Brad DeLong

For the Virtual Green Room: June 3, 2011

Rebuttals to right-wing fake talking points and misinformation that I want to have at the forefront of my brain--for when I am surprised, as I will be, by an unexpected question from an unexpected direction while talking to reporters, phone callers, passers-by, radio interviewers, cable TV interviewers, etc....

A baker's dozen:

1. STUPIDEST RIGHT-WING CLAIM OF THE DAY: Michael Barone: "The [Republican presidential nomination] race has already occasioned a weight of commentary, much inevitably misleading. One piece of conventional wisdom seems to me clearly incorrect: it is that Republicans, a docile and deferential lot, always nominate the candidate next in line..." But the Republicans have done so for nearly a century: the last time they nominated somebody who was not next-in-line was Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952. The last time before that was Warren Harding in 1920. How can it be incorrect if it is correct?

2. **Bill Cohan's claim that Obama should not recess-appoint Elizabeth Warren: Felix Salmon: "The U.S. Congress only has two choices. It can raise the debt ceiling, or it can abolish the debt ceiling. The latter option isn’t realistic, sadly. Which means that the debt ceiling is going to be raised. Yet somehow the House of Representatives contrived today to vote 318-97 against raising the ceiling.... Faced with a Congress of such monumental doltishness, what is the White House to do? It can stick to its guns and try to put in place the very best policies for America that it can. Or it can randomly detonate various such policies, even if doing so would achieve precisely nothing, on some kind of inchoate principle that the occasional public sacrifice might somehow mollify an unknown number of lamebrained legislators. That seems to be the philosophy of Bill Cohan, who has decided that Elizabeth Warren must resign from the nascent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, on the grounds that Congress won’t confirm her. But Cohan’s argument doesn’t even make internal sense.... By Cohan’s own account, then, any nominee would face exactly the same fate as Warren — even a Republican. It’s the bureau that these senators don’t like, and they’re not going to confirm anybody to run it unless and until they also get the authority to hobble it. Throwing Warren to the sharks would just give them a taste for blood, and make them even more optimistic about their chances of getting exactly what they want..."

3. 150 Republican "economists" who claim that "an increase in the national debt limit that is not accompanied by significant spending cuts and budget reforms... will harm private-sector job creation in America": Finkelstein: "Benjamin Zycher: Michelle Obama Is The Product Of "Affirmative-Action Coddling" And "An Intellectual Lightweight."... Thomas C. Rustici: "In November We Will Kick Your Asses Out And Save This Republic From Your Socialistic Tyranny."... John Cogan: "It's Wrong To Allow Surpluses."... Larry Lindsey... advocated for the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy as an "insurance policy" against recession... Kevin Hassett... "Dow 36,000." Hassett made a public bet that the Dow would be closer to 36,000 than 10,000 by the year 2010. Yet, the Dow was at 10,000 in 2010... Douglas Holtz-Eakin, top economic adviser to Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign. The McCain campaign's response to the financial crisis was to suspend the campaign, arrange for a bipartisan meeting with the President, and then proceed to say nothing at the meeting.... Furthermore, 24 of the economists who signed both letters also signed a 2003 letter endorsing the Bush tax cuts as a "fiscally responsible" path to "more employment, economic growth, and opportunities for all Americans.""

4. Mitt Romney's claim that we are only inches away from ceasing to be a free market economy: Paul Krugman: "Romney is not a stupid man; nor is he, as best one can tell, temperamentally an extremist. So he has to know that he’s talking total nonsense. The only major expansion of the state Obama is pursuing is a health care plan that is, ahem, essentially identical to what Romney did in Massachusetts. And given the realities of the federal budget — the federal government is basically an insurance company for old people with an army on the side, and the baby boomers are becoming seniors — the only way to keep federal spending below 20 percent of GDP would be to impose savage cuts on Medicare and Social Security. But Romney is willing to pretend to be an ignorant extremist to have any chance of getting the Republican nomination. So this ends up being a character issue: do you want a man that cynical in the White House?"

5. RERUN: The Ryan plan: Michael Gerson paddles away from it as fast as he can: "Rep. Paul Ryan’s Medicare reform plan is admirable, even courageous, but not the final word. The subsidies he proposes may well be too small to be a realistic alternative to the current system. Republican presidential candidates will need some leeway to make their own recommendations. This is not heresy; it is strategy.... Triangulation is different from trash talk..."

6. RERUN: Douglas Holtz-Eakin's claim that it would be reckless to pass a clean increase in the debt ceiling: Let's quote right-leaning Clive Crook again: "Tea Party true believers may be salivating.... Shutting down the government [by blocking the debt-ceiling increase is a button [Republicans] dare not press.... To do it in 2011, with the economy laid low and financial markets still twitchy, would be the limit of irresponsibility. It would be betting the recovery to make a point. This time, political annihilation might follow, and the party would deserve it..."

7. RERUN: Robert Lucas's claim that Barack Obama's election has permanently depressed U.S. real GDP by 8%: Matthew Yglesias: "What’s happened, according to Lucas, is that Obama’s policies have caused us to deviate permanently to a lower, European-style growth path. The initiation of Social Security didn’t do that. Nor did its expansion in the 1950s. Nor did the creation of Medicare, Medicaid, Title I federal aid to schools or the War On Poverty. The Clean Air Act didn’t do it. Nor did the Clean Water Act or the Americans With Disabilities Act. George W Bush’s expansion of Medicare didn’t do it. Nothing about the growth of the welfare state in postwar America was able to jar America off the American-style growth path and put it on the European path. And then along came Barack Obama, the Affordable Care Act and a few other bills, and like magic we’re Sweden..... A leading economic scholar thinks Obama’s domestic agenda has been far-and-away the most consequential in American history. It’s kind of a big deal..."

8. RERUN: Ruth Marcus's claim that Democrats refuse to acknowledge the need for any changes in the path of Medicare spending: Matthew Yglesias: When Will DC Pundits Acknowledge That The Affordable Care Act Contains Cost Control Efforts?: "[T]he vast majority of House Democrats... voted “yes” and... the Senate Democrats... all voted for [the Affordable Care Act]. The story about Republicans backing savage cuts while Democrats are in denial about the need for restraint is a comfortable one, but it bears no relationship to reality. Not only did the Affordable Care Act include specific cuts in Medicare subsidies to private insurers, it establishes a wide array of mechanisms that its authors believe will reduce the growth rate of health care spending, including in public sector programs. Hospitals were squealing about this just yesterday on the front page of The New York Times.... [Marcus is] just pretending that Obama forgot to address the issue..."

