Meanwhile….

As House Republicans noisily demonstrate their utter lack of interest in governing, other parts of the federal system continue to operate. The Fed, for example, continues to battle inflation.

In a lengthy October essay in the New York Times, Ezra Klein provided an overview of the causes of inflation and the choices policymakers face when trying to control it.

Inflation often begins as a mismatch of supply and demand. But if people get accustomed to prices rising, then inflation becomes about expectations. And so the task of ending it grows fuzzier: You need to use policy not just to manage the economy but also to alter psychology. The arid language of economics obscures the brutality this demands. You need to hit the economy hard enough to cow everyone who makes decisions within it.

Because that’s what prices are: decisions. Those decisions, even when mediated by algorithms, are made by people trying to predict the decisions other people will make. When people start to believe that other people are raising prices, they will raise prices. If they think other people are raising prices even faster, they will raise prices even faster than that. “How can you persuade people to expect differently?

One way is by increasing supply., but that usually can’t be done quickly. Another is by cutting demand by raising interest rates–but that makes it harder to borrow money or afford homes, and inevitably throws people out of work.

Klein reminded readers of Paul Volker’s approach  to “stagflation” in the 1970s.

Volcker forced a recession so deep that the entire psychology of the American economy changed. Today he is celebrated for his steel. Powell invokes him as inspiration. In a speech at a Fed conference in Jackson Hole this summer, he mentioned Volcker twice and said, of the intended rate hikes, “we must keep at it until the job is done,” presumably a reference to Volcker’s memoir, “Keeping At It.”

Using interest rate hikes to manage inflation operates like a sledgehammer: it reduces demand, but also cuts supply.

When people lose their jobs, they stop producing the goods and services the economy needs. When mortgage rates spike, developers build fewer houses, despite the fact that high housing costs are often caused by too few houses. When borrowing money becomes expensive, people stop borrowing it and cease to make the investments that create future productivity.

Klein documents the various ways in which interest rate hikes disproportionately harm the poor and the jobless, and says that it would be “nice to have a policy that targeted the rich rather than the poor and did so in a way that didn’t hurt long-term investment.”

He asserts that “such a policy exists.” It’s a progressive consumption tax. 

Here’s how it works. Instead of reporting your income to the I.R.S. and being taxed on that, you report your income minus your savings, and you’re taxed on that. That’s a consumption tax: Your taxable income is what you spend, not what you save. Congress can make it progressive by adding a hefty standard deduction and applying a much higher tax rate to people making much more money, just as we do now.

The economist who proposed this approach wasn’t concerned about  inflation. He thought rich people’s spending wasn’t just wasteful, but harmful. Whether one accepts his definition of “harmful” or not–I’m dubious–Klein points to a truly useful aspect of a progressive consumption tax: it can be dialed up and down to respond to different economic conditions.

In a time of recession, we could drop taxes on new spending, giving the rich and poor alike more reason to spend. In times of inflation, we could raise taxes on new spending, particularly among the wealthy, giving them a concrete reason to cut back immediately and to save and invest more at the same time.

Ideally, adjustments could also be made automatic.

Perhaps for every percentage point increase in unemployment above 5 percent, the tax rate would fall by three points, and for every percentage point increase in inflation above 3 percent, it would rise by four points. Other rules could apply for periods when unemployment and inflation moved together. The tax code would become responsive to the economy by default, rather than only through new acts of Congress.

Given the GOP’s semi-religious objection to taxes, and the current domination of the House by people who can barely spell “economic policy,” let alone leave their preoccupations with culture war issues long enough to consider the operation of the economy, I don’t hold out much hope for passage of a progressive consumption tax in the near future, but it’s an intriguing idea.

We should file it away with other good ideas that await a (hoped-for) return of political sanity and lawmaker interest in actually governing.

