Fwd: Leonhardt Dismisses How Almost Half Pay No Income Tax, Calls For Higher Rates

Documenting and Exposing the Liberal Political Agenda of the New York Times
Wednesday April 14, 2010 @ 04:23 PM EDT

Krugman the Global Warming Prophet Howls: 'Utter Catastrophe' Possible
Paul Krugman, once an economist, then a left-wing talking-points purveyor, and now an expert climatologist: "Sea levels would rise, with the impact intensified by those storms: coastal flooding, already a major source of natural disasters, would become much more frequent and severe. And there might be drastic changes in the climate of some regions as ocean currents shift. It's always worth bearing in mind that London is at the same latitude as Labrador; without the Gulf Stream, Western Europe would be barely habitable."

Reid's Liberal Amnesty Promise Makes It to Print - But His Reversal Only Makes It Online
Julia Preston's celebration of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's promise to push for amnesty for illegals "this year" made Sunday's print edition. Yet Reid's reversal three days later was relegated to nytimes.com.

Leonhardt Dismisses How Almost Half Pay No Income Tax, Calls For Higher Rates on Those That Do
The NYT's voice on fiscal policy wants higher taxes on everyone but most importantly, the rich: "The answer is that tax rates almost certainly have to rise more on the affluent than on other groups." He also called higher taxes on the rich "an American tradition."

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Krugman the Global Warming Prophet Howls: 'Utter Catastrophe' Possible

"Building A Green Economy," columnist Paul Krugman's cover story for the Times Sunday Magazine, is meant to reassure Times readers that despite "the relentless campaign to discredit" global warming doomsayers, they are in fact correct. The good news, from his perspective, is that we can indeed afford to combat "climate change," with higher taxes and regulation.

Krugman warned that if we take no action, in the form of regulations and higher taxes, then by the year 2100 "sea levels would rise" and "coastal flooding, already a major source of natural disasters, would become much more frequent and severe." The modern-day Jeremiah howled that "utter catastrophe does look like a realistic possibility."

If you listen to climate scientists -- and despite the relentless campaign to discredit their work, you should -- it is long past time to do something about emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. If we continue with business as usual, they say, we are facing a rise in global temperatures that will be little short of apocalyptic. And to avoid that apocalypse, we have to wean our economy from the use of fossil fuels, coal above all.

But is it possible to make drastic cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions without destroying our economy?

Like the debate over climate change itself, the debate over climate economics looks very different from the inside than it often does in popular media. The casual reader might have the impression that there are real doubts about whether emissions can be reduced without inflicting severe damage on the economy. In fact, once you filter out the noise generated by special-interest groups, you discover that there is widespread agreement among environmental economists that a market-based program to deal with the threat of climate change -- one that limits carbon emissions by putting a price on them -- can achieve large results at modest, though not trivial, cost. There is, however, much less agreement on how fast we should move, whether major conservation efforts should start almost immediately or be gradually increased over the course of many decades.

Krugman, in his usual pompous manner, presents as fact what is just liberal conjecture, especially "if you look at the evidence the right way" (?)

This is an article on climate economics, not climate science. But before we get to the economics, it's worth establishing three things about the state of the scientific debate.

The first is that the planet is indeed warming. Weather fluctuates, and as a consequence it's easy enough to point to an unusually warm year in the recent past, note that it's cooler now and claim, "See, the planet is getting cooler, not warmer!" But if you look at the evidence the right way -- taking averages over periods long enough to smooth out the fluctuations -- the upward trend is unmistakable: each successive decade since the 1970s has been warmer than the one before.

Second, climate models predicted this well in advance, even getting the magnitude of the temperature rise roughly right. While it's relatively easy to cook up an analysis that matches known data, it is much harder to create a model that accurately forecasts the future. So the fact that climate modelers more than 20 years ago successfully predicted the subsequent global warming gives them enormous credibility.