9. RERUN: Republican smears of Elizabeth Warren--and journalistic complicity: Ryan Chittum: Elizabeth Warren Is Smeared, and the Press Is Along for the Ride: "You’d think the press could resist the he said-she said copy when the truth is easy to discern. Congressman Patrick McHenry’s smearing of Elizabeth Warren is a good test of how the press handles dishonest politicians and their lies. And most of the press gets a big fat F on this one. On Tuesday, McHenry, a North Carolina Republican, called Warren a liar, both on CNBC before she testified and during her actual testimony. Here’s how The New York Times, with its delicate sensibilities, put it: "Decorum Breaks Down at House Hearing." Goodness! Pass the smelling salts!... But for anyone half paying attention, much less a beat reporter, this is not a close call: McHenry is full of it..."

10. RERUN: Stephen Moore's 62% top marginal tax rate again: Ryan Chittum: "Zombie Lie Laboratory Creates 62 Percent Tax Rate Plan: CJR: Stephen Moore of The Wall Street Journal editorial board hacks out an instant classic on how to mislead people with numbers. The question-as-headline is your second red flag that this just might be a deeply disingenuous op-ed (the first is that it’s on The Wall Street Journal op-ed page): "A 62% Top Tax Rate?" The top marginal tax rate is just 35 percent now, of course. So how does Moore come up with the idea that Obama and the Democrats are pitching a 62 percent tax rate for the rich? Disingenuously..."

11. RERUN: On Tim Pawlenty's claim that President Obama is setting up this false choice between default and raising the debt ceiling: Pawlenty claims "you can take away that false choice by ordering the Treasury to pay the obligations to outside creditors first..." Failing to pay people inside the United States to whom the U.S. government owes money has a name, Tim. It's name is "default." It's not an alternative to default, it's a type of default.

12. RERUN: On Glenn Hubbard's claim that Obama has "ruled out long-term entitlement spending restraint": Nancy Ann Min De Parle: "[T]he tools in the Affordable Care Act and other steps... already taken will save nearly $120 billion for Medicare over the next five years.... While we’ve made real and significant progress, there is more work to do... the President’s framework... includes reforms that would save at least an additional $200 billion for Medicare over the next decade. The framework would: (i) Bend the long-term cost curve by setting a more ambitious target of holding Medicare cost growth per beneficiary to GDP per capita plus 0.5 percent beginning in 2018, through strengthening the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). (ii) Reduce Medicare’s excessive spending on prescription drugs and lower premiums for beneficiaries without shifting costs to seniors or privatizing Medicare..."

13. SPEAKS FOR ITSELF: A House Republican close to Boehner: “Of course, [not raising the debt ceiling is dangerous But it’s dangerous for everybody, especially the president. At the end of the day, [Obama] will have to give in.” Another senior GOP lawmaker: “Who has egg on their face if there is a sovereign debt crisis, House Republicans or the president?”

For the Virtual Green Room: June 2, 2011

Rebuttals to right-wing fake talking points and misinformation that I want to have at the forefront of my brain--for when I am surprised, as I will be, by an unexpected question from an unexpected direction while talking to reporters, phone callers, passers-by, radio interviewers, cable TV interviewers, etc....

A baker's dozen:

1. STUPIDEST RIGHT-WING CLAIM OF THE DAY: Robert Lucas's claim that Barack Obama's election has permanently depressed U.S. real GDP by 8%: Matthew Yglesias: "What’s happened, according to Lucas, is that Obama’s policies have caused us to deviate permanently to a lower, European-style growth path. The initiation of Social Security didn’t do that. Nor did its expansion in the 1950s. Nor did the creation of Medicare, Medicaid, Title I federal aid to schools or the War On Poverty. The Clean Air Act didn’t do it. Nor did the Clean Water Act or the Americans With Disabilities Act. George W Bush’s expansion of Medicare didn’t do it. Nothing about the growth of the welfare state in postwar America was able to jar America off the American-style growth path and put it on the European path. And then along came Barack Obama, the Affordable Care Act and a few other bills, and like magic we’re Sweden..... A leading economic scholar thinks Obama’s domestic agenda has been far-and-away the most consequential in American history. It’s kind of a big deal..."

2. The Ryan plan: Michael Gerson paddles away from it as fast as he can: "Rep. Paul Ryan’s Medicare reform plan is admirable, even courageous, but not the final word. The subsidies he proposes may well be too small to be a realistic alternative to the current system. Republican presidential candidates will need some leeway to make their own recommendations. This is not heresy; it is strategy.... Triangulation is different from trash talk..."

3. Douglas Holtz-Eakin's claim that it would be reckless to pass a clean increase in the debt ceiling: Let's quote right-leaning Clive Crook again: "Tea Party true believers may be salivating.... Shutting down the government [by blocking the debt-ceiling increase is a button [Republicans] dare not press.... To do it in 2011, with the economy laid low and financial markets still twitchy, would be the limit of irresponsibility. It would be betting the recovery to make a point. This time, political annihilation might follow, and the party would deserve it..."

4. Yuval Levin's claim that the Ryan plan would protect seniors with pre-existing conditions: Michael F. Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute: "All seniors under the chairman's proposal, as I understand it, will be able to obtain health insurance coverage... [payments will be] risk-adjusted so that people with severe illnesses will get larger vouchers." The problems are that (a) the voucher will be too small for the average senior to purchase a policy that offers Medicare benefits, and (b) for many with pre-existing conditions the risk-adjustment will not work--risk adjustment is not an exact science.

5. George Melloan's** claim that markets are nervous about the Fed's inflationary policy and that the Fed will bankrupt itself if it raises interest rates: Markets that are nervous about inflation are not demanding a 2.94%/year interest rate on 10-year Treasury bonds. The ten-year breakeven inflation rate from the TIPS and the 10-year Treasury bond is 2.17%/year. That is not a market worried about inflation.

6. Ruth Marcus's claim that Democrats refuse to acknowledge the need for any changes in the path of Medicare spending: Matthew Yglesias: When Will DC Pundits Acknowledge That The Affordable Care Act Contains Cost Control Efforts?: "[T]he vast majority of House Democrats... voted “yes” and... the Senate Democrats... all voted for [the Affordable Care Act]. The story about Republicans backing savage cuts while Democrats are in denial about the need for restraint is a comfortable one, but it bears no relationship to reality. Not only did the Affordable Care Act include specific cuts in Medicare subsidies to private insurers, it establishes a wide array of mechanisms that its authors believe will reduce the growth rate of health care spending, including in public sector programs. Hospitals were squealing about this just yesterday on the front page of The New York Times.... [Marcus is] just pretending that Obama forgot to address the issue..."

7. RERUN: Republican smears of Elizabeth Warren--and journalistic complicity: Ryan Chittum: Elizabeth Warren Is Smeared, and the Press Is Along for the Ride: "You’d think the press could resist the he said-she said copy when the truth is easy to discern. Congressman Patrick McHenry’s smearing of Elizabeth Warren is a good test of how the press handles dishonest politicians and their lies. And most of the press gets a big fat F on this one. On Tuesday, McHenry, a North Carolina Republican, called Warren a liar, both on CNBC before she testified and during her actual testimony. Here’s how The New York Times, with its delicate sensibilities, put it: "Decorum Breaks Down at House Hearing." Goodness! Pass the smelling salts!... But for anyone half paying attention, much less a beat reporter, this is not a close call: McHenry is full of it..."

