again, but here we are. Are we fooled into believing we live in a meritocracy? ‘ Today, spin classes, artisanal food, and the college application process have replaced Sunday promenades, evening lectures, and weekly salons. But make no mistake, they serve the same purpose: transforming class privilege into individual virtue, thereby shoring up social dominance. Tweet of the day: Haven't run this in a long while: Seattle city eateries now ~4,028, up ~137 over last ~16 months, or 8+ new per month. Damn min wage. https://t.co/WIo4CCXqup — Invictus (@TBPInvictus) October 29, 2016

Daily Clips: October 28th, 2016

Daily Clips: October 28th, 2016

Must read on HRC advisor, Neera Tanden:  I interned in the Executive Office of the Center for American Progress in the summer of 2014. There, I had the opportunity to meet Neera. She is a remarkably intelligent person. These emails also show she has great political instincts. Where has “good” conservatism gone?  A David Brooks article that is actually worth reading! However, his conclusions are…optimistic to say the least: But I confess I’m insanely optimistic about a conservative rebound. That’s because of an observation the writer Yuval Levin once made: That while most of the crazy progressives are young, most of the crazy conservatives are old. Conservatism is now being led astray by its seniors, but its young people are pretty great. I guess I fall under the “crazy progressive” label. Vox has put up an excellent rebuttal to Brooks’ piece. US GDP grows by 2.9% in Q3:  Huzzah. That’s the best growth for the US in the last two years. Tweet of the day: https://twitter.com/goldengateblond/status/791879151783292928    

What Happened With The Spanish Translation Of This Voters’ Guide?

What Happened With The Spanish Translation Of This Voters’ Guide?

History demonstrates that democracy is better when more people are included as voters. As we’ve opened the polls to people who were Constitutionally banned from the vote—women, African-Americans, members of Native tribes—America has become a stronger, smarter, more prosperous, and more humane nation. We know that everyone does better when we embrace policies that ensure more people get the vote—and that it should be government’s role to ensure that every adult over the age of 18 makes their voice heard at the ballot box. Here in Washington, that sacred trust falls to the office of Secretary of State. This means that our current SoS, Kim Wyman, should fight for the voting rights of every last eligible Washington adult. Today Wyman’s challenger, former Seattle City Councilmember Tina Podlodowski, published a blistering press release accusing Wyman’s office of obfuscating the law in the Spanish-language edition of the state’s 2016 voting rights pamphlet. Here’s the relevant passage: The English version of the voter’s pamphlet on eligibility reads, “You must be 18 years old, a U.S. citizen, a resident of Washington State and not under Department of Corrections supervision for a Washington State felony conviction.” The Spanish version reads, “no estar bajo la supervisión del Departamento Correccional a causa de una condena por un delito del estado de Washington” The literal translation of the Spanish text is “not under the supervision of the Department of Corrections by reason of conviction for an offense in the state of Washington.” There is a big difference between a conviction for an offense and conviction of a felony.  Washington’s long-standing legal translation of “felony” in Spanish is “delito grave.” The lesser offense of “misdemeanor” is rendered as “delito menor.” In other words, anyone reading the Spanish-language pamphlet with a misdemeanor on their record could interpret it to mean they don’t get
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Daily Clips: October 27th, 2016

Daily Clips: October 27th, 2016

Gary Johnson cannot defend his tax policy:  Watch the video. Who wins in the gig economy and who loses:  Nothing groundbreaking here—especially if you’ve listened to our podcast episode on the gig economy . Nonetheless, it’s a solid overview: Similarly, the economic plight of an on-demand worker for companies like Task Rabbit or Postmates is not materially different from that of a low-wage hourly worker in a fast-food restaurant or retail store. Both workers have low wages, no benefits, and limited rights and protections. The difference is that workers who wouldn’t dream of applying for a job in a fast-food restaurant are willing to bid for work on Task Rabbit or Postmates partly because they can do so when and to the extent that they choose. The progressive tax reform you’ve never heard of: Unlike most trading partners, the U.S. system purports to tax the worldwide income of multinational companies at the statutory rate of 35 percent, granting a tax credit for taxes paid to other countries. Yet, because U.S. taxation is not triggered unless income is repatriated, multinationals can avoid residual tax by indefinitely holding income abroad. … As a result, the U.S. “worldwide” system of taxation is substantially more generous to foreign income than many alternative systems of taxation. – Professor Clausing of Reed College Cruz says GOP may block SCOTUS nominees indefinitely:  Constitutional conservatives at work. Tweet of the day: Still tremendous disparity in wage growth since 1979 https://t.co/BDkSwQBIIC @LarryMishel @economicpolicy pic.twitter.com/fWpGdoO42l — Teresa Kroeger (@teresakroeger) October 27, 2016  