Yet that's not the conclusion you might draw from the many media reports that have focused on matters like hacked e-mail and climate scientists' talking about a "trick" to "hide" an anomalous decline in one data series or expressing their wish to see papers by climate skeptics kept out of research reviews. The truth, however, is that the supposed scandals evaporate on closer examination, revealing only that climate researchers are human beings, too. Yes, scientists try to make their results stand out, but no data were suppressed. Yes, scientists dislike it when work that they think deliberately obfuscates the issues gets published. What else is new? Nothing suggests that there should not continue to be strong support for climate research.

And this brings me to my third point: models based on this research indicate that if we continue adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere as we have, we will eventually face drastic changes in the climate. Let's be clear. We're not talking about a few more hot days in the summer and a bit less snow in the winter; we're talking about massively disruptive events, like the transformation of the Southwestern United States into a permanent dust bowl over the next few decades.

Krugman warned that climate models were getting more pessimistic (never mind that those same models failed to predict the earth's current cooling trend):

At this point, the projections of climate change, assuming we continue business as usual, cluster around an estimate that average temperatures will be about 9 degrees Fahrenheit higher in 2100 than they were in 2000. That's a lot -- equivalent to the difference in average temperatures between New York and central Mississippi. Such a huge change would have to be highly disruptive. And the troubles would not stop there: temperatures would continue to rise.

Furthermore, changes in average temperature will by no means be the whole story. Precipitation patterns will change, with some regions getting much wetter and others much drier. Many modelers also predict more intense storms. Sea levels would rise, with the impact intensified by those storms: coastal flooding, already a major source of natural disasters, would become much more frequent and severe. And there might be drastic changes in the climate of some regions as ocean currents shift. It's always worth bearing in mind that London is at the same latitude as Labrador; without the Gulf Stream, Western Europe would be barely habitable.

Krugman turned up the volume:

You might think that this uncertainty weakens the case for action, but it actually strengthens it. As Harvard's Martin Weitzman has argued in several influential papers, if there is a significant chance of utter catastrophe, that chance -- rather than what is most likely to happen -- should dominate cost-benefit calculations. And utter catastrophe does look like a realistic possibility, even if it is not the most likely outcome.

Weitzman argues -- and I agree -- that this risk of catastrophe, rather than the details of cost-benefit calculations, makes the most powerful case for strong climate policy. Current projections of global warming in the absence of action are just too close to the kinds of numbers associated with doomsday scenarios. It would be irresponsible -- it's tempting to say criminally irresponsible -- not to step back from what could all too easily turn out to be the edge of a cliff.

Reid's Liberal Amnesty Promise Makes It to Print - But His Reversal Only Makes It Online

When Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pushed one of the Times pet issues over the weekend -- amnesty for illegal immigrants -- it got big play in the print edition. But when he reversed himself just three days later, it was nowhere to be found in print, only online.

Congressional reporter Carl Hulse "Caucus" post on Tuesday afternoon, "Reid Hits Pause Button on Immigration," found the embattled Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid backing away from the very amnesty push he promised in a rally before 6,000 cheering supporters, mostly immigrants, in Las Vegas on Saturday.

According to a Times report, Reid told the cheering crowd: "We're going to come back, we're going to have comprehensive immigration reform now....We need to do this this year."

Just three days later, Reid said never mind. From Hulse's Tuesday online filing, which didn't make the Wednesday print edition of the Times:

Senator Harry Reid retreated today from having the Senate move quickly on immigration law changes, saying any overhaul would have to wait.

"We won't get to immigration reform this work period," Mr. Reid, Democrat of Nevada and the majority leader, told reporters after the private weekly luncheon of Democratic senators.

Over the weekend, Mr. Reid raised the hopes of immigration advocates by suggesting at a rally in Las Vegas that he was ready to put immigration on the legislative front burner now that health care legislation was out of the way and Congress was returning from a two-week break.

"We're going to come back, we're going to have comprehensive immigration reform now," he said in a speech to more than 6,000 people, mostly immigrants.

While Hulse's story didn't make the print edition, Julia Preston's original Sunday piece on Reid pushing one of the Times pet issues -- amnesty for illegal immigrants -- took up the top half of page A21 in the Sunday paper, a 980-word story including two large photos from Saturday's Las Vegas rally: "From Senate Majority Leader, a Promise to Take Up Immigration Overhaul."