8. RERUN: Stephen Moore's 62% top marginal tax rate again: Ryan Chittum: "Zombie Lie Laboratory Creates 62 Percent Tax Rate Plan: CJR: Stephen Moore of The Wall Street Journal editorial board hacks out an instant classic on how to mislead people with numbers. The question-as-headline is your second red flag that this just might be a deeply disingenuous op-ed (the first is that it’s on The Wall Street Journal op-ed page): "A 62% Top Tax Rate?" The top marginal tax rate is just 35 percent now, of course. So how does Moore come up with the idea that Obama and the Democrats are pitching a 62 percent tax rate for the rich? Disingenuously..."

9. RERUN: On Republican claims that 51% of households don't pay any taxes: Mark Thoma sends us to Chuck Marr and Brian Highsmith: "The 51 percent figure is an anomaly that reflects the unique circumstances of 2009.... In a more typical year, 35 percent to 40 percent of households owe no federal income tax.... The 51 percent figure... ignores the substantial amounts of other federal taxes... households pay.... [O]nly about 14 percent of households paid neither federal income tax nor payroll tax in 2009.... Most of the people who pay neither federal income tax nor payroll taxes are low-income people who are elderly, unable to work due to a serious disability, or students, most of whom subsequently become taxpayers..."

10. RERUN: On the Republican claim that Obama has increased nondefense discretionary spending by 80%: Paul Krugman: "The number comes from taking nondefense discretionary spending as reported — which rose 26 percent from 2008 to 2010 (Table 8.7) — and then adding the entire discretionary spending part of the stimulus.... [N]ot all of the stimulus funds were spent in 2010... [and] stimulus spending is already in those discretionary spending numbers. So this GOP talking point is a complete fraud; it’s based on counting the same spending several times over." This is not a mistake you can make by accident.

11. RERUN: On Tim Pawlenty's claim that President Obama is setting up this false choice between default and raising the debt ceiling: Pawlenty claims "you can take away that false choice by ordering the Treasury to pay the obligations to outside creditors first..." Failing to pay people inside the United States to whom the U.S. government owes money has a name, Tim. It's name is "default." It's not an alternative to default, it's a type of default.

12. RERUN: On Glenn Hubbard's claim that Obama has "ruled out long-term entitlement spending restraint": Nancy Ann Min De Parle: "[T]he tools in the Affordable Care Act and other steps... already taken will save nearly $120 billion for Medicare over the next five years.... While we’ve made real and significant progress, there is more work to do... the President’s framework... includes reforms that would save at least an additional $200 billion for Medicare over the next decade. The framework would: (i) Bend the long-term cost curve by setting a more ambitious target of holding Medicare cost growth per beneficiary to GDP per capita plus 0.5 percent beginning in 2018, through strengthening the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). (ii) Reduce Medicare’s excessive spending on prescription drugs and lower premiums for beneficiaries without shifting costs to seniors or privatizing Medicare..."

13. SPEAKS FOR ITSELF: Kevin D. Williamson: "Witches and Lutherans today stand on equal footing, at least under the law (the law is a ass), since nobody much thinks that sort of thing is terribly important anymore.... It was a new dawn, a day of hope and change, the ancien régime and the theocrats and the plutocracy having been supplanted by fresh new faces dedicated to Reason and promising to fundamentally change France.... The government decided upon a stimulus package.... The problem was that the Jacobins were, perforce, marginally less irresponsible than, say, the present government of the United States..."

For the Virtual Green Room: June 1, 2011

Things I want to have at the forefront of my brain--for when I am surprised, as I will be, by an unexpected question from an unexpected direction while talking to reporters, phone callers, passers-by, radio interviewers, cable TV interviewers, etc....

A baker's dozen:

1. Debt ceiling Kabuki: Stan Collender: "The Dirty Secret About Today's "Clean" Debt Ceiling Vote: The House Republican leadership wants everyone to think that the expected large “no” vote this evening on a “clean” debt ceiling will demonstrate that there’s no support for increasing the government’s borrowing limit unless deficit reductions are attached.  That’s simply not true.... [A] debt ceiling increase with deficit reductions attached would also very likely... if not certainly... be rejected [by the House].  In other words, just because a debt ceiling increase that doesn’t include spending cuts or revenue increases can’t be adopted doesn’t automatically mean that, as the [House] leadership wants us to believe, a bill with them will pass..."

2. Republican smears of Elizabeth Warren--and journalistic complicity: Ryan Chittum: Elizabeth Warren Is Smeared, and the Press Is Along for the Ride: "You’d think the press could resist the he said-she said copy when the truth is easy to discern. Congressman Patrick McHenry’s smearing of Elizabeth Warren is a good test of how the press handles dishonest politicians and their lies. And most of the press gets a big fat F on this one. On Tuesday, McHenry, a North Carolina Republican, called Warren a liar, both on CNBC before she testified and during her actual testimony. Here’s how The New York Times, with its delicate sensibilities, put it: "Decorum Breaks Down at House Hearing." Goodness! Pass the smelling salts!... But for anyone half paying attention, much less a beat reporter, this is not a close call: McHenry is full of it..."

3. Stephen Moore's 62% top marginal tax rate again: Ryan Chittum: "Zombie Lie Laboratory Creates 62 Percent Tax Rate Plan: CJR: Stephen Moore of The Wall Street Journal editorial board hacks out an instant classic on how to mislead people with numbers. The question-as-headline is your second red flag that this just might be a deeply disingenuous op-ed (the first is that it’s on The Wall Street Journal op-ed page): "A 62% Top Tax Rate?" The top marginal tax rate is just 35 percent now, of course. So how does Moore come up with the idea that Obama and the Democrats are pitching a 62 percent tax rate for the rich? Disingenuously..."

4. On Ruth Marcus's complaints about Democrats' use of "Mediscare": Matthew Yglesias: ‘Mediscare’ Works Because The Consequences of Privatizing Medicare Are Scary: "Here’s what’s true: If you go back and look at the quotes from the time Congressional Republicans tried to privatize Medicare in the mid-1990s they do sound a lot like the quotes from the time Congressional Republicans tried to privatize Medicare in 2011. That’s because many people believe that it would be a bad idea to privatize Medicare, so every time the congressional leadership tries to privatize Medicare you have people speaking up against this idea. And we speak up against it in similar terms because the terms that have been used in the past are politically effective. And they’re politically effective because the consequences of privatizing Medicare are scary..."

