Category: Kevin Drum

Dennis Van Tine/UPPA via ZUMA There are pros and cons to be being a blogger. One of the cons is that when you ask a question that shows off your ignorance, the entire world gets to see it. Let’s do it anyway. Question: What exactly do people mean when they say that the Democratic establishment…

In the past, the work of the Joint Committee on Taxation has been pretty reliable. I don’t know for sure if that’s still the case, but for now I assume it is. With that caveat, here’s their estimate of who benefits the most from the Republican tax bill: Not bad for a Republican tax bill!…

I was fiddling around looking for something unrelated, and happened to run across this chart from the latest OECD “Health at a Glance” report. We’re #1 in health spending, of course, and we pay inflated prices for just about everything. But what’s equally interesting is what we spend all that money on. More doctors? Nope.…

Nicolaus Czarnecki via ZUMA Bit by bit we’re getting analysis of some of the more peculiar parts of the Republican tax bill. For example, what’s up with eliminating the tax deduction for alimony payments? This one is so minuscule (about $1 billion per year) that you can’t even say it’s because Republicans were scrounging for…

Following up on yesterday’s post about Hillary Clinton’s joint fundraising agreement with the Democratic National Committee, here is the memo itself: So the bottom line is this: The DNC was broke, and Clinton agreed to raise enough to money to fund its data, technology, analytics, research, and communications functions. In return, the Clinton campaign got…

Yin Bogu/Xinhua via ZUMA Dan Drezner is trying to figure out why President Trump didn’t do the easy thing and renominate Janet Yellen for a second term as Fed chairman: As Trump decisions go, choosing Powell is far from his worst one. But it’s frustrating when there exists an obvious, superior choice on the menu…