Thursday Tabs
Steven L. Taylor
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Thursday, October 17, 2024
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17 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a retired Professor of Political Science and former College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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The people using threats of violence against federal workers are terrorists plain and simple. Send them to Gitmo!
Gender affirming care is healthcare. Prisoners are given medical care when they need it, or at least they are supposed to. I don’t see a big controversy on whether inmates should get insulin or chemotherapy or statins, etc.
@Kathy:
A lot of Republicans don’t want prisoners to get insulin or chemotherapy or statins either though…
Question for the Trump tariffs were terrible crowd.
So repeal all tariffs like the sugar and steel tariffs?
Wouldn’t the additional tax revenues from the Trump tariffs be better for US just like the wealth and unrealized capital gains taxes?
Progressives (Paul Krugman and his chief acolyte Brad Delong) say the the government spends money more efficiently with better outcomes.
I knew this was BS misinformation because there would be J6 style mass arrests as there are multiple laws and civil service protection for the King’s men. Note, It is even illegal to lie to them.
@Slugger:
If even one federal worker is issuing threats against federal workers, and you get your wish, then your threat of sending them to Gitmo gets you sent to Gitmo too.
Nice.
The amount of money Elon Musk has just set fire to over the last few years is insane. Think of how much good that amount of cash could have done. Here’s hoping his sh!tty luck with ROI continues though.
@Kathy: To be clear: I agree.
@Jen: At the risk of being accused of being a socialist, it seems to me that people being able to accumulate so much wealth that they can just burn it as he has is a problem. I have no coherent and clear answer to the problem, but still think it is a problem.
At the link on Xlon’s perfidity, there’s this line. “This is likely illegal, because in a federal election one cannot give anything of value in exchange for someone agreeing to turn out to vote.”
Last June when we had the general election, there were tons of freebies all over the country offered to people who had voted*. Things like free parking at some shopping malls, or discounts at restaurants. I recall mention in the papers that some young people had gone to vote to take advantage of such offers.
So, this would be illegal in America?
*In Mexico it’s easy to tell who voted. When you get your ballot, your thumb gets an ink stain so you can’t try to vote again later. Also your name’s checked off the list, and a notch is placed on your voter registration card.
Ballots are secret, so you can’t prove whom you voted for.
@Jen:
The price of emotional insecurity. He’s so desperate to be cool, and of course doesn’t realize you can’t buy cool. Cary Grant, James Dean, Joan Jett, Harrison Ford, Maggie Smith, Michele Obama, Mick Jagger, Charlize Theron, George Clooney. . . Cool can make you rich, but all the money in the world cannot make you cool.
Musk setting fire to money is nothing new. Remember when he launched a Tesla into the sun, just because he could?
But taxing the rich is class warfare, don’t you know (the rich–as a class, not all individuals–have been waging class warfare in this country for decades, and have kicked everyone else’s ass).
@Just Another Ex-Republican:
Not into the Sun, around it. I think its orbit straddles Earth’s and Mars’, or gets close to Mars’ orbit.
Commonly in tests of new rockets, the payload is ballast. You need the weight there to gauge performance, but don’t want to risk a multi million satellite or probe on it. Launching a car into space is harmless whimsy, not hubris.
@Paul L.: Once upon a time, (as recently as 2012, actually) Republicans were the free traders, and despised “protectionist” measures such as tarriffs. So it’s a breathtaking turnaround.
And then, there’s the general principle that fewer imports means bigger GDP, in direct terms. This is simiply a misunderstanding of the math by which GDP is calculated.
Rather, tarriffs, like all taxes, tend to slow down the economy, by making things more expensive. And tarriffs on washing machines, for instance, will make washing machines more expensive. Maybe, at some point, they might encourage someone to build a washing-machine-making plant in the US, but that’s a very long-term project, and unstable given the political climate, where the tarriff could get repealed and blow up the profitability of that plant.
Meanwhile, the employment participation rate is at the highest it has been at since at least 2000. Everybody who wants a job has one. So it’s kind of solving a non-problem.
But this is hardly my least favorite of Trump’s proposals. Like I say, I’m not dogmatic on tarriffs, I don’t know the details of the steel tarriff, for instance, but my guess it that it probably doesn’t do much of value. Has the steel industry in the US made a big comeback? I don’t see that, but I don’t really know.
@Paul L.:
First, as always Paul L., you resort to a “black/white” form of argument. In the real world, there are always more than two options. The issue with this rhetorical style is that it makes discussion impossible, and any position can be shown to be hypocritical.
It’s absolutely not productive.
Ok, to your question, generally speaking a lot of our existing tariffs that are focused on economic issues (versus other policy issues) should be repealed. And while there are always contrarians, that’s the position of most economists and a large amount of foreign policy analysts.
Yes, that includes the Trump tariffs that Biden kept. That also includes tariffs set by Democrats for economic purposes. And I have been very consistent on that position for quite a while.
There are certain cases where tariffs can be useful–especially where there are domestic industries producing the same products. Those should be taken case by case.
The issue with Trump’s approach to tariffs is that he treats them as the answer to every question, claims they are not a regressive consumption tax on his own constituents, and places them on imports where there is no equivalent domestic product.
I started a post on J. D. Vance’s talk about the need for tarriff’s to protect American made toaster ovens. There are ZERO American made consumer level toaster ovens. None. In fact, in doing research I discovered there are blogs dedicated to trying to find American made consumer toaster ovens.
So all the tariff is doing is charging people like you and I (unless you are the type to buy a $150 US made commercial toaster) more for the toaster we buy at Target/Walmart/Etc without achieving any positive trade results.
We live in such a fascinating time.
@Paul L.: So, I take it that you don’t really understand how tariffs work and why they are used? Got it.
(And yes, it’s possible that tariffs on both steel and sugar are ill advised; those arguments have a long history.)
ETA: And a big thanks to the earlier replies that took the time to explain the arguments I couldn’t be bothered with making. Well done you!