Category Journalism

Most Hypocritical Column Ever?

Danny Vinik Leave a comment

Harvard economist and former economic adviser to Mitt Romney Greg Mankiw has a column up on the New York Times website that will run in tomorrow’s paper. In general, it’s a well-thought out piece that basically says we are eventually going to need to cut entitlement spending and raise taxes on everyone in order to pay down our deficit.

But the last line of the piece made my jaw drop, given that Mankiw was one of Romney’s top advisers:

But fiscal negotiations might become a bit easier if everyone started by agreeing that the policies we choose must be constrained by the laws of arithmetic.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Now Mankiw wants policies to be “constrained by the laws of arithmetic?” He just spent months promoting economic policies that were mathematically impossible! And now he’s imploring everyone else to follow the laws of arithmetic. I haven’t read anything this hypocritical in quite a while.

BTW, I know the Tax Policy Center took a lot of heat on the right for the assumptions it made in determining that Romney’s tax plan was impossible, even though most of those assumptions were incredibly favorable to Romney. However, Mankiw and the Romney campaign could easily have cleared up the controversy by outlining the specifics of the plan. They refused to do so. Thus, the blame still lies with Mankiw and the campaign.

EXTEND THE PAYROLL TAX CUT!

Danny Vinik 3 Comments

The last time I wrote an article asking for the President to extend the payroll tax cuts I didn’t use all caps in my title. So here’s try #2. I’m also angrier this time.

Here’s the President today talking about a potential deal on the Fiscal Cliff:


Here are the two lines that stuck out (and infuriated me):

Every American’s paycheck will get considerably smaller.

And:

The housing market is recovering, but that could be impacted if folks are seeing smaller paychecks.

Guess what is immediately going to hit the middle class the hardest?

The expiration  of the payroll tax cut.

I’ve supported the President against other liberals in his desire to compromise, but he never mentions the payroll tax cut. The Bush Tax Cuts don’t have an effect for months – until tax filing season. The sequester happens slowly over time. We won’t hit the debt ceiling for another month. But the end of the payroll tax cut is going to hit middle class families right away. That’s what’s going to hurt their paychecks.

The President is saying that he wants to avoid decreasing every American’s paycheck. He’s demanding just a small deal and at worst, just an extension of the Bush tax cuts for those making less than $250,000 and an extension of unemployment benefits. That’s what Obama is saying Congress needs to do to prevent every American’s paycheck from taking a hit.

He’s wrong. That still leaves a big weekly hole in every American’s paycheck as the payroll tax rises from 4.2% to 6.2%.

Matt Yglesias mentioned this in a post today as well. The parts of the fiscal cliff that have the worst immediate consequences aren’t even being mentioned.

It’s a major political failure. But it’s also a media failure? Hello MSM, where have you been? Do most Americans even know that the payroll tax is going up?

The entire thing is infuriating, but nothing is going to change in the next few days so I might as well get used to it.

An Easy Mistake to Make on Potential Gun Policies

Danny Vinik Leave a comment

Dave Weigel makes a mistake that I’ve heard frequently since NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre’s speech post-Newtown:

But this isn’t an entirely new idea. You probably don’t remember the name of Neil Gardner, a sheriff’s deputy in Jefferson County, Colo. He was the armed guard assigned to watch Columbine High School who usually ate lunch with the students, so he could be in the school.

Wonkblog’s Brad Plumer made a similar error as well in a very interesting post about the research on the effects of armed security in schools:

And what about mass shootings? It’s worth noting that Columbine High School had an armed “community resource officer” on duty the day that two students shot 12 of their peers and one teacher. So armed security guards can’t stop every death. On the other hand, it’s worth noting that the same can be said about some of the gun-control legislation being discussed right now — the federal assault weapons ban was also in effect during Columbine, after all.

I ranted about this on Twitter. The fact that armed security and the federal assault weapons ban did not prevent the Columbine shooting is not  a reason for not implementing those policies.

Certainly, it’s useful to examine how such a policy would have impacted past events. But looking at one event, especially a high-profile one, as a way of evaluating a potential policy is a cheap way to score political points. Yes, having armed security at Columbine High School did not prevent that tragedy, but maybe it would have helped prevent the shooting in Newtown or could help prevent a future one. Same with an assault weapons ban. Both conservatives and liberals have been using this type of argument the last few days and it just muddies the water. We need to examine the pros and cons of each argument overall, not how they impacted isolated events.

Now, I happen to be skeptical of LaPierre’s idea. As Plumer writes, armed security in schools may make students feel less safe and hurt learning and it’s unclear whether it reduces crime. That’s a good argument for not putting a cop in every school. The fact that Columbine High School had a security guard is not.