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The Definition Of Insanity

No–despite the title of this post, it isn’t about the insanity of the GOP’s meltdown over Kevin McCarthy’s inability to round up votes to make him Speaker–that will have to wait for a resolution. (Meanwhile, pass the popcorn…)

This is about one of America’s insane public policies.

A few years ago, research for a book required me to look more closely at the federal budget than I had previously done–especially at our bloated defense expenditures, but also at the persistence of various subsidies that may (or may not) have been prudent in the past, but clearly are counterproductive in the present.

One of those continuing subsidies supports the fossil fuel industry to the tune of twenty billion dollars a year. (That’s the conservative estimate–others put the number even higher.)

It’s bad enough that the government is continuing to support the use of an energy source damaging to the planet at a time when those funds should be incentivizing a transition to green energy. It is absolutely unconscionable that our tax dollars keep flowing to an industry that is enormously–embarrassingly, obscenely–profitable.

An industry that is also shameless.

I’ve previously defined the Yiddish word “chutzpah.” It is the word that first came to mind  when I read the following. (Okay, the actual first words that came to mind were too filthy to employ in this blog.)

Fresh off posting the highest quarterly profit in its history, the U.S.-based fossil fuel giant ExxonMobil sued the European Union on Wednesday in an attempt to stop the bloc from imposing its recently approved windfall tax targeting major oil and gas companies.

The Financial Times, which first reported the new lawsuit, noted that the challenge takes aim at the European Council’s “legal authority to impose the new tax—a power historically reserved for sovereign countries—and its use of emergency powers to secure member states’ approval for the measure.”

“The new tax is due to take effect from December 31 and will apply a levy of at least 33% on any taxable profits in 2022-23 that are 20% or more above average profits between 2018 and 2021,” the newspaper explained.

In a statement, Exxon spokesperson Casey Norton insisted the company recognizes that sky-high energy costs are “weighing heavily on families and businesses” but claimed the tax would “undermine investor confidence, discourage investment, and increase reliance on imported energy.”

Excuse me if I don’t sympathize. The tax would cost Exxon an estimated $2 billion through the end of next year—in other words, a fraction of the company’s 2022 profits.

Europe has experienced a mounting cost-of-living crisis, and passage of the windfall profits tax was intended to generate revenue to provide financial support to households and companies struggling with high energy costs.

Oil and gas companies like Exxon have been accused of exploiting global energy market chaos spurred by Russia’s war on Ukraine to hike prices and pad their bottom lines.

Ya think?

Exxon previously announced that the company had generated profits of $19.7 billion between July and September. That exceeded the profits of any other quarter in the company’s history.

Further evidence of corporate greed: the company has announced it will raise its dividends and expand its share buyback program, and it raised the pay of several of its top executives. (It increased the annual salary of CEO Darren Woods from $1.70 million to $1.88 million for the coming year.)

So–while consumers in Europe and the U.S. continue to struggle with elevated prices at the pump and with the inflation to which those elevated prices have substantially contributed, Exxon and its peers in the fossil fuel industry have chosen to reward their wealthy investors rather than contribute a small part of their bloated profits to the amelioration of problems they have helped to cause.

This revealing conduct joins the evidence that continues to emerge, showing that Exxon deliberately lied for years–actually, for decades– about  what the company’s scientists knew about the climate crisis and the central role of fossil fuels in creating that crisis.

Congress probably can’t punish Exxon for those years of lies, but there is no excuse for continuing to subsidize an industry that continues to profit handsomely from knowingly harming the environment and spitting on the common good.

The windfall profits tax that Exxon wants to evade would cost the company a fraction of its profits, and an even smaller fraction of what  American taxpayers fork over annually to the fossil fuel industry.

Continuing those subsidies makes about as much sense as handing a gun to the guy who came to rob you. it’s the definition of insanity.

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A Perfect Candidate For The Fact-Free Party

I haven’t commented on the increasingly bizarre stories that continue to emerge about George Santos, the Republican candidate who won a Congressional race in New York, and was later “outed” as a serial liar–or, as several articles like to label him, a “fabulist.”