5. Another Republican who used to be for the health-care mandate: Jon Huntsman In 2007: ‘I’m Comfortable’ With Individual Mandate, Would ‘Make System More Efficient’: "I’m comfortable with a requirement [to have coverage]. You can call it what you want, but at some point, we’re going to have to get serious about how we deal with this issue. And that means there will have to be a multitude of different policies that are available in the market place. It means that it will be incumbent upon citizens to look at responsibility, their own responsibility in terms of health and the choices that are made…. There is a mandate today, let’s not forget, it’s called the emergency room…. We’re living today in an environment, to be sure, where there’s a mandate in place. It’s whether you really want to make the system more efficient."..."

6. RERUN: On Republican claims that 51% of households don't pay any taxes: Mark Thoma sends us to Chuck Marr and Brian Highsmith: "The 51 percent figure is an anomaly that reflects the unique circumstances of 2009.... In a more typical year, 35 percent to 40 percent of households owe no federal income tax.... The 51 percent figure... ignores the substantial amounts of other federal taxes... households pay.... [O]nly about 14 percent of households paid neither federal income tax nor payroll tax in 2009.... Most of the people who pay neither federal income tax nor payroll taxes are low-income people who are elderly, unable to work due to a serious disability, or students, most of whom subsequently become taxpayers..."

7. RERUN: Caroline Baum's claim that the upward-sloping yield curve means that we should be optimistic: Paul Krugman: "[T]he long-term rate is a prediction of future short-term rates. If investors expect the economy to contract, they also expect the Fed to cut rates.... If they expect the economy to expand, they expect the Fed to raise rates, making the yield curve positively sloped. But here’s the thing: the Fed can’t cut rates from here, because they’re already zero. It can, however, raise rates. So the long-term rate has to be above the short-term rate..." The normal relationship between the slope of the yield curve and expectations of growth simply breaks down when interest rates are very low.

8. RERUN: On the Republican claim that Obama has increased nondefense discretionary spending by 80%: Paul Krugman: "The number comes from taking nondefense discretionary spending as reported — which rose 26 percent from 2008 to 2010 (Table 8.7) — and then adding the entire discretionary spending part of the stimulus.... [N]ot all of the stimulus funds were spent in 2010... [and] stimulus spending is already in those discretionary spending numbers. So this GOP talking point is a complete fraud; it’s based on counting the same spending several times over." This is not a mistake you can make by accident.

9. RERUN: On Tim Pawlenty's claim that President Obama is setting up this false choice between default and raising the debt ceiling: Pawlenty claims "you can take away that false choice by ordering the Treasury to pay the obligations to outside creditors first..." Failing to pay people inside the United States to whom the U.S. government owes money has a name, Tim. It's name is "default." It's not an alternative to default, it's a type of default.

10. RERUN: On Glenn Hubbard's claim that Obama has "ruled out long-term entitlement spending restraint": Nancy Ann Min De Parle: "[T]he tools in the Affordable Care Act and other steps... already taken will save nearly $120 billion for Medicare over the next five yearss.... While we’ve made real and significant progress, there is more work to do... the President’s framework... includes reforms that would save at least an additional $200 billion for Medicare over the next decade. The framework would: (i) Bend the long-term cost curve by setting a more ambitious target of holding Medicare cost growth per beneficiary to GDP per capita plus 0.5 percent beginning in 2018, through strengthening the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). (ii) Reduce Medicare’s excessive spending on prescription drugs and lower premiums for beneficiaries without shifting costs to seniors or privatizing Medicare..."

11. RERUN: On Stephen Moore's claim that "in reality" the Democrats are proposing a 62% top income tax rate: Moore's op-ed is simply not reality-based. There is no such proposal for a 62% marginal top income tax rate, not from any Democratic office holder or advisor. Moore claims that "in the late 1980s, the U.S. was nearly the lowest taxed nation in the world, and a quarter century later we're nearly the highest." The U.S. today has a smaller tax share of GDP than every single other G-7 nation. The reason that the U.S. collects a larger share of taxes from the rich is that our incomes today are much more skewed toward the rich than those of other G-7 nations.

12. RERUN: On Republican opposition to raising the debt ceiling: Right-leaning Clive Crook: "Tea Party true believers may be salivating.... Shutting down the government [by blocking the debt-ceiling increase is a button [Republicans] dare not press.... To do it in 2011, with the economy laid low and financial markets still twitchy, would be the limit of irresponsibility. It would be betting the recovery to make a point. This time, political annihilation might follow, and the party would deserve it..."

13. SPEAKS FOR ITSELF: Rand Paul: I’m not for profiling people on the color of their skin, or on their religion, but I would take into account where they’ve been traveling and perhaps, you might have to indirectly take into account whether or not they’ve been going to radical political speeches by religious leaders. It wouldn’t be that they are Islamic. But if someone is attending speeches from someone who is promoting the violent overthrow of our government, that’s really an offense that we should be going after — they should be deported or put in prison.

For the Virtual Green Room: May 31, 2011

Things I want to have at the forefront of my brain--for when I am surprised, as I will be, by an unexpected question from an unexpected direction while talking to reporters, phone callers, passers-by, radio interviewers, cable TV interviewers, etc....

A baker's dozen:

1. On Paul Ryan's claim that "Obama-care kills Medicare as we know it. Obama-care raids $500 billion from Medicare to spend on Obama-care, puts in place a 15-panel board to ration Medicare by unelected bureaucrats. Our budget, repeals the raiding, gets rid of the rationing board, preserves this program, makes no changes for a person 55 years of age or older and saves Medicare": James Kwak: "Ordinarily this wouldn’t be worth responding to, except to point out, as Sam Stein did, that Ryan’s proposed budget also ”raids $500 billion from Medicare,” so the statement that “we stop the raiding” is, um, a lie. But it isn’t news that Paul Ryan has an issue with honesty, except perhaps for David Brooks."

2. On John McCain's claim that Sarah Palin can beat Barack Obama because she "inspires great passion, especially among the Republican faithful": David @ Crooks and Liars: "A recent Washington Post/ABC News poll found that only 17 percent of Republicans had a "strongly favorable" view of her."

3. On Republican claims that 51% of households don't pay any taxes: Mark Thoma sends us to Chuck Marr and Brian Highsmith: "The 51 percent figure is an anomaly that reflects the unique circumstances of 2009.... In a more typical year, 35 percent to 40 percent of households owe no federal income tax.... The 51 percent figure... ignores the substantial amounts of other federal taxes... households pay.... [O]nly about 14 percent of households paid neither federal income tax nor payroll tax in 2009.... Most of the people who pay neither federal income tax nor payroll taxes are low-income people who are elderly, unable to work due to a serious disability, or students, most of whom subsequently become taxpayers..."

4. Caroline Baum's claim that the upward-sloping yield curve means that we should be optimistic: Paul Krugman: "[T]he long-term rate is a prediction of future short-term rates. If investors expect the economy to contract, they also expect the Fed to cut rates.... If they expect the economy to expand, they expect the Fed to raise rates, making the yield curve positively sloped. But here’s the thing: the Fed can’t cut rates from here, because they’re already zero. It can, however, raise rates. So the long-term rate has to be above the short-term rate..." The normal relationship between the slope of the yield curve and expectations of growth simply breaks down when interest rates are very low.

