Taxes

I really like Ezra Klein. This morning, he wrote about what kinds of taxes different regions of the US pay to raise their revenue:

Here's the takeaway - not all taxes are created equal. Income taxes are progressive, in that the more money you make, the proportion of your income you pay; sales taxes are regressive, in that everyone pays the same flat tax (say 6%) on a new pair of socks, whether they make $20,000 a year or $20million.

Obviously, regressive taxes favor rich folk - it means they'd pay less money - and hurt poor folk - if you're poor paying an additional 6% on everything you buy can be a real burden, whereas if you're rich you often don't give it a second thought. I don't really have a point beyond that it's important to keep in mind the different ways we tax people, not just whether or not we tax them. Progressive tax systems are by and large fairer, because they impose a more equal cost relative to each person's earning power.

Priorities

What should be the domestic policy priorities of the US government? It's pretty important to think of things in this way - if all our conversation is on the 7th most important issue, we're by definition missing some big things. My list would probably be...

1) Unemployment/jobs
2) Strength of economy
3) Rising cost of Medicare
4) Climate change/energy policy
5) Social Security payment gap
6) National debt
7) Education
8) Immigration reform
9) Criminal justice/sentencing issues

That's generally how I feel in my gut, but it's hard to make a list like this. The big takeaway to me is that focusing on the deficit at the expense of or even at cost to the unemployed is really dumb. What's your list?

You know what's interesting about llamas?

Llamas that are well-socialized and trained to halter and lead after weaning are very friendly and pleasant to be around. They are extremely curious and most will approach people easily. However, llamas that are bottle-fed or over-socialised and over-handled as youngsters will become extremely difficult to handle when mature, when they will begin to treat humans as they treat each other, which is characterized by bouts of spitting, kicking and neck wrestling.

(Grace Hong provided research for this post)

Libya and American Exceptionalism

Obama's Libya speech was one of his better efforts. He rises to the occasion with foreign policy subjects, possibly because he doesn't have to hedge his bets. His domestic policy speeches generally have a "liberals believe X, conservatives believe Y, they're both somewhat right, so we'll do some of each," nature to them. Nothing wrong with that - the most memorable example was the whole "there is no red America and blue America, there is the United States of America!" from way back when.

I digress. His foreign policy speeches are usually more forceful "I believe X and this is why I am right." That's good too -- he's fairly persuasive and usually right. On Monday with Libya, the theme was American exceptionalism: the notion that America stands unique as a force for good in the world, and we have unique capabilities to stand up for freedom, self-determination, and the prevention of mass slaughters. Conservatives love American exceptionalism (although they generally think it means that Jesus loves America more than other countries, a pretty odd claim on a lot of levels) and liberals are fairly skeptical of it on the grounds that a) it makes us seem arrogant and b) we should focus on our own problems first, not go out solving everyone else's.

Anyway, the middle ground (I guess Obama did go middle ground again without saying it!) is that America should be humble and modest when it interacts with other countries, but we do fundamentally have the power to help those in need much more than almost any other nation - and under certain circumstances we should not hesitate to lend our aid, whether it be civil or military.  I think most people would agree with this - it's the justification for why we fought Hitler in World War II.  But taken too far in the wrong extreme you get situations like Iraq or Vietnam - wars that should never have been fought.  The other side of this is that the method of the fighting matters as well - Iraq I (Desert Storm) worked because our missions was just to push Saddam out of Kuweit; Iraq II failed because we occupied the entire country.

The point is, this shit is complicated. I am about 75% convinced that we should be involved in Libya helping the rebels fight the mad dog of Africa, Gaddafi. I'm not convinced we should be directly selling them weapons. And I'm disappointed that all of this has been done without congressional authorization - but that's really a critique of Congress at least as much as it is about Obama. So far, the war has been going well, but we need to be very cognizant not to get drawn too far into the conflict. I trust Obama's instincts of knowing when enough is enough - we'll see if he validates my trust. But this is one of those times that America should stand up for what is right.

Joe Klein

You know who I like? Joe Klein. He's a journalist who isn't afraid to call bullshit. Full disclosure - his politics are mostly Democratic, but he doesn't hesitate to criticize his party or Obama (see: education, unions, deficit, Libya).

