Gov. Good-Hair: "Government doesn't create any jobs!"

Except under his watch in Texas,  where government jobs have grown faster than any other state, according to Think Progress:

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) has built the early stages of his presidential campaign on his state’s ability to create jobs during the last two years of his governorship. The “Texas Miracle,” Perry often says, is responsible for 40 percent of the net new jobs created in America since June 2009. The “Miracle” is no miracle at all — Texas has the nation’s worst job creation record when adjusted for labor force growth — but Republican voters have lapped up the message, pushing Perry to a double-digit lead in early primary polls.

Annals of the economic elite

"Twenty-five of the 100 highest paid U.S. CEOs earned more last year than their companies paid in federal income tax..."

Via Huffington Post

Let the sun shine - a solar success story...

Some good news for a change, via Think Progress:

With all the stories about China dominating the solar photovoltaics (PV) manufacturing sector, you might not think that America is a net exporter of solar products. But it is — to the tune of $1.8 billion. That’s a $1 billion increase over net exports documented in the solar sector last year.



In fact, a report released this morning from GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association found that the U.S. has a $247 million trade surplus with China.

U.S. imports in 2010 were estimated at $1.4 billion, while exports were estimated to be between $1.7 billion – $2.0 billion based on the availability of data for capital equipment sales. This made the U.S. a net exporter of solar goods to China by $247 million to $539 million. Imports came predominantly from modules ($1.2 billion), while exports were driven by capital equipment ($708 million to $1 billion) and polysilicon ($873 million).

Solar isn’t just about the module. When looking at polysilicon production, equipment for manufacturing lines, power electronics, solar hot water tanks, and any number of other domestically-produced products, the U.S. actually offers a good-sized contribution to the global market.

The 2011 Solar Energy Trade Assessment is a follow up from last year’s report, which found U.S. net exports in 2009 were worth $723 million.

The $1 billion surge in net exports came during a year when the U.S. solar market grew by over 100%. Due to the successful Treasury Grant Program and Loan Guarantee Program that made it easier for developers and manufacturers to finance facilities, the solar sector grew faster than ever before.

And all that solar — particularly solar PV — brings immense value to the domestic economy.

Setting the record straight: "Three Charts to E-Mail To Your Right-Wing Brother-in-Law"

From David Johnson at Campaign for America's Future

Spending

Government spending increased dramatically under Bush. It has not increased much under Obama. Note that this chart does not reflect any spending cuts resulting from deficit-cutting deals.

Our 21st Century Working Class

Ted Rall via Balloon Juice

More from David Weisal at WSJ:

There are 13.9 million unemployed people in the U.S. – and that just counts those looking for work.  That works out to 9.1% of the labor force, the widely publicized unemployed rate.

But here are a few more ways to look at it.

"The Mind of the Fed"

David Leonhardt of the The New York Times dissects the limits of debate within the Federal Reserve Bank. (Hint: It has to do with the power of the banks in choosing board members - who could have guessed?):

IF you were to conduct a survey of the country’s top economists, you would find a fair number who did not believe that the Federal Reserve should be taking more aggressive steps to help the economy. Some would worry that injecting more money into the economy might unnerve global investors or set off uncontrollable inflation. Others would wonder whether, with interest rates already so low, the Fed even had much power to lift economic growth.

But you would also find a sizable group of economists who thought the Fed could and should do far more than it was doing. This group, known as doves, tilts liberal, though it includes conservatives as well. If anything, it can probably claim a larger number of big-name economists — J. Bradford DeLong, Paul Krugman (an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times), Christina D. Romer, Scott Sumner and Mark Thoma, among others — than the camp that believes the Fed has done too much.

You would never know this, however, from listening to the public debate among Federal Reserve officials. That debate is much narrower.

Work Sharing as a stop-gap to extreme unemployment

Dean Baker at Bloggingheads offers an innovative idea to keep the workforce engaged during periods of persistent unemployment.

Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, David Brooks and the descent into darkness of contemporary "conservatism"

Read THIS "shrill screed" if you read nothing else on politics and our dire straits today.
                                                   
                                                            Via Balloon Juice

"Put jobs at the top of the national agenda..."

President Obama has promised to deliver a jobs agenda in September.  Here's a good column by NYT's Nick Kristoff that helps put the jobs crisis in perspective:

When Americans are polled about the issue they care most about, the answer by a two-to-one margin is jobs. The Boston Globe found that during President Obama’s Twitter “town hall” last month, the issue that the public most wanted to ask about was, by far, jobs. Yet during the previous two weeks of White House news briefings, reporters were far more likely to ask about political warfare with Republicans...

2012: On political perspective and drawing lines where they matter the most

Winning Progressive lays out an excellent counter-critique to much of the over-heated criticism of President Obama coming from "the left" that dismisses his accomplishments and commitments:

Why any proposal to raise the Medicare eligibility age is not "fiscally conservative"

2 Charts:

 

 

In fact, given the cost-effectiveness of Medicare compared to private insurers, the country would save money on rapidly-inflating medical costs by lowering the Medicare eligibility age, allowing people to buy into the system earlier. 

Via Jared Bernstein - "Cost Shifting Is Not Cost Saving"

Reducing the costs of Medicare

There are smart, patient-friendly ways to achieve the necessary cost reductions, and dumb ones that put the burden of health-care inflation on seniors...

