Europe doesn't have a better welfare state because the French had better intellectuals on the left; they built a stronger welfare state because, unlike in the US, the corporate class in Europe was devastated by World War II, so democratic votes were not thrawted and the labor movement was stronger.

While this may be part of the answer, it's not the full story, or even the primary reason.

The problem in DC is significant bills get passed so rarely because saying "no" is in the DNA of its institutions.

Now this is a lot closer. But it's not "DNA"; it's the Constitution and the system of separation of powers.

The House of Representatives passed a bill for increased SCHIP funding a couple of days ago. In most Western European democracies, that would be it; the bill would already have become law. In the U.S., the bill must then face the undemocratic Senate, where it then faces a filibuster from an even smaller minority. (The filibuster provision is not in the Constitution, and the Senate ought to get rid of it.) Then, after passing both the House and Senate (plus arcane conference committees between both houses) it must be signed by the President, who has, in this case, threatened to veto it. And only a 66% majority in both houses can override this.

We have a weaker government and social infrastructure than European nations because our Constitution was written in the 18th century when the dangers of government power was well known and feared but the danger of modern corporate power was not yet understood.

The UK's system may look superficially similar to ours, but it's really not. The House of Lords can only delay legislation, not kill it; and it is generally very reluctant to do even that. And it would be completely unheard-of for the Queen to refuse Royal Assent; that hasn't happened in centuries.

Posted at September 27, 2007 9:10 AM in response to It's About Power, Not Ideas

[...] In my case, I have been a full professor at the University of California, both in Berkeley and Los Angeles. [...]

[...] built on good studies by the center-left Brookings Institution [...]

[...] this experiment has received high marks from two Harvard professors [...]

Niskasen's entire post is based on a logical fallacy: the argument from authority.

Give facts and figures, not a list of credentials or supporters, and I'll consider your claims then.

Posted at September 20, 2007 2:48 PM in response to Fact vs. Public Choice Theory

In fact, the upper half of the income distribution pays about 96 percent of federal income tax revenues after all the tax rate cuts.

This is a remarkably dishonest claim. Right-wingers love it because the federal income tax is about the only broadly applied, progressive tax anywhere in the United States. (That and the estate tax, another perennial right-wing target.)

What about payroll taxes? These are actively regressive; they only apply on income earned below a certain cut-off figure. What about regressive state and local sales taxes? Local property taxes?

Even state income taxes are often highly regressive in application.

Ronald Reagan cut federal income taxes for the wealthy. Meanwhile, his Greenspan Commission dramatically raised payroll taxes on the poor and middle class. Yet the right-wing still remembers Reagan as the great tax cutter. That is a good indication of what they truly care about.

Posted at September 18, 2007 12:58 PM in response to Misunderstood reasons

This comment by Greenspan shows that the chair of the Federal Reserve has far too much power.

It's bad enough that large chunks of our economic decisionmaking are done by an unelected official who is not accountable to the public, or even to the President.

But now he's meddling in foreign policy too?

This plutocratic power base must be curbed.

Posted at September 18, 2007 5:24 AM in response to Dr. Greenspan's Mysterious Media Tour

You are misinterpreting my original post.

I was responding to Daniel Greenbaum's almost-incoherent statement: "The paternalism toward the less than rich, which has the impact of deny many people a Middle Class life, endlessly fascinating." I pointed out that, without what Greenbaum (and you) refer to as "paternalism," there would be virtually no middle class at all.

This does not mean that people in the middle class are "wards of the state," nor am I attempting to deny them agency. Rather, it would be more accurate to say that democratic government is a vital tool used by the middle class in order to ensure its continued survival.

This need not always involve direct monetary transfers, though it sometimes does. Social Security is one example where this was indeed done. And it worked brilliantly: where once a majority of the elderly lived in poverty, today that has almost vanished and they have the highest income of any demographic group.

But most pro-middle-class government interventions did not involve simple cash transfers. Instead, they provided the middle class with resources they needed to better themselves, or with regulatory protections against rapacious corporate greed.

During the 19th century, the middle class was nurtured by the Homestead Act and the availability of cheap land on the frontier. This combination of scarce labor and abundant natural resources made America rich.