5. Claims that only inflationistas want to turn us into Zimbabwe favor higher inflation: Ken Rogoff, a former advisor to John McCain, says that 6 percent inflation “for at least a couple of years” would be very good for the U.S. economy. It would help eliminate the debt overhang that he believes is hobbling the recovery.

6. Ruth Marcus's claim that Democrats are crying "wolf" and "Mediscare": Steve Benen: "It’s exasperating, but it’s worth reemphasizing what too many establishment types simply refuse to understand: Democrats are telling the truth... offering an accurate assessment of the Republican plan for Medicare. If voters find the GOP proposal frightening, the problem is with the plan, not with Democrats’ rhetoric. I’m at a loss to understand what, exactly, Ruth Marcus, David Brooks, and their cohorts would have Dems do. Congressional Republicans have a plan to end Medicare and replace it with a privatized voucher scheme. The proposal would... shift crushing costs onto the backs of seniors, freeing up money for tax breaks for the wealthy. The plan is needlessly cruel, and any serious evaluation of the GOP’s arithmetic shows that the policy is a fraud..."

7. RERUN: On the Republican claim that Obama has increased nondefense discretionary spending by 80%: Paul Krugman: "The number comes from taking nondefense discretionary spending as reported — which rose 26 percent from 2008 to 2010 (Table 8.7) — and then adding the entire discretionary spending part of the stimulus.... [N]ot all of the stimulus funds were spent in 2010... [and] stimulus spending is already in those discretionary spending numbers. So this GOP talking point is a complete fraud; it’s based on counting the same spending several times over." This is not a mistake you can make by accident.

8. RERUN: On Peter Wallison's claim that Fannie and Freddie caused the financial crisis: Mike Konczal: "The conservative talking point: half of all subprime and other high-risk mortgages were held by the GSEs!... This zombie argument finally got fully dismembered by Center for American Progress’ David Min in his recent report taking apart Wallison.... Wallison and Pinto claim that the GSEs were responsible for half of all subprime and subprime-like mortgages. They do this by making up a confusing definition of “subprime-like."... The fun part of making up your own definition is that it can be whatever you want it to be.... The three-card monte trick is pretty straightforward once you know where to watch. There’s a lot of statements that go: “Fannie and Freddie made a lot of subprime loans and other high-risk mortgages. And subprime loans had a 25% default rate!” And you naturally assume that the other high-risk loans must also have a gigantic default rate compared to regular mortgages. Except they don’t..."

9. RERUN: On Tim Pawlenty's claim that President Obama is setting up this false choice between default and raising the debt ceiling: Pawlenty claims "you can take away that false choice by ordering the Treasury to pay the obligations to outside creditors first..." Failing to pay people inside the United States to whom the U.S. government owes money has a name, Tim. It's name is "default." It's not an alternative to default, it's a type of default.

10. RERUN: On Glenn Hubbard's claim that Obama has "ruled out long-term entitlement spending restraint": Nancy Ann Min De Parle: "[T]he tools in the Affordable Care Act and other steps... already taken will save nearly $120 billion for Medicare over the next five yearss.... While we’ve made real and significant progress, there is more work to do... the President’s framework... includes reforms that would save at least an additional $200 billion for Medicare over the next decade. The framework would: (i) Bend the long-term cost curve by setting a more ambitious target of holding Medicare cost growth per beneficiary to GDP per capita plus 0.5 percent beginning in 2018, through strengthening the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). (ii) Reduce Medicare’s excessive spending on prescription drugs and lower premiums for beneficiaries without shifting costs to seniors or privatizing Medicare..."

11. RERUN: On Stephen Moore's claim that "in reality" the Democrats are proposing a 62% top income tax rate: Moore's op-ed is simply not reality-based. There is no such proposal for a 62% marginal top income tax rate, not from any Democratic office holder or advisor. Moore claims that "in the late 1980s, the U.S. was nearly the lowest taxed nation in the world, and a quarter century later we're nearly the highest." The U.S. today has a smaller tax share of GDP than every single other G-7 nation. The reason that the U.S. collects a larger share of taxes from the rich is that our incomes today are much more skewed toward the rich than those of other G-7 nations.

12. RERUN: On Republican opposition to raising the debt ceiling: Right-leaning Clive Crook: "Tea Party true believers may be salivating.... Shutting down the government [by blocking the debt-ceiling increase is a button [Republicans] dare not press.... To do it in 2011, with the economy laid low and financial markets still twitchy, would be the limit of irresponsibility. It would be betting the recovery to make a point. This time, political annihilation might follow, and the party would deserve it..."

13. SPEAKS FOR ITSELF: Tim Dickinson: '[Roger] Ailes' Reported "Personal Paranoia" About Muslims, Gays Mirrored On Fox: Inside his blast-resistant office at Fox News headquarters, Ailes keeps a monitor on his desk that allows him to view any activity outside his closed door. Once, after observing a dark-skinned man in what Ailes perceived to be Muslim garb, he put Fox News on lockdown. "What the hell!" Ailes shouted. "This guy could be bombing me!" The suspected terrorist turned out to be a janitor. "Roger tore up the whole floor," recalls a source close to Ailes. "He has a personal paranoia about people who are Muslim -- which is consistent with the ideology of his network"...'

For the Virtual Green Room: May 30, 2011

Things I want to have at the forefront of my brain--for when I am surprised, as I will be, by an unexpected question from an unexpected direction while talking to reporters, phone callers, passers-by, radio interviewers, cable TV interviewers, etc....

A baker's dozen:

1. On the Republican claim that Obama has increased nondefense discretionary spending by 80%: Paul Krugman: "The number comes from taking nondefense discretionary spending as reported — which rose 26 percent from 2008 to 2010 (Table 8.7) — and then adding the entire discretionary spending part of the stimulus.... [N]ot all of the stimulus funds were spent in 2010... [and] stimulus spending is already in those discretionary spending numbers. So this GOP talking point is a complete fraud; it’s based on counting the same spending several times over." This is not a mistake you can make by accident.

2. On Peter Wallison's claim that Fannie and Freddie caused the financial crisis: Mike Konczal: "The conservative talking point: half of all subprime and other high-risk mortgages were held by the GSEs!... This zombie argument finally got fully dismembered by Center for American Progress’ David Min.... Wallison and Pinto... [make] up a confusing definition of “subprime-like."... The fun part of making up your own definition is that it can be whatever you want it to be.... The three-card monte trick is pretty straightforward once you know where to watch. There’s a lot of statements that go: “Fannie and Freddie made a lot of subprime loans and other high-risk mortgages. And subprime loans had a 25% default rate!” And you naturally assume that the other high-risk loans must also have a gigantic default rate compared to regular mortgages. Except they don’t..."