Some notes on the smart path, HERE. 

Republicans want to raise your taxes!

Harold Myerson at the Washington Post:

America’s presumably anti-tax party wants to raise your taxes. Come January, the Republicans plan to raise the taxes of anyone who earns $50,000 a year by $1,000, and anyone who makes $100,000 by $2,000.

Their tax hike doesn’t apply to income from investments. It doesn’t apply to any wage income in excess of $106,800 a year. It’s the payroll tax that they want to raise — to 6.2 percent from 4.2 percent of your paycheck, a level established for one year in December’s budget deal at Democrats’ insistence. Unlike the capital gains tax, or the low tax rates for the rich included in the Bush tax cuts, or the carried interest tax for hedge fund operators (which is just 15 percent), the payroll tax chiefly hits the middle class and the working poor.

General Electric's global operations defy "conventional wisdom" about corporate taxes

It's been widely reported that General Electric paid no US taxes last year, despite over $14 billion in profits - and over $5 billion profits reported in the US.  GE actually got a $3.2 billion tax credit from the US government.

David Cay Johnston has an interesting column at Reuters about the distribution of GE's tax payments over the last decade that raises some questions about the impact of corporate tax rates on the  company's activities. The US has offered GE lower effective tax rates than it's foreign operations, but GE has been reporting more of its profits overseas, where it's been paying higher taxes. (The fact that GE pays much lower taxes than the supposed US corporate tax rate is also instructive.)  This trend of their reported profits shifting overseas where the corporate rates are effectively higher for GE counters the "conventional wisdom" about how taxes drive the investment decisions of a major global business:

The perils of ontological insecurity...

TalkingPointsMemo:

What are the four primary characteristics most associated with those Americans sympathetic to the Tea Party?

"Authoritarianism, ontological insecurity (fear of change), libertarianism and nativism." 

So says one of the many findings in a study presented to the American Sociological Association on Monday.

Who knew?

More HERE.

Looking Backward: Report Card on the Bush Tax Cuts

"I think clearly the evidence...uh, well..."

The extension of Bush-era tax cuts is still a centerpiece of GOP economic dogma around job creation and economic growth. Having been eneacted a decade ago, is there any empirical evidence that they worked?

Think Progress has posted a telling video of Tea Party-backed, first-term GOP Congressman Randy Hultgren at a town-hall being asked point blank by a constituent for evidence that the Bush tax cuts created jobs. He couldn't answer the question, stumbling over a non-response. Hultgren had good reason to stumble and evade the question.  There is no evidence that shows the tax cuts drove job creation.

Jobs, jobs, jobs - "Size, Speed & Smarts" are the essentials for an effective jobs strategy

Jonathan Cohn at The New Republic:

President Obama’s plan to give a major economic speech after Labor Day means that, finally, Washington is going to have a serious conversation about creating jobs. And it can't come a moment too soon…

Of course, whether that conversation on jobs leads to action on jobs is more a question of politics than policy. Republicans want no part of anything with Obama’s name on it and, until that changes, very little can pass Congress.

Still, the best policy conversations start with what we should do, not with what we can (or can’t) do...

The case for taxing capital gains like any other income

James Stewart at The New York Times:

The notion that low capital gains tax rates are a good thing because they promote investment, lead to job creation, encourage people to sell assets without fear of tax consequences and actually raise total tax revenue is so entrenched in both parties that the idea of equalizing capital gains and ordinary income rates is barely mentioned or, when it is, is quickly denounced. It’s become a third rail of tax policy and electoral politics. “It’s now so woven into standard thinking that it’s become a cultural norm,” a prominent hedge fund official told me this week...

It does seem intuitive that lower taxes and thus potentially greater rewards would encourage risk-taking and investment, and surely at some rate high taxes can discourage any endeavor. But even some hedge fund and private equity officials concede that the argument for lower capital gains rates rests more on faith than science. “I’ve seen study after study that says lower capital gains rates have no impact on behavior,” the hedge fund official told me.

"Watching Armageddon From an Armchair"

Mother Jones blogger Kevin Drum offers this thought - a grim gut feeling undoubtedly shared these days by many who see the policy paralysis in the Beltway, while political fun and games play out on their TeeVees and the threat of a deepening economic crisis grows:

Watching the world slide slowly back into recession without a fight, even though we know perfectly well how to prevent it, is just depressing beyond words.

Our descendents will view the grasping politicians and cowardly bankers responsible for this about as uncomprehendingly as we now view the world leaders who cavalierly allowed World War I to unfold even though they could have stopped it at any time.

Shaping the 2012 Message: "Class Warfare" Done Right!

"Congress won't work for the people!"

Historian Rick Perlstein - who has authored an excellent book on the right-wing Goldwater movement's impact on US politics and another on the legacy of Richard Nixon - offers some insightful and provocative commentary at TIME's "Swampland" blog. Perlsteins's observations are, in effect, some practical campaign advice directed toward President Obama, based on how the Democratic Party historically has won elections and why they've lost elections, in the context of two distinct terrains on which national elections get fought:

Sometimes they become battles over the cultural and social anxieties that ordinary Americans suffer. Other times they are showdowns about middle-class anxieties when the free market fails. Normally, in the former sort of election, Republicans win. In the latter, Democrats do — as we saw in 2008, when the tide turned after John McCain said “the fundamentals of the economy are strong.