By 1900, the frontier had closed, and the middle class began to fall under attack from special interests: railroads, factory owners, immigrants. As a result, the middle class launched the Progressive Era to protect its interests through government regulation. We saw the first child labor laws (albeit on a state level), workers' compensation regulations, and, in the mid-1920s, an Immigration Act that largely stemmed the flow of cheap labor from overseas.

During the New Deal, this was further strengthened. Social Security virtually ended poverty among the elderly. The FDIC protected the middle class's savings from bank failures. Perhaps most importantly of all, the Wagner Act finally provided real labor protections to a large portion of the American workforce.

All of this contributed to the broad-based prosperity of the postwar era. The GI Bill enabled millions of veterans to attend college and enter the white-collar workforce. Meanwhile, blue-collar workers earned the highest wages they ever have, thanks to high union density spurred by the Wagner Act. Union power, combined with enforcement of antitrust regulation, kept business from growing too powerful relative to labor.

In the 1970s, this started to fall apart. And income inequality has been increasing ever since then, while median wages have stagnated.

The government is the only thing powerful enough to serve as a countervailing force to the malefactors of great wealth. Without it, the middle class will wither away, as we have been witnessing over the past three decades.

Posted at August 30, 2007 2:59 AM in response to Larry Summers Calls for Bailing Out the Wall Street Boys

Daniel Greenbaum: The other problem is that you will keep low and working class people from ever owning their home. Why would lenders ever lend to anyone who does not have either have an enormous downpayment or great credit.

The answer is that such loans would have to involve federal subsidies. To a large extent, they already do; many, if not most, home loans are guaranteed through the FHA or VA.

The paternalism toward the less than rich, which has the impact of deny many people a Middle Class life, endlessly fascinating.

Without paternalism, there is no middle class. The middle class is a creation of government and requires social democratic programs to sustain. Without this, the economy automatically polarizes into a tiny wealthy elite and a large mass of despondent poor. This was the fate of virtually all societies until the era of modern activist government.

Posted at August 28, 2007 3:03 AM in response to Larry Summers Calls for Bailing Out the Wall Street Boys

Ward Churchill was fired for his irresponsible comments regarding 9/11 and "little Eichmanns." (Officially, he was fired for academic misconduct, but no one can actually be naive enough to believe this cover story.)

Why shouldn't John Yoo be fired for his equally loathsome (and far more influential) defense of the Divine Right of Presidents and his encomiums to torture?

Posted at August 18, 2007 8:59 AM in response to Wolfowitz: Je Ne Regrette Rien

Everywhere the old world is under challenge get used to it.

A few hundred, or a few thousand, random murders does not a new world order make.

We've had serial killers with three-figure body counts. Somehow, our Republic still managed to survive.

About three thousand people died during the 9/11 terrorist attacks. During that same year, over 50,000 people in the United States died in car crashes.

The terrorists simply are not a substantial threat to our way of life. We need to treat this as an international law enforcement issue against a handful of rogue murderers, not declare war against the entire Islamic world.

Posted at August 17, 2007 5:32 PM in response to Wolfowitz: Je Ne Regrette Rien

If this happens over a substantial enough period of time, of course, then the brand name will no longer connote quality as it once did. The U.S. auto companies destroyed much of the value of their brand names during the 1970s, and they even managed to do it without offshoring production.

In the long run, this particular problem is self-correcting. Unfortunately, as John Maynard Keynes pointed out, in the long run we are all dead.

Posted at August 15, 2007 6:57 PM in response to Toy Story, Global Version

So why not vote for the guy I actually agree with on about 95% of the issues, rather than continue to look for razor thin policy differences among the three front-runners.

Regardless of who is elected, from either party, they are going to be a disaster on foreign policy. This is because our foreign policy is controlled by wealthy campaign contributors and unrepresentative swing-state voters. Taking back our foreign policy on behalf of the American people will be a very long fight and it will require completely restructuring our existing system of campaign finance.

On domestic policy, however, I think it is clear that Edwards is the most progressive of the three plausible Democratic candidates by far. He's also the most likely to win the general election. It doesn't seem like much of a contest to me.

Hillary Clinton is a Republican in all but name.

Posted at August 15, 2007 11:45 AM in response to United We Sit