Reid certainly didn't hedge in his fiery speech:

The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, told an exuberant crowd at an immigration rally Saturday in Las Vegas that Congress would start work on an immigration overhaul as soon as lawmakers return this week from a recess.

"We're going to come back, we're going to have comprehensive immigration reform now," he said in a speech to more than 6,000 people, mostly immigrants, gathered downtown.

"We need to do this this year," Mr. Reid said, drawing cheers from the crowd, which included many Latinos. "We cannot wait."

Mr. Reid surprised immigrants and advocates with his direct commitment to moving forward with legislation on the volatile issue, with the Senate already divided by the passage of a health care overhaul. Also, as a result of Justice John Paul Stevens's announcement last week that he would retire, the Obama administration and the Senate will have to focus this summer on winning confirmation of a Supreme Court nominee.

So Reid's push of a liberal pet issue was worthy of big play in the print edition. Yet when he reversed himself three days later, it was relegated to a post at nytimes.com.

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Leonhardt Dismisses How Almost Half Pay No Income Tax, Calls For Higher Rates on Those That Do

In his Wednesday Business Day column, David Leonhardt, the Times' conscience on economic matters, defended the current skewed tax system, in which almost half of U.S. households paid no income taxes last year, and even argued that those now paying the highest rates should be paying even more: "Behind The 47% Talking Point."

Leonhardt never addressed the underlying point of conservative opposition: The free-rider problem, as half of households pay nothing for services that (theoretically) benefit them all, like public education and national defense. Citizens with no "skin in the game," safe in the assumption they will never have to pay federal taxes, have little practical incentive to oppose programs that will lead to higher taxes, like Obama-care.

Forty-seven percent.

That's the portion of American households that owe no income tax for 2009. The number is up from 38 percent in 2007, and it has become a popular talking point on cable television and talk radio. With Tax Day coming on Thursday, 47 percent has become shorthand for the notion that the wealthy face a much higher tax burden than they once did while growing numbers of Americans are effectively on the dole.

Neither one of those ideas is true. They rely on a cleverly selective reading of the facts. So does the 47 percent number.

....

The answer is that tax rates almost certainly have to rise more on the affluent than on other groups. Over the last 30 years, rates have fallen more for the wealthy, and especially the very wealthy, than for any other group. At the same time, their incomes have soared, and the incomes of most workers have grown only moderately faster than inflation.

Leonhardt eventually admitted that "The 47 percent number is not wrong," but claimed the figure is misleading, because that 47 percent do pay other kinds of federal taxes, like payroll taxes, and he dismissed the argument that those should be excluded from the discussion since they pay for benefits on the back end. To defend the figure, Leonhardt unwittingly demonstrated Social Security and Medicare are a lousy deal for people with the bad luck to die before age 70.

I realize that it's possible to argue that payroll taxes should be excluded from the discussion because they pay for benefits -- Social Security and Medicare -- that people receive on the back end. But that argument doesn't seem very persuasive.

Why? People do not receive benefits equal to the payroll taxes they paid. Those who die at age 70 will receive much less in Social Security and Medicare than they paid in taxes. Those who die at 95 will probably get much more.

Does this mean that African-American males, whose life expectancy is slightly less than 70 years, should oppose Social Security and Medicare as a raw deal?

Leonhardt vaguely raised another conservative point, only to dismiss its importance, and called higher taxes on "the wealthy" the American way of life:

There is no question that the wealthy pay a higher overall tax rate than any other group. That is an American tradition. But there is also no question that their tax rates have fallen more than any other group's over the last three decades. The only reason they are paying more taxes than in the past is that their pretax incomes have risen so rapidly -- which hardly seems a great rationale for a further tax cut.

CNN's Christine Romans got more specific on the April 8 edition of "American Morning," emphasizing "Ten percent of earners pay 73 percent of all the federal income tax revenue."  

Leonhardt claimed not to see a principled argument against the current progressive tax system, arguing that opposition was just self-interest on the part of conservative talk show hosts:

So why are those radio and television talk show hosts spending so much time arguing that today's wealthy are unfairly burdened? Well, it's hard not to notice that the talk show hosts themselves tend to be among the very wealthy.

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