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Earlier this year, when President Obama's critics were in overdrive trying to blame the White House for rising gas prices, we wrote that there were three main ways to bring gas prices down: end oil speculation to prevent market distortions, reduce tensions with Iran, and meaningfully increase investment in alternative energies to diversify our fuel supply. We also noted that if Americans drove more fuel efficient vehicles, fluctuations in gas prices would be less of a big deal.
If Washington is going debate tax reform, fundamental questions should be on the table: Like, for instance, how we might tax bad things -- i.e., pollution and over-consumption -- instead of good things, like work and wealth creation.
One obstacle to such a rethinking, though, is that energy and pollution taxes scare the heck out of elected leaders. Everyone remembers Bill Clinton's disastrous BTU proposal in 1993 and -- more recently -- how easily a vote for climate change legislation in 2009 was turned into a liability for House members.
The Federal government has been regulating electrical products almost since electricity was invented. And, for decades, it has set energy efficiency standards for a variety of products -- from cars to air conditioners to refrigerators.
The best way for Congress to tackle the budget deficit is to do nothing for the next year. That's because, under current law, the Bush tax cuts will expire at the end of 2012 and a range of spending cuts will take effect. As well, tax cuts enacted under President Obama will also expire or be reduced, including expansion of the EITC, the Child Tax Credit, and the temporary payroll tax cut.
Every single working day of the year, American women pay a 22.6 percent gender tax on their income. By gender tax, I mean a negative transfer imposed upon women’s wages which reduces the wealth they control and increases the amount of time they work.
The April 2012 employment situation summary from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed a continuation of the apparent slow-down in job growth that began in March. With just enough jobs added in April to keep up with the expanding population and fewer people participating in the weak labor market, the drop in the unemployment rate to 8.1 percent denotes a lethargic recovery rather than the kind of improvement that workers can celebrate. As is typical, young people faced higher unemployment
In great news this week, Vermont became the first state to legislate the adoption and use of an alternative to GDP called the Vermont Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI). While Vermont isn’t the first state to calculate genuine progress, we’ve highlighted Maryland’s groundbreaking work in this area, it is the first state to actually adopt a GPI through legislation.
The Washington Post ran a remarkable article yesterday on how huge layoffs by state and local governments -- with over 600,000 jobs lost since 2009 -- have been a leading obstacle to economic recovery.