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This blog is the work of an educated civilian, not of an expert in the fields discussed.

Sunday, October 09, 2011

Cato Supreme Court Review and Top 1%


Cato Supreme Court Watch 2010-2011: Overall, some interesting, if nothing really big (sorta like the term), collection of essays. The pre-emption and Wal-Mart chapters were too technical for me. The latter is by an expert who wrote a book on class action, so it's more forgivable than the former, which is a pretty important issue about some important cases (like seatbelts and vaccines) that in a book supposedly for a general audience should have been able to be written better. I didn't agree with the Arizona cases, particularly the standing question (I admit, my side was weak on merits given current law). The Bond chapter was thin. The others were fairly interesting and often leaned correctly libertarian.

Top 1%: Chris Hayes is talking about this now and it calls to mind when Dean in '04 got in trouble about supporting too high taxes for the middle class, but when I asked the resident Slate fray expert (well mine; aka "run") about it, he noted his plan seemed to work out, which doesn't mean it stops it from being political unsellable. At least, that was the judgment of the Democrat decision makers.  I'm inclined to think that all this talk about "middle class tax cuts" can be taken too far, which Dilan Esper (another former frayster) once noted on his Twitter feed. If the fisc requires more money, just continuing tax cuts for the "rich" (especially given how high that is) is not the only problem.

And, when a guest talks about how those making between 250K and one million would feel a pinch if their taxes when up somewhat, well, we are going off the deep end here. Scalia with his nine kids might not be able to handle it, but come on. It is shocking how tax cuts and mismanagement screwed us so much and the fact that even raising taxes for millionaires is controversial when sound fiscal policy would mean (and push comes to shove, by cutting programs or whatever will mean) a lot more than that. Taxes that pay for the government, including avoiding the debts and other issues we now have because of bad fiscal policy.

Just talking about "middle class" and tax increases for the very rich won't do it. It is about all of us and progressive taxation does mean taxation, just a different amount pursuant to need and ability.  But, if making 750K is not "rich," I guess it changes things some.  Let's pretend.  How about those Mets in the NLCS?