Tag Archives: economics

International Trade and Hillary Clinton

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Recall that the Democrats in the House of Representatives last week blew up their erstwhile favorite, a wealth transfer sub-bill to pay a bunch of money to American workers who would be “displaced” by the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade bill being negotiated by President Barack Obama and 11 other Pacific nations. This in turn blew up the fast track authority bill already passed in the Senate and of which the TAA was a part.

Hillary Clinton, late sitter in the Secretary of State’s chair and current Democratic Party Presidential candidate was asked at her subsequent Iowa campaign rally about that fiasco, and what she thought of the fast track authority and of the trade deal in progress. She said that Obama needs to “listen and work with” Nancy Pelosi to get “the best deal possible.”

The Wall Street Journal characterized her answer thusly:

It’s a classic Clinton non-answer.

The WSJ is being polite. What it really signifies is that Clinton is utterly ignorant of the economics of international trade, or she’s too disingenuous to say what her position is.

Either one means she’s not qualified to be President.

An Argument for Positive Immigration Flows

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James Pethokoukis, writing in a different context, presented evidence in his AEIdeas piece for us doing better with our immigration policies. First, see the graph below, with particular attention to the “Increases in the workforce (labor inputs)” part of the bars.LaborProductivityAndImmigration_BetterVersion

Pethokoukis’ argument centered on Republican Presidential candidate Jeb Bush’s promise to work toward a 4% GDP growth annual rate if he’s elected; Pethokoukis argued that would be hard to achieve because of shortfalls in the availability of actual laborers.

[A]bout half of US growth in the postwar era has come from higher productivity, and half from a growing labor force. But American society is getting older and working less. Given much slower labor force growth, much higher productivity is needed to make up the difference. If productivity growth just stays at its postwar average—and it’s been much slower lately—the economy’s growth potential is much lower than in the past. As economics blogger Bill McBride writes, “Right now, due to demographics, 2 percent GDP growth is the new 4 percent.”

That’s the evidence and the argument. Pethokoukis and McBride based their argument regarding demographics on birth rates. The fact is, though, birth rates aren’t the only source of new labor. Immigration not only would fill the gap; immigrants would do so promptly: they’re already wanting in (and 11 million of them are already here awaiting some mechanism to let them come out of the shadows and be fully productive—for the US).

We need to quit messing around, and find a way to strictly secure our borders while making it far easier than it is now for immigrants to enter our nation legally (which, incidentally, would put a very serious hole in coyotes’ and other human traffickers’ business), and we need to find a way to help the illegals here already (actually, the majority of them whose only crime is their illegal entry and who have otherwise been solid, productive members of their communities) gain legal status.

And get 4% GDP growth. The idea that “2 percent GDP growth is the new 4 percent” is just the contemptibly defeatist attitude of a quitter.

Progressive Tax Credits

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Targeting youth unemployment, Hillary Rodham Clinton plans to propose tax credits to encourage businesses to train young people and offer apprenticeships to develop lifelong job skills.

Clinton’s campaign said she would outline a proposed tax credit of $1,500 for every apprentice that a business hires….

Here’s a thought. How about lowering taxes altogether and getting the tax code out of the business of social engineering? With suitably low taxes, you wouldn’t need to play games with taxes as inducements to do this or as discouragements from doing that.

With suitably low taxes and the code out of the business of social engineering, businesses could spend their energies on sound business planning rather than on shopping around for a tax deal.

With suitably low taxes and the code out of the business of encouraging this or discouraging that, there’d be less need for special interest groups or lobbyists to push for this or that Very Important Consideration in our tax code. (Yeah, yeah, I know.)

There’s this, too, in Clinton’s plan:

The campaign said the tax credit proposal would require accountability for employment and earnings outcomes for businesses receiving the credit. Apprentices would need to be registered in order to be eligible.

The Progressive gives, and the Progressive takes away.   The savings gained from her tax credit will be fully recouped in the costs of compliance. However, the government will grow, and more IRS bureaucrats will be hired, so it’s all good.

Note, too, that this doesn’t begin to address jobs availability in the ensuing robust, growing economy.

YGTBSM

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The federal government cannot verify nearly $3 billion in subsidies distributed through Obamacare, putting significant taxpayer funding “at risk,” according to a new audit report.

HHS’ Office of Inspector General (OIG) said

[The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] CMS’s internal controls did not effectively ensure the accuracy of nearly $2.8 billion in aggregate financial assistance payments made to insurance companies under the Affordable Care Act during the first four months that these payments were made.

Three findings from the audit [emphasis added]:

  • did not have systems in place to ensure that financial assistance payments were made on be half of confirmed enrollees and in the correct amounts,
  • did not have systems in place for State marketplaces to submit enrollee eligibility data for financial assistance payments, and
  • did not always follow its guidance for calculating advance CSR payments and does not plan to perform a timely reconciliation of these payments.

That last is mindboggling.

This administration’s performance, both with Obamacare and with information security generally, just keeps on getting better and better. The audit can be seen here.

Federal Security and Privacy

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A government data warehouse stores personal information forever on millions of people who seek coverage under President Obama’s health care law, including those who open an account on HealthCare.gov [ObamaMart] but don’t sign up for coverage.

The Feds are proud of that, too:

The health care system, known as MIDAS, is described on a federal website as the “perpetual central repository” for information that the Affordable Care Act authorizes federal agencies to collect.

“Data in MIDAS is maintained indefinitely at this time,” says another document, a government privacy assessment dated Jan 15.

Never mind that

Marilyn Tavenner, the Medicare administrator at the time, told a congressional hearing that the program’s technology infrastructure was designed “to minimize all possible security vulnerability.”

“And we especially focused on storing the minimum amount of personal data possible[.]”

Or that proper information security technique has data destroyed after a fixed period of time, not held in perpetuity, or for as long as convenient to the holder of those data.

And this gem:

The Obama administration says MIDAS is essential to the smooth operation of the health care law’s insurance markets and meets or exceeds federal security and privacy standards.

The Obama administration has shown us, with OPM, just how shockingly low those security and privacy standards are.

Hmm….