Stop Reading the News Right Now: Why the Final Two Weeks Before a Presidential Election Is Always a Media Black Hole

Stop Reading the News Right Now: Why the Final Two Weeks Before a Presidential Election Is Always a Media Black Hole

When you run a presidential campaign that makes it through the primaries, you spend two years building a giant machine with many moving parts: messaging, policy, communications, field agents, transition. The last two weeks before Election Day, that machine finally lurches fully into motion and you find out exactly what you’ve built. We are right now living in that two-week window, the period where all the hard work of building a campaign is either paying off or blowing up. What this means is that the campaigns shake off all the glitz and wheel-spinning and get down to the business of actually campaigning in swing states. The candidates mostly stick to their stump speeches, surrogates try to keep to their strengths, and the parties roll out their time-tested local teams. It’s very difficult to change a narrative at this point in a campaign—especially given that early voting has already started in quite a few states. So for high-level campaign staff, you rely on momentum and planning to carry you through, and you supervise how everything’s going, and you wait to see what America decides. So, yeah. These final two weeks before a presidential election are always strange. I’ve lived through these periods both as an ardent political spectator and as a journalist. And I hope you believe me when I tell you a little secret: the media has no idea what to do with itself during this time. There’s rarely any proper “news” during the last two weeks of a campaign*: candidates are disciplined, messages are honed down to a sharp edge, and campaign staffers are unlikely to try anything especially crazy. My point in all this is to tell you that your instincts right now are telling you to keep an eye on the news all the time. Ignore your
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Daily Clips: October 26th, 2016

Daily Clips: October 26th, 2016

Why the good economy may be a problem for the next president: A recession — or even a decline in economic momentum — could rapidly expose the new president to criticism and change the ability of the new administration to accomplish its goals. “When the economy goes south in the first term, it’s a treacherous situation for a president hoping for reelection,” said Nicole Hemmer, a presidential historian at the University of Virginia. Newt Gingrich melts down on Fox over Trump spiral: It’s so great to see a disgusting human being show his true self. Politics is crippling the economy, Harvard study says: According to thousands of Harvard alumni, MBA students and non-Harvard responders, the country’s biggest problem is a tax code that hasn’t been updated in decades, even as the world has become more globalized, digitized, and as closed-off economies have opened for business. Hostility awaits Clinton: Arizona Republican Senator John McCain’s pledge that Republicans would unite against any Clinton Supreme Court nominee could lead to changes in the filibuster rules. Republicans’ stance could lead to the end of the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees, or even to the elimination of the filibuster in its entirety . More importantly, Republicans could set a damaging precedent that Supreme Court vacancies will only be filled when the president and the Senate Majority Leader are from the same party. Tweet of the day: The alcohol industry is bankrolling ads to scare you about legal pot https://t.co/FvVugb7vw0 pic.twitter.com/wNCC009lFX — ThinkProgress (@thinkprogress) October 26, 2016

Daily Clips: October 25th, 2016

Daily Clips: October 25th, 2016

Obamacare’s premiums are spiking. What’s wrong with the law?  According to Caroline Pearson, “the dramatic premium increase should be a one-time correction.” North Carolina race could determine whether GOP keeps the Senate:  I haven’t read much about this race, but as it stands Sen. Richard Burr (R) is in a very close contest with Deborah Ross (D). Currently, “Ross is benefiting from a strong Democratic turnout effort and from campaign visits” from Obama, Kaine, and Clinton. AT&T’s merger could be a bad sign for the economy:  I’m reading “ Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism ” at the moment and its relevance to the AT&T merger is frightening. Our economy is full of big companies and “that trend worries a growing number of economists, who fear it suggests an economy that is becoming less dynamic and competitive over time.” Obama was right about Republican extremism all along:  Excellent article. New Elway poll shows Initiative 1491 with 67% support: Initiative 1491, which would enact extreme risk protection orders (thus preventing firearms access to those posing a danger to themselves or others), is at 67%. That is a three percent increase in support from August. Only 18% oppose it. It sure looks like Washington citizens will defeat the gun lobby for the second election in a row. Tweet of the day: Relevant to ATT/T-W merger plan: new study finds mergers increase price markup, but deliver no productivity gains. https://t.co/11ECjDutHU pic.twitter.com/Cp3GB3rJJ4 — Arindrajit Dube (@arindube) October 24, 2016

