Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Feb 9, 2012, 3:50 pm
My column in this week’s Tax Notes (subscription-only access here) focuses on just a few of the different ways we could get more tax revenue from millionaires, summarized in the table above.  (The sources for all these numbers are various distributional estimates from the Tax Policy Center, refer...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Feb 5, 2012, 12:24 am
I’m turning 50 in a few weeks, but I’m not Anywhere Approaching Retirement Plans (AARP).  In fact, I’m an optimist and think I’m only about halfway through my life, as well as only about halfway through my working career.  And “quality adjusted” for how much wiser I have gotten over th...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Jan 31, 2012, 1:00 pm
The Congressional Budget Office’s new budget and economic outlook is out, and as usual, it really doesn’t seem all that bad when you look at their “baseline” numbers.  (Deficits as a share of GDP over the next ten years are still at economically sustainable–less than the growth rate of th...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Jan 23, 2012, 8:58 am
It’s a proposal that has come up over and over again in President Obama’s budget, and one that I hope will come up yet again.  In my column in today’s Tax Notes (subscription-only access here), I remind readers that this is a great idea whose time has (been overdue to) come: the proposal to l...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Jan 18, 2012, 1:21 pm
The Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus points out that if Mitt Romney really cares about the poor, he has a funny way of showing it–in this case, regarding his ideas for fiscal policy reforms: “I’m concerned about the poor in this country,” Mitt Romney said the other day. “We have to make su...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Jan 17, 2012, 1:53 pm
Well, this is going to raise some voters’ eyebrows: “What’s the effective rate I’ve been paying? It’s probably closer to the 15 percent rate than anything,” Romney, a GOP presidential candidate, said. “My last 10 years, I’ve — my income comes overwhelmingly from some investment...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Jan 9, 2012, 12:54 pm
Bruce Bartlett has a new book coming out in a couple weeks; you can pre-order it on Amazon here.  It looks like another great piece of work from Bruce.  Here’s a excerpt from the first review of it, by Vanessa Houlder of the Financial Times: In Mr Bartlett’s view, higher tax revenues are nee...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Jan 4, 2012, 2:18 pm
In my column in this week’s Tax Notes–in which Grover Norquist has been named 2011 “tax person of the year,” by the way (more on that later)–I list a few new year’s resolutions for tax policy (emphasis and brief descriptions added):. Note that this list is more broadly applicable to fis...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Dec 28, 2011, 11:03 pm
In my latest column in the Christian Science Monitor, I complain about how our politicians often take extreme positions and claim they’re just representing the best interests of their constituents.  Like when Republicans (egged on by anti-tax lobbyists) claim that tax increases on the rich will k...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Dec 27, 2011, 9:33 am
Before Christmas, Matthew Yglesias had this nice “economist’s guide to giving Christmas presents” in which he urged gift givers to get the most “bang per buck” by being both redistributive (not just reciprocal) in gift giving and taking risks by actually choosing a gift (avoiding the econo...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Dec 22, 2011, 8:15 am
I’m busy with holiday preparations, and frankly, there’s not much to say of substance about the (still depressing and still unresolved) payroll tax cut issue, but I thought I’d point readers to Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler’s compilation of  “the biggest Pinocchios of 2011.�...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Dec 19, 2011, 12:06 pm
The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza stated the obvious in Sunday’s Washington Post:  “Congress is unpopular.”  And deservedly so, because as Chris explains (in print but also in a nice video on that web page): Saying that Congress is unpopular is kind of like saying that water is wet or...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Dec 14, 2011, 11:44 am
Concerning congressional negotiations over the extension of the payroll tax cut, this Washington Post story seems to offer a prediction as to how this impasse will be broken (emphasis added): To pay for extending the cut, Democrats have pushed for a surtax on those making more than $1 million a y...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Nov 1, 2011, 11:13 am
Bruce Bartlett writes about the Perry (optional) flat tax plan in today’s New York Times Economix blog.  There are several fundamental problems with the plan that Bruce outlines:  (1) it’s not very “flat” in a base-broadening sense in that it retains a lot of the special preferences under ...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Oct 31, 2011, 1:06 pm
My column in today’s Halloween edition of Tax Notes (subscription only access) is called “Tricks and Treats Handed to the Supercommittee”–a reference to the variety of recommendations the select, bipartisan deficit-reduction “super committee” received from the various standing committees...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Oct 28, 2011, 9:44 am
An economist friend drew my attention to this old Phil Donahue interview of economist Milton Friedman. I think it dates back to 1979 (the year I graduated from high school). It has gotten me to wonder what Friedman would say about this Occupy movement–and also how the point he is trying to make ...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Oct 26, 2011, 4:20 pm
