Working Life

In the lore of political budgetary rhetoric, Sen Everett Dirksen’s observation is often useful: “A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money” he is rumored to have said–rumored because there is some debate about whether he actually used that whole phrase. But, whatever–it’s useful to our current discussion. Where […]

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   For what they paid to elect their poodle, the elite got what they wanted: The new governor mentioned the word “tax” or “taxes” 21 times, mostly to denounce them and promise to lower them. “What made New York the Empire State was a not a large government complex,” he said. “It was a vibrant […]

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   We have a huge crisis in the country. The private pension system is collapsing. The public pension system is on the brink of collapse, and people are being pitted one against the other. But, what we often fail to do is connect the dots: between the collapse of the public pensions system and the […]

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   Excuse me, knock, knock–are you one of these people? Apparently, one-third of these people live in California and New York. I know I’d get laughed out of my building: Wealth-X estimates that there are 700 Americans with a net worth of more than $750 million, 400 with $500-$750 million, 3,200 with $200-$500 million, 6,400 […]

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   The man is a hero.    See my Facebook posts to follow his day-long lecture on the foolishness of the tax cut deal.

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   Much of the debate about the deal cut between the White House and Republicans is focused on what could or could not get done, and the notion that the president got the best deal he could get given the circumstances. I think there is still a legitimate point to be made that even given […]

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   Trying to advance the theme a bit here–since there are enough people correctly taking the White House to task for capitulating to the Republicans on the tax cuts for the very rich–I’d like to raise our eyes up a bit eyer to two years out.    The president just said, at a news conference, […]

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   For those of you who might remember the days of the Carter Administration when the U.S. embassy workers in Teheran were held under lock and key for a very long time–"Nightline" got its ratings boost, and made its name, from the nightly graphic trumpeting how many days America had been "held hostage". Well, we […]

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   Glad this is out, from the Congressional Budget Office: By contrast, policies that would temporarily increase the aftertax income of people with relatively high income, such as an across-the-board reduction in income taxes or an increase in the exemption amount for the AMT, would have smaller effects because such tax cuts would probably not […]

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    Let’s see. Republicans are trying to save us all from the phony deficit "crisis". So, they announce this: Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, drove the point home as soon as the Senate convened by announcing that he would support a proposed ban on Congressional earmarks, reversing his longtime practice of avidly […]

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