Anyway, today he had a nice long post about how just plain nuts the Republicans running for President are -- and makes the pretty clear point that these folks aren't inherent nutjobs, but they're saying crazy things to pander to the nutjob far-right wing of their party. The whole post is worth reading, but the money quote is as follows:

This is my 10th presidential campaign, Lord help me. I have never before seen such a bunch of vile, desperate-to-please, shameless, embarrassing losers coagulated under a single party's banner. They are the most compelling argument I've seen against American exceptionalism. Even Tim Pawlenty, a decent governor, can't let a day go by without some bilious nonsense escaping his lizard brain. And, as Greg Sargent makes clear, Mitt Romney has wandered a long way from courage. There are those who say, cynically, if this is the dim-witted freak show the Republicans want to present in 2012, so be it. I disagree. One of them could get elected. You never know. Mick Huckabee, the front-runner if you can believe it, might have to negotiate a trade agreement, or a defense treaty, with the Indonesian President some day. Newt might have to discuss very delicate matters of national security with the President of Pakistan. And so I plead, as an unflinching American patriot--please Mitch Daniels, please Jeb Bush, please run. I may not agree with you on most things, but I respect you. And you seem to respect yourselves enough not to behave like public clowns.
Please, in the name of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, run.

Guest Post by Adam Sadowsky on Nuclear Power and the Repurcussions of Japan

For the context, Adam's comments are in response to this article, but I think they're pretty cogent all on their own. Adam used to be a nuclear engineer so he knows his shit. Take it away, sir!

Adam: You bring up a lot of really good history in this argument, and it does appear that the response of the government regulatory agencies and other recent government decisions do not seem to be impacted by the nuclear reactor disaster in Japan.  My personal opinion of what this country should be doing as far as energy policy aside, I would like to play devil's advocate on a few points that were brought up.

 

Looking at the disaster in Bhopal, the BP oil spill, and other disasters, including Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, there is one very key difference that separates these disasters from the Fukushima disaster.  The big difference is that all of the mentioned previous disasters were easily preventable (and predictable), and the Fukushima disaster was not.  The Fukushima plant was built and engineered in accordance with all of the regulatory guidelines that are in place in Japan (and these guidelines and requirements are all consistent with United States construction codes).  The plant was also maintained and operated as it should have been.  There were no operator errors that resulted in the disaster, nor could there have been any operator actions that could have prevented or mitigated the melt-down.  Previous nuclear disasters and industrial disasters are all rooted in poor operation and companies taking shortcuts in training, maintenance, and engineering.  These shortcuts all had the typical warning signs that upper management in the associated industry chose to ignore, which is why government regulations are so vital to industries that can affect public health.

 

What happened in Fukushima is a worse-than-worst-case-scenario.  An earthquake and tsunami of this magnitude were never predicted to likely occur in our lifetime.  That is why the plant failed, as did many other buildings and major structures.  Nuclear power plants (as well as buildings, cars, airplanes, boats, trains, stadiums, etc.) are designed to withstand a certain magnitude of environmental disaster.  This could include hurricane wind speed, earthquake seismic magnitude, water current speed, among other parameters.  The maximum magnitude that everything is designed to withstand is based upon a probabilistic assessment that essentially states, "the odds are so small (like 1 in 30,000) that a (insert disaster) greater than this size will occur, we will only design to that maximum size disaster."  Eventually over-designing components becomes expensive and unmarketable, inhibiting technological progress and quality of life.

 

Thus, the only lesson that can be learned to prevent disasters like Fukushima is to raise our construction standards even higher, to withstand an even more unlikely dusaster.  The thing is, why should this lesson be exclusive to nuclear power plants?  Plenty of office buildings collapsed and killed members of the general public, but no one is pushing to cease and hold all construction of new office buildings.

 

So finally, my personal opinion:  I understand your concern as to why we aren't holding up progress with developing our nuclear energy assets.  The important thing to keep in mind is that since the Fukushima disaster occurred because there was a beyond-design basis catastrophe, this doesn't make nuclear power any less safe than any other type of power.  There will always be uncertainty as to if that unthinkable (very small probablity) disaster will occur.  The certainty is in the fact that nuclear power is greenhouse gas free and the effects of global warming are far more harmful to a much great population than any nuclear disaster would be.  Because if this fact, I am not at all upset that our nation is not letting the disaster impact it's energy policy as much as other countries have.

 

Thanks Adam!

If you want to know things about the budget/deficit...

You should click this. I got 9/12 right. That's only one worse than Matt Yglesias, one of my fave nerdy policy bloggers!