During the George W. Bush administration, spending increased sharply even as revenue collapsed. Revenue as a share of G.D.P. fell to 17.5 percent in 2008 from 20.6 percent in 2000, yet spending rose to 20.1 percent in 2006, before the economic crisis hit, and 20.7 percent in 2008, from 18.2 percent of G.D.P.
via Bruce Bartlett: The New Republican Tax Policy – NYTimes.com.
The term ‘premium care’ has positive connotations. Premium gas is high-test gas; premium services are those that provide more services; premium seats at the theater are those front-center.
Premium Health Care is actually referring to the charge you pay for health insurance. That is, premium as a monthly fee.
‘Voucher’ Insurance Plan would be a more honestly descriptive term. Or ‘constrained reimbursement’. ‘Token’ health care?
But the word Premium carries with it its own positive conotation, and its double meaning.
It’s like ‘pro-life’ as opposed to ‘pro-choice’. You could be pro-choice, and still be against abortion; but if you’re pro-life, you can’t be in favor of abortion: the opposite to pro-life is anti-life.
From Think Progress: stunning.
And Digby over at Hullabaloo has some really interesting takes on inequality.
Obama vs. Romney Tax changes, by quintile
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/07/19
It’s also worth noting that these numbers only tell half the story: Romney has promised to offset the cost of most of his tax plan through spending cuts and tax reforms, and so any analysis of who pays is incomplete without those policies. But that information is impossible to graph, as Romney hasn’t released it yet. All we can say is that since Romney has promised to increase spending on defense and honor Medicare and Social Security’s scheduled benefits for the next decade, it’s hard to see how he makes good on that promise without cutting deep into programs for the poor and tax preferences that benefit the middle class, and if that’s right, then the poor and middle class are paying much more than you can tell from the graph above.
WaPo 7-17-12 It’s been more than 50 years since a drought this extensive has afflicted the Lower 48 states.
Drought in US July 2012
Dean Baker
guardian.co.uk, Monday 16 July 2012
[There are] a number of different policies that had the effect of redistributing income upward. For example, exposing manufacturing workers to direct competition with low-paid workers in the developing world, while protecting highly educated professionals (e.g. doctors and lawyers), would be expected to lower the wages of both manufacturing workers and the large number of workers who will compete for jobs with displaced manufacturing workers. …
Central banks that target low inflation even at the cost of higher unemployment will also increase inequality…
And when a government adopts a one-sided approach to enforcing labor laws, so that courts intervene to benefit management and weakens unions, it will reduce workers’ bargaining power. This will mean lower pay for ordinary workers and higher corporate profits and pay for those at the top…The huge paychecks of the Wall Street crew have to come from somewhere and our analysis indicates that it came from those below the 90th percentile in the income distribution…If we are serious about reducing inequality, reining in the financial sector must be a big part of the plan. And, a tax on financial speculation would be a great place to start.
