The most moderate Dem on economics?

[Torie]

Obama is certainly somewhat moderate now. He has been tacking and trimming towards the center as fast as Hurricane Gustav. Of course, he still wants to spend another trillion or so (maybe it is just several hundred billion, but who's counting?), and give middle class tax cuts, by raising taxes a relatively modest amount now on incomes over 250K, and cutting "waste, fraud, and abuse."  That is less leftist however, than just fraudulent advertising.

[Torie]

Obama is certainly somewhat moderate now. He has been tacking and trimming towards the center as fast as Hurricane Gustav.

Most of these sources are from last year before the primaries.

Ya, that just emphasizes my point. He's moved "right" from there! I could give you a list of the trims, but I don't want to bore folks with endless repetition.

[Torie]

Well "right" here is a relative term. The old Obama wanted to raise my marginal tax rate by about 17%. The new Obama wants to raise them about 6%. The old Obama wanted to raise capitals gains taxes to 28%. The new Obama wants to raise them to 20%, and that only for income over 250K.  Obama had a U of C economics professor who steered him away from F'ing the mortgage markets long term, and kudos to him for that. Hillary said she didn't give a damn what the experts said, and the Obama professor wrote a WSJ piece trashing Hillary for  it. It was quite gratifying.

[Torie]

The new "facts" for Obama were political ones. The new "facts" for McCain were in fact, facts, such as the price of oil zipping up, and his theory that cutting taxes was bad, but once cut, it is bad to undo the cut, because it creates uncertainty vis a vis financial planning. Granted, I am not persuaded by McCain's grand unified theory about the evils of the delta function in this case, but whatever.


By the way, where did you get the figure that keeping the Bush tax cuts will "cause" a loss of 5 trillion of revenue, and over what period of time is that anyway?  How much of a hole does Obama's hundreds of billions and billions and billions of new spending create?  Granted, that spending will never happen, but that gets back to the fraud meme, doesn't it?

I missed the zero capital gains tax bit. What's up with that? Is that something about equity appreciation or lack thereof?  And if so, how does that connect all your little dots? Dot.com was a bubble you know. It had to go. At one point there near the end of the Clinton term, per my calculations, the expected returns from equities were negative!

[Torie]

You should have been a minister, Beet. Your spin is just so kind, generous, and forgiving.   

The economy has deteriorated a lot in the past 4 months eh?  That is interesting, since economic growth bounced up to 3% in the second quarter. And when did oil prices really start to ramp up? Wasn't it mostly in the last year?  But yes, McCain was clearly wrong on drilling based on what we knew a year ago. And yes, I think it was mostly a matter of political calculation. He wanted to seem green friendly. That is why he is pushing this incredibly stupid cap and trade thing. McCain has come up with several incredibly stupid ideas actually, like giving manufacturing workers laid off their old wage for two years. Fortunately, that idea has not researched. Hopefully, it has been deep sixed into the Mindanao Trench!

[Torie]

Thanks for the post and links Beet. These numbers I don't think do dynamic scoring (and while one need not go nutter Club for Growth/WSJ on steroids, and assume supply side is the universal solvent for all of our ills, that does not mean it does not exist at all either), but yes, both candidates' little plans are DOA and ludicrous.

Repealing the estate tax is particularly ludicrous, but that of course is not going to happen. In Torie's world, the Foundation scam would also be cut way back, along with the life insurance tax loophole, which is why of course insurance companies love the estate tax. Obama's plan is about right on the estate tax - a 3 million exclusion with a 45% rate over that, if I recall correctly.

[Torie]

Fair enough, Beet. You are not that easy to dispatch! Kudos.

But then your economic score is "only" minus 2.5, so one should not assume that you are just another economically clueless liberal in any event.

[Torie]

Laffer was a professor of mine. He was not very bright, and very weak technically, and quanitatively. He was not a "maths" type.   He failed to secure a full professorship at the U of C.

By the way, did you know he was a big fan of fixed exchange rates?  The free market is great, except when it isn't I guess. I told him at the time, it didn't make any sense to me, and he was not very good at debating with me. You are better.

[Torie]

The guy I thought was a mega mind was Eugene Fama. Milton was great to debate with. Pity at the time I did not understand the theory of externalities as well then as I do now. Myron Scholes was excellent in his field (options). By the way, at least back then, students in business school were not that bright in general at the U of C. Only about 15% were really on top of things. Students were much smarter in law school. At Michigan, about 15% were clearly smarter than I was, which was sobering. Some of them could connect the dots like a computer. But I was very good at writing briefs! I should have been an appellate court  lawyer.