Category: The Dish

Alberto Alesina et al have proposed taxing women less than men. Greg Mankiw has a different solution:

Under the current regime in the United States, a typical woman married to a high-income man pays a high marginal tax rate from the first dollar she earns. Indeed, because she faces the payroll tax plus the top marginal income tax rate, she faces a higher marginal tax rate than her husband. (Recall that there is a cap on the payroll tax.) The situation is symmetric, of course: a typical man married to a high-income woman faces the same high tax rates.

If, however, income taxes were paid by individuals rather than by families, the secondary earner would face lower marginal tax rates on his or her initial earnings. This change might well induce an increase in labor supply and enhance efficiency.

Obama pulls ahead on Pollster’s poll of polls for the first time:

Provincetown, Massachusetts, 7.40 am.

Clinton puts out a new ad attacking Obama for attacking her ad:

A reader points me toward this post by Hilzoy from October 2006 about some of Obama’s wonkier endeavors:

…my little data point is: while Obama has not proposed his Cosmic Plan for World Peace, he has proposed a lot of interesting legislation on important but undercovered topics. I can’t remember another freshman Senator who so routinely pops up when I’m doing research on some non-sexy but important topic, and pops up because he has proposed something genuinely good. Since I think that American politics doesn’t do nearly enough to reward people who take a patient, craftsmanlike attitude towards legislation, caring as much about fixing the parts that no one will notice until they go wrong as about the flashy parts, I wanted to say this.

She lists some of the legislation. Hilzoy is also currently sifting through Obama’s and Clinton’s legislative records to see what they have actually accomplished while in the Senate. As far as his speechmaking goes, here is a post of mine from early January listing some of his more substantive policy speeches.

On this note, Ezra Klein has a novel idea:

…presumably, the way to figure out if [Obama] was talking about policy was not to evaluate whether his speech was longer and more boring than his other speeches, but to examine the actual statements he offered and ask some experts how the proffered solutions might fare.

When all else fails.

Students gather for a prayer service on the campus of Northern Illinois University to pray for those killed and wounded in Thursday’s shooting at Cole Hall February 15, 2008 in DeKalb, Illinois. Six people are reported dead including the gunman and 16 other people were left wounded after a young man pulled out a shotgun and began firing inside a lecture hall. This is the fourth shooting at a U.S. school within a week. By Scott Olson/Getty Images.

Here’s the web-only portion of the show:

The rest of the show is on HBO this week. Here’s parts three, four, five, and six.

A reader writes:

You wrote:

"There seems to be a meme that because someone is inspiring, there has to be no substance."

This is an old prejudice.  I think I wrote to you before about it, but it is ancient, heightened during the Rennaissance and Enlightment, to the point where it is ordinary bias to presume that one perfects style at the expense of substance.  Teaching rhetoric, I hear this sort of idea expressed by students, noted in the press, and stated in conversation regularly. It is easy for people to fall into this sort of thing even though conceptually it is bunk and Obama is a contemporary exhibit A as to why it is bunk.

I dare say, no matter how many times you point it out, until Obama drones on about policy specifics to the point where no one can ignore the fact that he has specifics (and knows them), many will still assume that one who soars in language is not staying focused on issues.

Obama is quite Ciceronian in his enactment of leadership. He balances a wide culture with eloquence.  Yet many often assume Cicero was principally a stylist, which is sheer nonsense.

It is superficial decision making, what social scientists might call peripheral processing.  I would wager that many of those who reiterate Obama is all hat and no cattle, as Hillary is encouraging, actually don’t know much about her policy positions either.

Good news from the State Department. But why did it take a lawsuit for this to happen? Now can we repeal the Jesse Helms ban on HIV-positive visitors, tourists, and immigrants? The provision was removed from PEPFAR for reasons I have yet to understand. The US is in a discriminatory class of countries with Saudi Arabia and Iran – even China has repealed its ban – and yet, the Democrats cannot manage to pass this sane and long overdue legislation. Many Republicans support it – thanks, Gordon Smith! So why the inability to get it done?

The whole thing is just sooo last week in January.