3. On Senator John Barraso's (R-WY) claim that Don Berwick is Obama's health care rationing czar: Newt Gingrich: "Don Berwick at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement has worked for years to spread the word that the same systematic approach to quality control that has worked so well in manufacturing could create a dramatically safer, less expensive and more effective system of health and health care..."

4. On Tim Pawlenty's claim that ObamaCare has added to the national debt: Igor Volsky and Pat Garofalo: "According to the Congressional Budget Office, enacting the Affordable Care Act 'will produce a net reduction in federal deficits of $143 billion over the 2010-2019 period'. Similarly, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) concluded that Medicare spending will decline $86.4 billion and that by 2019, it is projected to grow 7.7 percent—0.9 percentage point more slowly than if the law had not passed..."

5. On Tim Pawlenty's claim that President Obama is setting up this false choice between default and raising the debt ceiling: Pawlenty claims "you can take away that false choice by ordering the Treasury to pay the obligations to outside creditors first..." Failing to pay people inside the United States to whom the U.S. government owes money has a name, Tim. It's name is "default." It's not an alternative to default, it's a type of default.

6. On the claim that all approaches to curbing Medicare spending are unproven: Matthew Yglesias: "[T]he world has a lot of examples of health care systems that are more "statist" than Americans... the "statist" approach does in fact succeed in pushing costs down lower than what we experience in the United States.... [R]elatively "non-statist" approaches like the one they use in Switzerland lead to higher than normal costs for Europe... the "super-statist" approach of the United Kingdom leads to extremely low costs. Last, right inside the United States of America we conveniently have a single-payer health insurance system for senior citizens, and a more market-oriented one for non-seniors. And guess what? Medicare is cheaper. The administrative overhead is lower, and the unit cost of services rendered is also lower. The argument against a statist approach that needs to be taken at least somewhat seriously is the idea that statist approaches make health spending too low..."

7. RERUN: On Mitt Romney's claim that uncertainty about government policy hobbles the recovery: Will Wilkinson: "The principal themes of Mitt Romney's speech here in Des Moines earlier this afternoon were that America's economy remains a wreck because Barack Obama's a rank amateur whose woeful inexperience, ignorance of the requirements of a robust economy, and faintly un-American taste for the public-policy fashions in Europe, has created a climate of economic uncertainty that has retarded recovery." One more time: uncertainty about government policy shows itself in: (a) businesses who say they are unusually worried about government regulation, (b) investors who are willing to pay unusually high prices for insurance against inflation, and (c) savers who demand unusually high rates of return before they will lend. We see none of these things right now--what we see is a simple shortage of aggregate demand.

8. RERUN: On Glenn Hubbard's claim that Obama has "ruled out long-term entitlement spending restraint": Nancy Ann Min De Parle: "[T]he tools in the Affordable Care Act and other steps... already taken will save nearly $120 billion for Medicare over the next five yearss.... While we’ve made real and significant progress, there is more work to do... the President’s framework... includes reforms that would save at least an additional $200 billion for Medicare over the next decade. The framework would: (i) Bend the long-term cost curve by setting a more ambitious target of holding Medicare cost growth per beneficiary to GDP per capita plus 0.5 percent beginning in 2018, through strengthening the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). (ii) Reduce Medicare’s excessive spending on prescription drugs and lower premiums for beneficiaries without shifting costs to seniors or privatizing Medicare..."

9. RERUN: On Joe Nocera's claim that Democrats should not scorn Paul Ryan: "While the Democratic Party might be well served in trying to use the Ryan plan to bury their political opponents, the country itself is not. The debate we need is not about whether Medicare should be reformed, but how.... It would be nice if we could treat the Ryan plan not as an object of derision but as a launching-off point for a serious debate..." It would have been nice if Paul Ryan had proposed a Medicare plan that could be a launching off point for a serious debate--the Medicare reforms in the Affordable Care Act are such a launching-off point. The problem is that Ryan didn't: instead, he proposed something that is rightly an object of derision. That's not a problem with the Democrats. That's a problem with Paul Ryan and the Republicans.

10. RERUN: On Stephen Moore's claim that "in reality" the Democrats are proposing a 62% top income tax rate: Moore's op-ed is simply not reality-based. There is no such proposal for a 62% marginal top income tax rate, not from any Democratic office holder or advisor. Moore claims that "in the late 1980s, the U.S. was nearly the lowest taxed nation in the world, and a quarter century later we're nearly the highest." The U.S. today has a smaller tax share of GDP than every single other G-7 nation. The reason that the U.S. collects a larger share of taxes from the rich is that our incomes today are much more skewed toward the rich than those of other G-7 nations.

11. RERUN: On the Wall Street Journal's editorial claim that "the regulatory tax on Americans is now larger than the income tax": The WSJ editorial board writes: "so-called independent agencies like the Federal Reserve... were a perfect 0 for 17 in failing to estimate costs as well as benefits [of regulation]..." Are they seriously claiming that the Federal Reserve has overregulated financial markets over the past decade because it hasn't been writing bureaucratic reports explicitly enumerating and comparing costs and benefits?

12. RERUN: On Republican opposition to raising the debt ceiling: Right-leaning Clive Crook: "Tea Party true believers may be salivating.... Shutting down the government [by blocking the debt-ceiling increase is a button [Republicans] dare not press.... To do it in 2011, with the economy laid low and financial markets still twitchy, would be the limit of irresponsibility. It would be betting the recovery to make a point. This time, political annihilation might follow, and the party would deserve it..."

13. SPEAKS FOR ITSELF: Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan: The presentation [Republican whip Kevin] McCarthy and other top Republicans are giving to [Republican congressional] lawmakers is stunningly simple and illustrates just how unfamiliar House Republicans are with governing. On presentation slides viewed by POLITICO, McCarthy and other House leaders are using colored, flag-laden charts to show how much debt China and other nations hold. They are explaining to the members how Congress has raised the debt ceiling in the past — including as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program and Democrats’ stimulus bill. Pushing back on conservative discontent, they are showing that both the conservative Republican Study Committee’s budget and the House Republican budget call for a hike in the debt ceiling. They have a slide explaining why California GOP Rep. Tom McClintock and Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey’s plan to prioritize debt payments won’t work — although they don’t mention the lawmakers by name...

For the Virtual Green Room: May 29, 2011...

Things I want to have at the forefront of my brain--for when I am surprised, as I will be, by an unexpected question from an unexpected direction while talking to reporters, phone callers, passers-by, radio interviewers, cable TV interviewers, etc....

A baker's dozen:

1. On Glenn Hubbard's claim that Obama has "ruled out long-term entitlement spending restraint": Nancy Ann Min De Parle: "[T]he tools in the Affordable Care Act and other steps... already taken will save nearly $120 billion for Medicare over the next five yearss.... While we’ve made real and significant progress, there is more work to do... the President’s framework... includes reforms that would save at least an additional $200 billion for Medicare over the next decade. The framework would: (i) Bend the long-term cost curve by setting a more ambitious target of holding Medicare cost growth per beneficiary to GDP per capita plus 0.5 percent beginning in 2018, through strengthening the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). (ii) Reduce Medicare’s excessive spending on prescription drugs and lower premiums for beneficiaries without shifting costs to seniors or privatizing Medicare..."

