A Stitch in Haste

There's something very pernicious in the administration's budget and tax package.

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I'm having trouble coming up with a non-expletive term for our infamous local megalomaniac:
After being dealt a rare public embarrassment by the City Council, which forced his administration to acknowledge on Monday that he was legally required to send out $400 rebate checks promised to hundreds of thousands of New York homeowners, a defiant Mr. [...]

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Or, perhaps better stated: Do the Democrats even understand the implications of their proposals?
Powerful House Democrats are eyeing proposals to overhaul the nation's $3 trillion 401(k) system, including the elimination of most of the $80 billion in annual tax breaks that 401(k) investors receive.
House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, D-California, and Rep. [...]

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The Social Security Administration recently announced its annual (and automatic) increase in old-age benefits: 5.8%, the largest in recent memory, thanks to the recent (and temporary) oil price spike.
Of course, as is always the case, year after year, one has to read a bit further down to find any mention of the flip side of [...]

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The Urban Institute analyzes income inequality in post-retirement America:
Without savings, low-wage workers will have to rely on other sources of retirement income, such as Social Security and pensions. Yet these sources of retirement income are based on earnings. The Social Security benefit formula replaces a greater share of earnings for low-wage workers than for higher-wage [...]

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…to insist that Barack Obama is a "liberaltarian"?
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Friday called for a $1,000 "emergency" rebate to consumers to offset soaring energy costs amid fresh signs of a struggling economy with the nation's unemployment rate climbing to a four-year high.
Obama told a town-hall meeting the rebate would be financed with a [...]

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There are many moving parts to the federal tax apparatus between now and 2011 — many of which can be invoked (i.e., distorted) by the campaigns.

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The Urban Institute has a one-page report suggesting that income inequality has deteriorated in the United States during the period 1979-2002. They provide a pair of graphs:

(Click to enlarge.)
I don't necessarily dispute the accuracy of UI's data (but see my note below) — in a semi-capitalist semi-meritocracy such as ours there is simply going to [...]

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