WHYY Duped by Fake Research Director at Fake Think Tank Citing Fake Poll

WHYY Duped by Fake Research Director at Fake Think Tank Citing Fake Poll

I grew up in Philadelphia, so I’ve got a ton of respect for WHYY, the local NPR and PBS affiliate (perhaps best known nationally as home to Terry Gross’ award-winning Fresh Air). Which is why I was so sorely disappointed to see WHYY’s “Newsworks” website give op-ed space to fake-think-tank anti-minimum wage shill Michael Saltsman: “ Op-ed: Raising minimium wage won’t flip the Senate .” I mean, for chrissakes, why not just print a goddamn press release? Saltsman claims to be the research director at the mendaciously-named Employment Policies Institute, which likes to describe itself as a “ non-profit think tank ” while in fact being neither. Indeed, Saltsman’s faux-think-tank is actually just one of several profitable front groups run out of the DC-offices of lobbying and PR firm  Berman and Company . And if the editors at WHYY think I’m exaggerating, they might want to listen to this 2014 interview with Terry Gross , in which the New York Times‘ Eric Lipton explains how this scam works: LIPTON: Yeah, I was – you know, set up an interview with the research director. I got the address of his office. I went to the eighth floor of the building on Vermont Avenue, like four blocks from the White House. The elevator opens, and it’s Berman and Company. And I go in and, you know, there’s a bunch of awards on the wall, advertising awards, public relations awards that Berman and Company has won for its work, you know, doing ad campaigns on behalf of various industry groups. And so I didn’t see any evidence at all that there was an Employment Policies Institute office. And in fact when I started to interview the people there, they explained that there are no employees at the Employment Policies Institute and that all the staff there works for Berman and Company, and then they sometimes are just detailed to the various think-tanks and various consumer groups that he operates out of his office. And he bills them, sort of like a
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Daily Clips: October 24th, 2016

Daily Clips: October 24th, 2016

Doomsayers keep getting it wrong on the minimum wage: Barry Ritholtz over at Bloomberg points out that minimum wage opponents have failed (again) at predicting the effects of a higher minimum wage. His reasoning behind why they got it so wrong is particularly acute, in my opinion: Why did so many economists get this wrong? They looked at the micro and ignored the macro. In the basic model of supply and demand, an increase in the cost of something reduces demand. This may be true in an isolated laboratory setting. But when minimum wages went up in the real world, it affected not just the parties to that transaction, but the regional economy. By considering only the relationship between employer and employee, the dismal-science set was focusing too narrowly. The critics failed to consider the impact of lower-wage employees earning more money; these folks typically spends almost everything they earn, which means that when they’re paid more it goes right back into the local economy. Down-ballot Democrats: With a little over two weeks to go before Election Day, President Obama is releasing “150 endorsements of Democratic candidates for state legislatures all across the country.” Liberals compete for the soul of economics:  Nick Hanauer’s love of complexity economics is highlighted in this piece. Trump’s greatest service to America may be ending Paul Ryan’s career:  Thank god. Tweet of the day: Wow—Today's @nytimes features a 2-page spread of all the people, places & things Trump has insulted on Twitter since declaring his candidacy pic.twitter.com/eDzwZNIjkF — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) October 24, 2016  

Daily Clips: October 21st, 2016

Daily Clips: October 21st, 2016

David Brooks equates Trump’s lack of morality with HRC’s:  This year Trump is dismantling those restraints one by one. By savagely attacking Carly Fiorina’s looks and Ted Cruz’s wife he dismantled the codes of etiquette that prevent politics from becoming an unmodulated screaming match. By lying more or less all the time, he dismantles the fealty to truth without which conversation is impossible. By refusing to automatically respect the election results he corrodes confidence in our common institutions and risks turning public life into a never-ending dogfight. Clinton has contributed to the degradation too. As the James O’Keefe videos remind us, wherever Hillary Clinton has gone in her career, a cloud of unsavory people and unsavory behavior has traveled alongside. But she is right to emphasize that Trump is the greatest threat to moral capital in recent history and that the health of that capital is more fundamental than any particular policy position. Paul Ryan’s faith in “A Better Way”: Indeed, frantic to lift his brand above the swirl of electoral filth, Ryan has wrapped himself in the role of policy missionary, his sights firmly trained on leading the American people into a better, brighter future—no matter how uninterested they may seem. Rejection, disdain, mockery, abuse: Ryan has endured them all in his proselytizing. (“I am not ready to support Speaker Ryan’s agenda,” declared Trump, during one of their passive-aggressive skirmishes.) But mostly, his efforts have been met with overwhelming indifference, which may be the most discouraging response of all for a man convinced that he holds a map to the Promised Land. Voter suppression is a much bigger problem than voter fraud:  Someone should tell Kim Wyman.

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