2. On Republican claims that contractionary fiscal policy is expansionary: Jonathan Chait: "Neil Irwin: 'Republican leaders urge a steep and swift reduction in government spending... that these cuts would strengthen economic growth not only in the distant future but almost immediately. That view is at odds with many of the nonpartisan groups...' [Alesina's] study... suggests that deficit reduction can increase growth.... But Noah Kristula-Green.... 'The problem: [Alesina] found very few cases.... 9 examples out of 107... more... problematic... is that... growth and deficit reduction occurred [only] in countries where cuts in spending were accompanied with... looser monetary policy... conservative-derided quantitative easing (QE2)...' In short, the proposition that cutting spending will increase short-term economic growth is totally unserious. The one piece of alleged ballast turns out not to support the case."

3. On Mitt Romney's claim that uncertainty about government policy hobbles the recovery: Will Wilkinson: "The principal themes of Mitt Romney's speech here in Des Moines earlier this afternoon were that America's economy remains a wreck because Barack Obama's a rank amateur whose woeful inexperience, ignorance of the requirements of a robust economy, and faintly un-American taste for the public-policy fashions in Europe, has created a climate of economic uncertainty that has retarded recovery." One more time: uncertainty about government policy shows itself in: (a) businesses who say they are unusually worried about government regulation, (b) investors who are willing to pay unusually high prices for insurance against inflation, and (c) savers who demand unusually high rates of return before they will lend. We see none of these things right now--what we see is a simple shortage of aggregate demand.

4. On the OECD's claim that stimulative economic policy is "largely exhausted; therefore, we have to 'go structural': Paul Krugman: [I]t’s just that can’t-do spirit.... [T]he report writes as if a period of 4 percent inflation rather than 2 percent inflation would be a terrible thing... it would be really horrible if we had inflation at the same rate as prevailed during Morning in America.... [O]ne of the main arguments for higher inflation when you’re facing a zero lower bound [is that] it would reduce real interest rates.... Third... a period of modestly higher inflation would help reduce that private debt overhang, which would help promote economic recovery, which would in turn raise revenues and help the fiscal situation. In sum, the case for higher inflation is vastly better than the OECD is willing to acknowledge."

5. On Thomas Saving and John Goodman's claim that the Ryan plan has no larger Medicare cuts in it than the Affordable Care Act does: Saving and Goodman: "In light of the heated rhetoric of recent days, it is worth noting that for everyone over the age of 55, there is no difference between the amount of money the House Republicans voted to spend on Medicare and the amount that the Democrats who support the health-reform law voted to spend. Even for younger people, the amounts are virtually identical with GDP indexing..." The key here is "GDP indexing." Ryan says that the Ryan plan does not have "GDP indexing" but "CPI indexing"--and that makes half the difference. The other half of the difference is that the Ryan plan requires that Medicare beneficiaries pay the (expensive) administrative overhead and (expensive) profits of private insurance companies, while the ACA does not.

6. On Irwin Stelzer's claim that investors are worried about a U.S. default: Stelzer: "All know that the crisis will be resolved by a last-minute deal.... All the negotiators, but not all investors. The gross value of contracts insuring against a U.S. default, although still small relative to the size of the Treasury debt market, has doubled from a year ago..." Each investor thinking they need insurance against a U.S. credit default event is matched by one who thinks they can make money providing such insurance. The volume is an indicator not of average investor opinion but of opinion spread. Average investor opinion can be read off of the price of U.S. credit default swaps. U.S. credit default swaps today cost 40% of what they cost in late 2008 and the same as they cost a year ago.

7. On Michael Barone's claim that Secretary Sibelius is "waiving away the law" for Obama campaign contributors: Barone: "If Obamacare is so great, why do so many people want to get out from under it?... Union members are only 12 percent of all employees but have gotten 50.3 percent of Obamacare waivers.... What other factors may be considered? Political contributions or connections? (Unions contributed $400 million to Democrats in the 2008 campaign cycle.) The [HHS] websites don’t say..." The Department of HHS: "Mini-med plans... do not provide security in the event of serious illness or accident, they are unfortunately the only option that some employers offer.... [T]he Affordable Care Act allows these plans to apply for temporary waivers from rules restricting the size of annual limits to [coverage].... Waivers only last for one year and are only available if the plan certifies that a waiver is necessary to prevent either a large increase in premiums or a significant decrease in access.... No other provision of the Affordable Care Act is affected by these waivers: they only apply to the annual limit policy..."

8. On Joe Nocera's claim that Democrats should not scorn Paul Ryan: "While the Democratic Party might be well served in trying to use the Ryan plan to bury their political opponents, the country itself is not. The debate we need is not about whether Medicare should be reformed, but how.... It would be nice if we could treat the Ryan plan not as an object of derision but as a launching-off point for a serious debate..." It would have been nice if Paul Ryan had proposed a Medicare plan that could be a launching off point for a serious debate--the Medicare reforms in the Affordable Care Act are such a launching-off point. The problem is that Ryan didn't: instead, he proposed something that is rightly an object of derision. That's not a problem with the Democrats. That's a problem with Paul Ryan and the Republicans.

9. RERUN: On Speaker John Boehner's claim that only Democrats have voted to cut Medicare: Era Klein: "Someone should have told John Boehner that the Ryan budget includes the Affordable Care Act’s Medicare cuts..."

10. RERUN: On Stephen Moore's claim that "in reality" the Democrats are proposing a 62% top income tax rate: Moore's op-ed is simply not reality-based. There is no such proposal for a 62% marginal top income tax rate, not from any Democratic office holder or advisor. Moore claims that "in the late 1980s, the U.S. was nearly the lowest taxed nation in the world, and a quarter century later we're nearly the highest." The U.S. today has a smaller tax share of GDP than every single other G-7 nation. The reason that the U.S. collects a larger share of taxes from the rich is that our incomes today are much more skewed toward the rich than those of other G-7 nations.

11. RERUN: On the Wall Street Journal's editorial claim that "the regulatory tax on Americans is now larger than the income tax": The WSJ editorial board writes: "so-called independent agencies like the Federal Reserve... were a perfect 0 for 17 in failing to estimate costs as well as benefits [of regulation]..." Are they seriously claiming that the Federal Reserve has overregulated financial markets over the past decade because it hasn't been writing bureaucratic reports explicitly enumerating and comparing costs and benefits?

