Quotes of the day

Deliberation is how democracy is supposed to work. No matter how pressingly awesome you hope your bill is, there is really no excuse for demanding that the Senate vote on it before the public has a chance to find out what's in it. No matter how you couch it in complaints about insidious lobbyists, it isn't the lobbyists who are making a naked grab for undemocratic power here.--Megan McArdle

We haven't had an independent central bank lately.--Tyler Cowen

In fact, [Breaking Away] is a movie about a contest for status, between a group of local boys ("cutters") and a group of students. At a national level, the Tea Parties are like the "cutters" and the Democratic elite are like the Indiana students. And the fight over status is as bitter and determined as the bicycle race in the movie.--Arnold Kling

... no variable from 1900 better explains success in 2000 than investment in education.--Ed Glaeser

One reason conservatives advocate visible taxes rather than less-visible taxes is so that voters have a feel for the magnitude of the tax. But precisely because that's true, they'll punish the party that imposes it.--David Henderson

I think that the most dangerous habit that macroeconomists have have been drawn into is the habit of thinking that we have a cure for unemployment. It is always easy to say, "If the government followed my policies, unemployment would be a lot lower." And it is easy to rationalize afterward why those policies fail to achieve their promised results. It is hard to come forward and say that we may not have an answer, and harder still to get anyone to listen if that is your message.--Arnold Kling

Past a certain threshold (about $21,400 in 2016), the EITC is reduced by $0.21 for every additional $1 earned. Throw in the individual income tax rate (15 percent) and payroll taxes (7.65 percent), and the effective, implicit tax rate for workers between 100 and 200 percent of the federal poverty line would quickly approach 70 percent — not even counting food stamps and housing vouchers. The more Obamacare is rushed through Congress, the more likely it is to produce highly regrettable unintended consequences. Surely even the Democrats in Congress can see how damaging it would be to send signals to low-wage breadwinners that it no longer makes sense to seek a higher-paying job.--James Capretta