(photo from Talking Points Memo) So what is this Occupy Fill-in-the-Blank movement all about?   I’ve been hearing the words “openness,” “honesty,” “engagement,” “dialogue,” “listening,” “attention,” and “responsibility” a lot.  Funny that these are words one often h...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Oct 17, 2011, 5:00 pm
I find this AARP ad campaign so offensive.  They threaten policymakers with their 50 million votes if any of them dares to include reforms to Social Security or Medicare as part of longer-term deficit reduction.  AARP’s point?  From their website touting the ad: AARP’s new national televisio...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Oct 13, 2011, 1:58 pm
If you want a great explanation about how everything fell apart over the past decade and how we’ll still be struggling to recover over the next decade, get yourself a copy of this book:  “Lost Decades: The Making of America’s Debt Crisis and the Long Recovery” by Menzie Chinn (now a profess...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Oct 10, 2011, 9:29 am
(Graphic from the Washington Post comparing Obama Administration projections of unemployment rates with and without stimulus with what actually happened even with the stimulus.) __________________________________________________ Here’s a really excellent article by Ezra Klein from Sunday’s Was...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Oct 7, 2011, 8:13 am
It was nearly two years ago that I wrote this about the controversy over mammogram screenings for breast cancer: I am one of those women in question–over 40 but under 50–who the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force now says shouldn’t bother with routine breast cancer screening, whether via...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Oct 5, 2011, 2:13 pm
(Video from the Wall Street Journal’s website.) It would seem we have heard this so many times before that we shouldn’t need to hear it again. The U.S. faces two major economic challenges at the same time: (1) an economy still desperately struggling to get out of (or avoid falling back into) re...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Sep 29, 2011, 1:55 pm
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c Moneybrawl - The Extinction of Subway, Bill O’Reilly & the Super Rich www.thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook I wish I had even a fraction of the talent that Jon Stewart and Steph...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Sep 26, 2011, 9:47 pm
The “dynamic scoring” debate is back again. Last week the House Ways and Means Committee—chaired by Dave Camp (R-MI), who also happens to be a member of the debt-limit deal’s “super committee”—held a hearing on the subject, calling on the Joint Committee on Taxation’s chief of staff...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Sep 20, 2011, 9:00 am
About a month ago, the Brookings Institution’s Bill Gale made what I thought–and still think–is a brilliant analogy between budget baselines and weight loss goals at an event about the debt limit deal’s “super committee.” I liked it so much that I quoted from the transcript in my very ne...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Sep 14, 2011, 3:04 pm
I testified before the House Budget Committee this morning, for a hearing entitled “The Case for Pro-Growth Tax Reform.”  My full written testimony is available at the committee’s website and also at the Concord Coalition site, here.  (Later you should be able to see the video on the committ...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Sep 8, 2011, 1:43 pm
Just had to “tweet” that!  Mainly wanted to combine a complaint about the rain and a link to my Tax Notes column (reprinted on the Concord Coalition site, here) that argues that the first easy thing the debt limit deal’s “super committee” could do is commit to strict pay-as-you-go rules o...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Sep 4, 2011, 8:29 am
Nope. Simplest reason why not: the deficit reduction we’re talking about is over the next ten years. The extra or at least more effective stimulus we’re talking about better come sooner. Many of the same policies that contribute to the adverse longer-term fiscal outlook provide very little o...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Aug 29, 2011, 11:19 am
Here’s the full text of my latest column in the Christian Science Monitor, in the blockquote below.  Doing “good” by our economy–with its dual and large challenges–will take superhero-like powers and the courage to use them.  Enter the debt limit deal’s “super committee”–who in b...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Aug 24, 2011, 11:51 am
Here’s a chart in CBO director Doug Elmendorf’s blog post on their just-released budget and economic outlook that says at least a thousand words about the importance of tax policy in deficit reduction–particularly any deficit reduction that we’ll accomplish in the next decade.  This shows d...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Aug 21, 2011, 11:48 am
This explanation by Brookings’ Bill Gale of the difference between the policy-extended (”business as usual”) baseline and the current-law baseline is the best one I’ve ever heard. (Other video clips and transcript from last week’s Brookings event can be found here.) Let’s actually lose...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Aug 19, 2011, 7:49 am
Here’s an encouraging article in this morning’s (Friday’s) Washington Post, about the conversations politicians are having with their constituents back at home this summer.  Seems that Republicans are getting scolded, and Democrats are feeling a little less wimpy these days, on the topic of t...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Aug 16, 2011, 2:01 pm
Warren Buffett performed a very civic duty when he wrote his op-ed in the New York Times pleading for the U.S. government to raise his taxes.  He makes two basic points:  (1) the rich can surely afford to pay higher taxes, and (2) their paying higher taxes would not prevent them from investing and...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Aug 15, 2011, 8:57 am