12. RERUN: On Republican opposition to raising the debt ceiling: Right-leaning Clive Crook: "Tea Party true believers may be salivating.... Shutting down the government [by blocking the debt-ceiling increase is a button [Republicans] dare not press.... To do it in 2011, with the economy laid low and financial markets still twitchy, would be the limit of irresponsibility. It would be betting the recovery to make a point. This time, political annihilation might follow, and the party would deserve it..."

13. SPEAKS FOR ITSELF: David Brooks on how the Republicans should destroy Medicare the next time they try: "I do think that is the lesson. The Republicans are telling themselves, this year, it's different. This year the people are so disgusted by the debt they want us to be serious. And so what they effectively did was, they saw a line of battlements and a field of 400 yards with no cover, and they ran straight at it. And they get mowed down. And so I think a lesson for the Republicans has to be, do something more crafty. Don't just run straight at it..."

For the Virtual Green Room: May 28, 2011...

Things I want to have at the forefront of my brain--for when I am surprised, as I will be, by an unexpected question from an unexpected direction while talking to reporters, phone callers, passers-by, radio interviewers, cable TV interviewers, etc....

A baker's dozen:

1. On Stephen Moore's claim that "in reality" the Democrats are proposing a 62% top income tax rate: Moore's op-ed is simply not reality-based. There is no such proposal for a 62% marginal top income tax rate, not from any Democratic office holder or advisor. Moore claims that "in the late 1980s, the U.S. was nearly the lowest taxed nation in the world, and a quarter century later we're nearly the highest." The U.S. today has a smaller tax share of GDP than every single other G-7 nation. The reason that the U.S. collects a larger share of taxes from the rich is that our incomes today are much more skewed toward the rich than those of other G-7 nations.

2. On the GOP's jobs agenda: Ezra Klein: "Academic books pack about 600 words to a page.... The House GOP’s jobs plan, however, gets about 200 words to a page. The typeface is fit for giants, and the document’s 10 pages are mostly taken up by pictures. It looks like the staffer in charge forgot the assignment was due on Thursday rather than Friday, and so cranked the font up to 24 and began dumping clip art to pad out the plan..."

3. GOP jobs agenda II: David Autor: "1. You have a set of policies that you favor at all times and under all circumstances, e.g., cut taxes, remove regulations, drill-baby-drill, etc. 2. You see a problem that needs fixing (e.g., the economy stinks). 3. You say, ‘We need to enact my favored policies now more than ever.’ I believe that every item in the GOP list... derives from this three step procedure.... That’s not to say that there are no reasonable ideas on this list. But there is certainly no original thinking here directed at addressing the employment problem..."

4. On House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's 5% Growth Strategy: Larry Kudlow wrote: "I suggested to Cantor that the GOP adopt a 5 percent national growth target.... 'That', he told me 'is a fantastic goal'..." The sum total of Eric Cantor's 5% growth strategy is this: to tell Larry Kudlow that a 5% per year growth target "is a fantastic goal." That is it.

5. On the Ryan plan to end Medicare as we know it: Peggy Noonon says: "Rep. Paul Ryan['s]... main problem on Medicare is that people fear the complexities and demands of a new delivery system...." But the Ryan plan has no new health-care delivery system. It simply drastically cuts the amount of money the federal government spends on Medicare, and tells you you have to find a private insurance company--and pay all its extra overhead and profits--to dole out the slashed Medicare payments to your doctors.

6. Ryan plan II: Ezra Klein: "Since 2006... Medicare Part D’s average premium has risen by 57 percent.... That... is a lot faster than inflation, which is what Ryan needs for his [Medicare] plan to work.... When defending Medicare Part D, [Ryan] argues that it came in cheaper than expected, ignoring both the reasons behind that performance and the fact that growth in the program was nevertheless much faster than his plan could bear..."

7. Ryan Plan III: Ezra Klein: "I asked Ryan how he could say that government control never works in health care when Germany, the Netherlands, France and other countries pay so much less, and get as much or more, than we do. Ryan’s reply... is basically a dodge.... Canada spent about $4,000 per person, per year.... The United Kingdom spent a bit more than $3,000. We spent about $7,400.... When attacking the systems in other countries, [Ryan] cherrypicks numbers to demonstrate they want to save money... but ignores the numbers showing that they spend half as much as we do.... [Ryan] gives people the wrong impression of both Medicare Part D and health systems across the world..."

8. Ryan Plan IV: Ezra Klein: "Of late, Paul Ryan has adopted the curious tactic of blaming his Medicare plan on Bill Clinton.... So let’s review: President Clinton did not convene a bipartisan commission on Medicare, the bipartisan commission on Medicare that was convened didn’t endorse the plan, and the plan under consideration was very, very different from the plan Ryan has proposed. This talking point Ryan is trotting out just isn’t true..."

9. On the Wall Street Journal's editorial claim that "the regulatory tax on Americans is now larger than the income tax": The WSJ editorial board writes: "so-called independent agencies like the Federal Reserve... were a perfect 0 for 17 in failing to estimate costs as well as benefits [of regulation]..." Are they seriously claiming that the Federal Reserve has overregulated financial markets over the past decade because it hasn't been writing bureaucratic reports explicitly enumerating and comparing costs and benefits?

10. On Megan McArdle's claim that "we cannot pay for social security by ending the Bush tax cuts on high earners": McArdle writes: "The [CBPP claims] we could, by simply refusing to extend the Bush tax cuts on high earners, cover virtually all of the Social Security shortfall.... But this is not the case.... [O]ur debt is not yielding 5.25% right now... [but] around 3%..." She says no, but the reality is yes, we could. Interest rates are low during recessions and high during booms. Odds are that as the economy recovers interest rates will rise and average about 5.25% in the future--which is what the CBPP needs for its calculation to be correct.

11. On Republican opposition to raising the debt ceiling: Right-leaning Clive Crook: "Tea Party true believers may be salivating.... Shutting down the government [by blocking the debt-ceiling increase is a button [Republicans] dare not press.... To do it in 2011, with the economy laid low and financial markets still twitchy, would be the limit of irresponsibility. It would be betting the recovery to make a point. This time, political annihilation might follow, and the party would deserve it..."

12. On signs of accelerating wage increases: Paul Krugman: "Bloomberg reports on signs that wages may be accelerating. It’s worth bearing in mind that we’re talking about modest stuff — if the employment cost index accelerates to 2 percent, that’s still just productivity growth, and hardly a sign of runaway inflation [as it is consistent with price inflation of zero]. Still, this isn’t what I expected to see, and I will be watching developments.... [Nevertheless,] the invisible bond vigilantes are intensifying their invisible attack: 10-years down to 3.06 percent, and the TIPS spread falling..."

13. SPEAKS FOR ITSELF Harvey Mansfield on Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dominique Strauss-Kahn: "Men are much more violent, but also more given to innovation and invention. Most science and all common sense says this, but our society now wants desperately to be gender-neutral, and it has great difficulty in admitting this obvious difference.... It certainly seems strange that being capable of rape can make a person better qualified for greatness, but it’s probably true..."