Dean Baker's Blog, page 137

Lessons on Obamacare Repeal: Benefits Are Hard to Retract Based on Lies

A news analysis in the NYT by Jennifer Steinhauer argued that Republicans were rediscovering an old truth in their effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, that it is hard to take away benefits that the government has given. While the point is surely right, the piece left out an important point, the Republican effort was based on a lie.

Republicans, and especially President Trump, rallied public support for repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) based on the complaint that it wasn't generou...

Trump vs. CBO: Lies from the White House

The "Democracy Dies in Darkness" folks at the Washington Post somehow feel they have an obligation to print lies from the White House on their opinion page. How else can one explain the decision to run a column from Marc Short and Brian Blase that calls the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) estimates of the impact of the Republican health care plans "fake news." (The authors are respectively, assistant to the president for White House legislative affairs and special assistant to the preside...

Lessons on Labor Economics for the Owner of a Roofing Company in Nebraska

The NYT shows us that the skills shortage is real in an interview with Sarah M. Smith, the owner of a roofing company in Nebraska. In the interview, Ms. Smith explains why she needs foreign workers, on H2-B visas, since she is unable to get native born workers or greencard holders for the $17 an hour she is offering.

Ms. Smith explains:

"We have offered the $17-an-hour wage because it is the prevailing wage determination for this type of work, according to the United States Department of Labo...

Mick Mulvaney Gives Mix of Groundhog Day and Flat Out Lies on MAGAnomics

Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney had a Wall Street Journal column highlighting the benefits of "MAGAnomics." The piece can best be described as a combination of Groundhog Day and outright lies.

In terms of Groundhog Day, we have actually tried MAGAnomics twice before and it didn't work. We had huge cuts in taxes and regulation under both President Reagan and George W. Bush. In neither case was there any huge uptick in growth and investment. In fact, the Bush years were s...

The Robots Are Taking the Jobs Gang Agree with Trump Against CBO

Several news outlets have reported that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) does not accept the Trump administration's claims that its program will lead to a big surge in growth. It is worth mentioning in reference to this dispute that the "robots will take all the jobs" gang agrees with Trump in this dispute. Many people in the debate are probably not aware of this fact because it requires an understanding of third grade arithmetic.

Economic growth is the sum of labor force growth and prod...

Macron and Trump: Reporters and Body Language Readers, the Word from NPR

I have often joked how when we have a political debate, after we watch the candidates stake out various claims and positions, we then see reporters talk about their body language. They tell us who looked confident and sincere and who seemed cautious or in other ways unsteady.

This is infuriating because this is exactly the area in which reporters have no comparative advantage over the people viewing the debate. We all engage in conversations and negotiations with people in our every day life....

Senator Patrick Toomey Tells Washington Post He Doesn't Know What a Financial Crisis Is

Senator Toomey is apparently too young to remember the financial crisis that resulted from the collapse of the housing bubble. He told the Washington Post that he thinks Medicare cost increases will lead to a financial crisis:

"'It’s a guaranteed financial crisis if we don’t do something about our entitlement programs,' said Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.), who has pushed for indexing Medicaid to a lower inflation rate. 'It’s not a question of whether that happens, it’s just a question of whe...

What's Time to a Pig?: The Cost of Cost-Sharing in Health Care Insurance

Aaron Carroll had an interesting Upshot piece comparing the merits of Medicaid and private insurance. It focuses on the fact that Medicaid is largely free for beneficiaries, while private insurance typically has substantial co-pays and deductibles. The piece points out that these fees can provide a substantial disincentive for getting health care, especially for lower income people.

While this might be a good way to save the system money if it discourages unnecessary care, which was a major r...

Are News Outlets Obligated to Do Propaganda for Trade Deals?

Regular readers of the NYT and other leading outlets might well get that impression. The one-sided nature of the discussion of these deals (invariably dubbed "free" trade agreements, because no one can be opposed to freedom) is hard for careful readers to miss.

We got yet another example with a column warning that Donald Trump may kill the bourbon boom with his trade policy. The piece uses the example of bourbon to tell us all the ways in which Trump's decision to pull back from the Trans-Pac...

The Skills Gap: Washington Post Economic Columnist Edition

Folks who passed their intro econ class know that it is net exports (exports minus imports) that affect output and employment. Not exports alone. Nonetheless, we find people like Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson telling readers that Trump's decision to pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) might undermine his agenda because "being outside these agreements [a TPP without the U.S. and European Union-Japan trade deal) would weaken U.S. exports."

Since it is not exports that m...