Initially, I ignored the story. After all, the media was all over it and it was unlikely that anyone who follows political news would be unaware of it. But a recent recap in the New York Times yesterday– just before Santos was scheduled to be sworn in– made me realize that Santos is the candidate who really epitomizes the current state of the once Grand Old Party.

On the off-chance that readers are unaware of the extent of Santos’ fraudulent biography, I’ll share part of the Times’ very abbreviated description:

Mr. Santos has said that he grew up in a basement apartment in Jackson Heights, Queens. Until Wednesday, Mr. Santos’s campaign biography said that his mother, Fatima Devolder, worked her way up to become “the first female executive at a major financial institution.” He has also said that she was in the South Tower of the World Trade Center during the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and that she died “a few years later.”

In fact, Ms. Devolder died in 2016, and a Brazilian community newspaper at the time described her as a cook. Mr. Santos’s friends and former roommates recalled her as a hardworking, friendly woman who spoke only Portuguese and made her living cleaning homes and selling food. None of those interviewed by The Times could recall any instance of her working in finance, and several chalked the story up to Mr. Santos’s tendency for mythmaking.

His apparent fabrications about his own life begin with his claims about his high school. He said he attended Horace Mann School, a prestigious private institution in the Bronx, and said he dropped out in 2006 before graduating and earning an equivalency diploma. A spokesman for Horace Mann said that the school had no record of his attending at all.

There is much, much more: his claim to be Jewish and a descendant of Holocaust survivors, an attendee of universities that have no record of his ever being a student, an employee of firms that never heard of him…it goes on. He is evidently still wanted by the police in Brazil, where he admitted to stealing checks from an elderly man.

The extent of his fabrications was uncovered by the Times after the election, which raises all sorts of questions about the failures of both opposition research and the media covering the race. (A tiny Long Island paper, The North Shore Leader, had raised timely questions about his claims, but was ignored.)

Whatever lessons we may want to draw from those failures is one thing. More to the point, what  the revelations really do is shine a bright and unforgiving light on the increasing disaster that is today’s GOP.

Kevin McCarthy has refused to comment on Santos’ deceptions, because he desperately needs the new Congressman’s vote for Speaker of the House–a vote he has thus far been unable to secure despite prostrating himself to the lunatic caucus. There’s a down-and-dirty fight for the position of Chair of the RNC–a fight featuring arguments over who has the most fidelity to Trump, and “serious “candidates like The Pillow Guy.

Santos’ campaign evidently focused heavily on his presumed (invented) bona fides–a perfect representation of the current Republican Party, which has abandoned even the pretense of policy advocacy in favor of a full-blown dependence upon identity politics.

I know that very few voters actually read the party platforms that have routinely been produced by the parties until now, but the significance of the Republicans’ refusal to even bother creating one is obvious. Today’s GOP relies for support on two groups: rich people who don’t want to pay taxes, and White Christian Nationalists frantic not to be “replaced” by Jews and/or people of color. Its subservience to both doesn’t need to be spelled out in a platform.

Really, when you think about it, Santos is a perfect representation of today’s GOP–a party devoted to the Big Lie(s) perpetrated by a more successful con man. Like Trump, Santos won an election by pretending to be something he isn’t–in Trump’s case, a successful businessman–and has evidently used campaign dollars to enrich himself.

It remains to be seen whether Congress will be stuck with this character for the entirety of his two-year term, or whether he’ll be forced out. Either way, I think it’s safe to say that the next two years will feature the inevitable implosion of the current iteration of the Republican Party.

Pass the popcorn.

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Fewer Teachers, Fewer People Running For School Board..

Can you stand one more lament about the Right-wing assaults harming public education?

In a recent column for the Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin reported on an alarming academic study. Researchers found

that the “virulent stream of hyperpartisan political conflict” has had “a chilling effect on high school education.” Teachers are seeking to avoid controversy by “pulling back on teaching lessons in civics, politics, and the history and experiences of America’s minority communities;” incidents of verbal harassment of LGBTQ students are on the rise; and many teachers and administrator are planning to leave their jobs.