Sunday’s Washington Post had this very hopeful front page story, with several quotes that give me optimism about the willingness of members of Congress to just do better in their deficit reduction negotiations the next time around.  See, it turns out that the great peer pressure of the American p...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Aug 7, 2011, 10:20 pm
I was on CNN’s “Your Bottom Line” show with host Christine Romans this weekend.  That’s one part of the interview, above, and the transcript of the show is here.  I tried to make my points about the intergenerational inequity of the debt problem (not fair to my kids), the still unaddressed...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Aug 5, 2011, 11:44 pm
As reported tonight on CNN-Money (emphasis added): NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s on Friday downgraded the credit rating of the United States, stripping the world’s largest economy of its prized AAA status… In its report Friday, S&P ruled that the U.S. fell ...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Aug 5, 2011, 8:04 am
(Chart from CNN-Money) Back at “home” with the real-world economy, right now… Like many policywatchers, Ezra Klein wonders if we’re running out of policy tools to combat the right-now threats to the U.S. and global economy: Washington likes to talk about the economy in terms of things it ...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Aug 3, 2011, 1:00 pm
My own little wishful-thinking idea, just posted on CNN.com: Here’s one way it could work out: 1. By the Thanksgiving deadline, the second-round super committee recommends legislation that would obligate Congress and the administration to strict pay-as-you-go rules on any future extension of exp...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Aug 1, 2011, 1:15 pm
Bill Gale of the Brookings Institution provides an excellent summary of the good and the bad in the debt limit deal.  The major “good news” is that if this breaks the impasse on passing an increase in the debt limit, the U.S. will avoid immediate default on its debt.  The “bad news” is the...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Aug 1, 2011, 8:05 am
Here’s a helpful summary from the Washington Post of what Democrats and Republicans “got” and “gave” in the debt limit deal.  It seems to provide a type of “Rorschach test.”  I think there are “glass half full” and “glass half empty” ways of looking at this.  Yes, on the ove...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Jul 30, 2011, 12:17 pm
I’m kind of at a loss for words these days, just stunned at the dysfunctional behavior surrounding the debt limit debate. (The fact that I was quoted as saying “geez” about it speaks volumes.)  As Senator McCain put it, it really is “bizarro” to insist on a balanced budget amendment wh...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Jul 30, 2011, 8:58 am
Saturday 9 am:  I know something is wrong with the formatting of my site (the colorblocking and layout), at least from my computer this morning…. I will try to figure this out later today!  The words are all there though; please pardon the mess. Hopefully I can clean it up later.  –Diane
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Jul 23, 2011, 10:27 pm
The Concord Coalition’s Board of Directors released this statement praising the new plan of the Senate’s “Gang of Six”–dubbing them the “Gang of Sense.”  What is so sensible about it?  They explain: Now, the Gang of Six has returned with a bipartisan proposal to cut the deficit by ...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Jul 21, 2011, 3:17 pm
Exciting buzz about Grover Norquist’s admission that letting the Bush tax cuts expire would not technically violate the “No New Taxes” pledge (which surprised me)–followed by his quick walk-back on it (which didn’t surprise me).  I think Time magazine’s Michael Scherer has it right with...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Jul 12, 2011, 9:34 am
(This entry is cross-posted on the Concord Coalition’s “Tabulation” blog here.  An elaboration of these points will appear in my next column in Tax Notes, next Monday, 7/18.) The biggest sticking point in the debt-limit talks has been the disagreement over tax policy. President Obama has bee...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Jul 10, 2011, 12:41 am
Saturday night’s news on the debt ceiling talks is depressing even if not surprising.  As the Washington Post’s Paul Kane and Lori Montgomery report: House Speaker John A. Boehner abandoned efforts Saturday night to cut a far-reaching debt-reduction deal, telling President Obama that a more ...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Jul 4, 2011, 1:56 pm
(illustration by Oliver Munday for Time) On his CNN blog (as well as in his Time column), Fareed Zakaria contemplates whether the U.S. could become the next Greece in terms of the bleakness of our fiscal outlook.  He concludes “no,” because among other things: The most important difference be...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Jun 29, 2011, 2:49 pm
Here’s the column I wrote in last week’s Tax Notes (subscription-only access here) in my “Taxes for a Civilized Society” spot.  I reprint it here courtesy of Tax Analysts.  (By the way, next week I am taking a break from my every-two-weeks Tax Notes publication schedule, so my next column ...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Jun 28, 2011, 11:45 pm
My latest column for the Christian Science Monitor emphasizes that it can’t just be about brute-force cutting the budget; those spending cuts or tax increases have to make sense for the economy, too: The United States budget deficit has become a crucial issue lately, and not just because it’s ...
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Diane Lim R. posted an article on EconomistMom - Jun 24, 2011, 11:51 pm
Graph above is Figure 1-2 from CBO’s long-term budget outlook, showing debt held by the public as percent of GDP under two scenarios. The Congressional Budget Office released its long-term budget outlook this week.  There wasn’t really any new news in it, but it did serve as a reminder that th...
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