Texas governor Rick Perry has decided not to run for another term as governor, and that has many on the right excited about a possible 2016 presidential campaign. Perry is thought to be a good primary candidate due to his social conservatism (he has recently called a special session of the Texas legislature in an attempt to once again pass the anti-abortion legislation filibustered so recently by Wendy Davis). He is still thought to make a good general election candidate due to his state’s comparative economic performance. Texas has posted unusually low unemployment numbers relative to the rest of the country during his stint as governor. So today I’d like to consider the question of whether or not Rick Perry makes a suitable republican candidate for US president.
Tag: politics
Oregon’s College Funding Scheme
In the state of Oregon a new mechanism for funding university studies has been proposed. The scheme is called “Pay It Forward“. The idea is that instead of charging students tuition to go to universities, the state will fund their education and then extract payment after the degree is finished as a percentage of their income. For a student with a bachelor’s degree, the expected repayment would be 3% of income for the following 20 years. This presents a very different alternative to the university funding system presently in force throughout the United States, so let’s dissect it. Would Pay It Forward make Oregon’s university system better than it presently is? Is it the ideal alternative, and if not, in what respects does it differ from that ideal?
Prop 8 and Direct Democracy
I ran across an interesting piece today, in which the author, Joshua Spivak, notes that by declaring that the supporters of Prop 8 (the proposition in California which forbid same-sex marriage) did not have legal standing to sue in its defense, the Supreme Court has made direct democracy through propositions and referendums much more difficult to defend. Implicitly assumed in the piece is that direct democracy is an ideal worth defending, and that the Prop 8 decisions amounts to a dangerous precedent. Today I intend to dispute that assumption.
The Great Gatsby Curve
Today, Paul Krugman drew to my attention some interesting work by economist Miles Corak on what is called “the Great Gatsby curve”, the tendency for economic inequality to lead to decreased social mobility. The curve is fascinating, because it illustrates a genuine negative empirical consequence from the present distribution of wealth in the United States. This negative consequence is no more negative if you’re on the right or if you’re on the left. The most committed right-winger still thinks that we should have a high degree of social mobility–capable children born to poor parents should be successful, while incapable children born to rich parents should fail. The Great Gatsby curve indicates that this does not happen–our outcomes directly influence the next generation’s opportunities. This connects equality of outcome with equality of opportunity in a way that should be disturbing to the right.
Clandestine Inequality
The other week, I wrote a post in which I observed a connection in the United States between the rate of federal income tax on the wealthy and the rate of economic growth. As the rate of tax on the rich fell, the pace of economic growth appears to slow. However, it was pointed out to me by readers that despite changes in the tax rate, effective tax rates remained more or less the same. In 1979, the formal tax rate, the rate the baseline rate mandated by the tax code, on the rich was 70%, and in 1996, it was 40%, yet the effective tax rates, the rates people actually pay after taking into account deductions and other loopholes, according to the CBO, were only 1 percentage point apart–37% in 79′, 36% in 96′. Surprisingly, according to a Berkeley study, the effective rate of individual income tax on the rich in 1970 was actually lower–32%. Yet despite this, we still have lower growth rates and more inequality. This is bizarre. What on earth is going on? Continue reading “Clandestine Inequality”
Benjamin Studebaker 