The authors of the report surveyed 682 public high school principals, who confirmed that organized campaigns have attempted to intimidate public schools and force changes to align with right-wing ideology. The researchers write, “Our survey data make clear that political conflict over a set of hot button issues occurred at more than two-thirds (69%) of public schools across the nation during the 2021-2022 school year.” Moreover, “Half of all principals report that parents or other community members sought to limit or challenge teaching and learning about issues of race and racism. Nearly half report challenges to school policies and practices related to LGBTQ student rights.” And a third of principals said “parents or community members raised challenges to school library books they deemed inappropriate.”

Researchers have found that “a relatively small group of hostile parents and community members are leading the charge,” despite the preferences of a clear majority of parents  who want kids to have an accurate education.( One recent national survey found that over 95% of Americans want high school students to learn about slavery, and 85% want them to learn about racial inequality.)

Perhaps the most troubling finding was the effect of this assault on students’ ability to identify misinformation. Apparently, students in classrooms with educators intimidated by these tactics show a diminished capacity to distinguish between credible and falsified information. At a time when misinformation, disinformation and propaganda are a huge problem, an ability to evaluate the likely accuracy of information is incredibly important, and the best way to help students make those judgements is by arming them with verifiable facts.

Interestingly, these assaults have been most numerous in so-called “purple” communities–areas that were previously reliably Republican but are changing– becoming more Democratic in the wake of Trump and the demise of Roe.

Many principals noted the “mass hysteria” over critical race theory, fueled by disinformation about schools’ curricula. This has impacted schools in purple communities the most, with almost a quarter of principals in such areas reporting that their school board or district leaders limited teaching on race or racism. Only 17 percent of schools in red communities, by comparison, and 8 percent of blue communities did the same.

Purple communities were also more likely to experience MAGA partisans’ attempts to ostracize or stigmatize LGBTQ individuals, Thirty-two percent of principals in purple districts report incidents of “hostile or demeaning remarks toward LGBTQ classmates,” compared with 22 percent in red or blue communities. Across all schools, the percentage of principals reporting multiple attacks on LGBTQ students increased from 15 percent in 2018 to 24 percent this year.

These political assaults aren’t limited to attacks on teachers and principals. Culture warriors trying to protect their political turf are making life miserable for school board members, too.

Here in Indiana, Hamilton County–adjacent to Marion County/indianapolis– is one of those areas that has been turning purple, and Moms for Liberty, a  national crackpot organization, ran “anti-woke” slates in several Hamilton County school districts .

As Chalkbeat reports,

The winning candidates in Hamilton Southeastern, Tiffany Pascoe (District 1), Juanita Albright (District 2), Dawn Lang (District 3), and Ben Orr (District 4), were supported by the Hamilton County chapter of Moms for Liberty, a powerful and controversial conservative group that rose to prominence by opposing mask mandates, critical race theory and social emotional learning. The group aims to install like-minded people in school board seats across the country.

Amber Huff Willis (At Large), William Anderson (District 2) and Rebecca Ogle (District 4) won seats on the Westfield Washington school board; they were also supported by Moms for Liberty Hamilton County.

The Carmel Clay  school board governs one of the larger districts in Hamilton County, and the effort to take over that board was less successful. Incumbents supporting diversity, equity and inclusion efforts were re-elected; however, one candidate who claimed that “radical liberal teachers” were “indoctrinating” Carmel students won in a very close race.

Our daughter served on the Indianapolis school board for 20 years, and I watched her spend countless hours for very little pay working with colleagues, parents and teachers to improve local public schools.

Given today’s dishonest, ugly assaults, how many citizens will willingly run for school board? Teachers aren’t the only ones deciding it just isn’t worth it.

