John Cassidy's Blog, page 42

Donald Trump’s Tax Plan Is a Predictable Cop-out

As you may have seen, Donald Trump released his tax plan on Monday. He promised to cut income-tax rates for virtually everyone, but especially for the ultra-rich, who would see their top rate reduced from 39.6 per cent to twenty-five per cent. He also promised to slash the corporate tax rate from thirty-five per cent to fifteen per cent, cut the capital-gains tax from twenty-eight per cent to twenty per cent, and abolish the estate tax. As for the Alternative Minimum Tax and the marriage tax penalty, they, too, would disappear.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

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The Financial Times and the Future of Journalism

In a generally depressing decade for newspapers, the Financial Times, a global business publication based in London, has provided something of a bright spot. In emphasizing digital distribution early on and setting up a metered paywall, which allowed readers to access a limited number of posts each month before they had to purchase a (pricey) subscription, the F.T. pioneered a business model that was widely adopted elsewhere, including at this magazine. Today, the F.T. has almost three quarters of a million paying readers, more than at any point in its hundred-and-twenty-seven-year history. Roughly two thirds of those readers are digital subscribers, who pay high prices: as much as four hundred and eighty dollars a year.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

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John Boehner: A Man Out of Time

It’s hard not to feel some sympathy for John Boehner, the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, who on Friday announced his resignation from Congress, effective at the end of October. Some. You wouldn’t wish the job of leading hundreds of G.O.P. congressmen and congresswomen, many of them hailing from the Tea Party/foaming-at-the-mouth wing of the Republican movement, on your worst enemy.

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Pope Francis’s Timely Message to Congress

If you watched Pope Francis’s historic address to a joint session of Congress on Thursday, and judged it by the standards of contemporary politics and discourse, it perhaps seemed a bit disappointing. The Pope spoke slowly and in a thick accent. He ranged widely, making it tricky to discern a common thread. Some of his language was elliptical; some of his rebukes were implied. Soundbites and applause lines were few and far between.

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Pope Francis and His Little Fiat

Pope Francis and His Little Fiat

At about nine-thirty on Tuesday morning, President Obama and his wife, Michelle, were standing at the South Portico of the White House waiting for their guest to arrive. A big, black Secret Service S.U.V. pulled up, one of the type favored by entertainment moguls and Manhattan limousine services, which weigh more than five thousand pounds and get about seven or eight miles to the gallon, on a good day.

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Pope Francis in Cuba

G.O.P. Moneymen and Supporters Vote Scott Walker Off the Island

“G.O.P. Survivor,” the ongoing reality show starring Donald Trump, is attracting record viewing figures. According to CNN, more than twenty-three million Americans watched last week’s edition, which saw Carly Fiorina seek to topple Trump from his perch atop the opinion polls. Since this week’s show was set to compete with the Pope, who will likely be an even bigger draw, the producers moved it to Monday evening, almost twenty-four hours before Il Papa was scheduled to fly into Joint Base Andrews.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

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Alexis Tsipras and Greece Are Still Trapped

How long will the smile on the face of Alexis Tsipras last? On Monday night, Tsipras was sworn in as the head of a new Greek government that looks very similar to the previous one. The left-wing Syriza party is again forming a coalition with a small nationalist party, Independent Greeks; together, the two parties will have a small majority in parliament.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

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Janet Yellen and the Fed Did the Right Thing

As most people in the financial markets had been expecting, and as many commentators—myself included—had been urging, Janet Yellen and her colleagues at the Federal Reserve have decided not to raise interest rates, at least for now. Citing developments in the world economy, including recent turbulence in the stock markets and softness in inflation, Yellen told reporters, at the conclusion of a two-day Fed policy meeting, that the U.S. central bank wanted to wait a bit and see what impact, if any, the global developments will have on the U.S. economy.

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Carly Fiorina Tests Donald Trump’s Indestructibility

It is a well-known rule of prime-time television that you don’t give away the plot or run the celebrity interview early in the show, so that people won’t tune out and go to bed. Ideally, you keep viewers on the hook until the last minute. But, when the show is a Republican political debate and it’s three hours long, it’s asking a lot for viewers to watch until the halfway point, let alone the end.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

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Could the G.O.P. Unite Behind Ben Carson to Defeat Donald Trump?

This is getting interesting. On Tuesday, the day before the second televised G.O.P. debate, a new poll, carried out for the New York Times and CBS News, showed Ben Carson, the former neurosurgeon, gaining strongly on Donald Trump among Republican voters. This is the latest in a series of surveys that has shown Carson moving up, but the previous surveys still had Trump ahead by double digits. In this one, Trump’s lead was down to just four points, which isn’t even statistically significant. Twenty-seven per cent of likely G.O.P. voters said that they would support Trump, and twenty-three per cent said that they would support Carson.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

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