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Another Christmas, Another Tantrum

As the New Year begins, we are once again emerging from a Christmas season that was scant on those “tidings of joy” and heavy on predictable accusations that secular combatants were waging their annual war on Christmas and/or “taking the Christ out of Christmas.”

Among the equally predictable columns dealing with that very tired topic was a  essay in the Washington Post that–in my humble view–summed up the  basic elements of that seasonal conflict. As the author insisted, when she wishes people “Happy Holidays,” she isn’t dissing Christmas.

I’m not waging a war on Christmas. I like Christmas. But I am declaring my allegiance to one idea of America that opposes another: inclusive vs. exclusive.

I think that simple sentence sums up Americans’ currently incompatible worldviews. On the one hand, we have the MAGA folks who believe that the country was founded by and for White Christians, and that everyone who doesn’t fall within that category is essentially a guest–and for that matter, a guest who needs to show proper deference to the owners of the place.

On the other hand are citizens (including a majority of  White Christians) who believe that America was founded on a set of principles centered on liberty and equality, and that true patriotism requires allegiance to those principles–that identity is irrelevant to civic ownership.

I describe the two world-views somewhat differently, however. I call them “my way or the highway” versus “live and let live.” Two examples from this year’s Christmas Wars will illustrate what I mean.

In one recent skirmish, residents of exclusive America crowded a Tuscumbia, Ala., City Council meeting to protest a forthcoming Festival of Yule, which its organizer designed, she said, “for everyone to enjoy this time of year that is winter’s solstice and also an awareness of the origins of this holiday season.”
 
Opponents declared it, rather, “a sort of twisted anti-Christmas celebration” that threatened the city and the children. Speaker after speaker denounced the festival as a perversion of a holiday that was supposed to honor Jesus Christ, not the devilish Krampus….

After someone pointed out that people who were offended didn’t need to attend, the real issue emerged.

Clearly the problem wasn’t that they would be forced to attend or even that the festival replaced the traditional Christian one; the 12th annual It’s a Dickens Christmas Y’all would occur the following week. The problem was the very idea of inclusion.

The second example was the hysteria engendered by Cracker Barrel, when that chain introduced a non-meat sausage. (A world where Cracker Barrel is considered too “woke”is hard for me to get my head around…)

A similar dynamic was at work in August, when Cracker Barrel added plant-based sausage to its menu, sparking outrage among patrons furious that the restaurant chain would no longer be serving pork.
 
Oops, no, I got that wrong — the pork was staying. The issue was that among the 11 “meat options” would be a single choice for people who don’t eat meat.

In the essayist’s framing, changing “Merry Christmas”  to “Happy Holidays” in order to include people who might not be celebrating Christmas, or adding a solstice festival to a town’s calendar, adding more choices to a chain restaurant’s breakfast menu–or, in another example, having the temerity to produce a children’s movie with a Black mermaid  — are all being experienced as some sort of vague, unstated threat.

I get that it’s destabilizing to lose your monopoly on the culture — or to realize you never had it to begin with. To be informed by the Tuscumbia events calendar that the particular kind of Christmas you’ve celebrated your whole life is not the winter holiday, but a winter holiday.

You can still celebrate however you want, though. When inclusion wins, nobody actually loses.

That’s where the sane logic of the essay misses the mark. The objectors do lose–they lose the ability to dictate who matters and who doesn’t. Inclusion means they have to share–and they’re furious. 

Reassuring these increasingly frantic people that adding options doesn’t deprive them of anything is utterly useless. They aren’t worried about being deprived of a preferred choice–they are furious that other people will be able to celebrate or eat or greet differently, and that such differences will not automatically be seen as indicia of inferiority.

The Christmas Wars, like the rest of the culture wars, don’t simply pit folks who are inclusive against those who are exclusive. They pit the folks who want to demonstrate dominance and ownership against a variety of Others who have the gall to consider themselves entitled to civic (or gastronomic) equality.

Let us all hope for a New Year in which their hysteria subsides.

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