Obama Proposes Tax Increase That’s Bigger Than Entire Earth!
| July 2nd, 2008Kent: Senator Dole, why should people vote for you instead of President Clinton?
Kang: It makes no difference which one of us you vote for. Either way, your planet is doomed. DOOMED!
Kent: Well, a refreshingly frank response there from senator Bob Dole.
–The Simpsons, “Treehouse of Horror VII”1
Jesse at Pandagon links to an article asking us to gnash teeth and rend garments because under Obama’s proposals, Tiger Woods and Roger Clemens will pay more in taxes. O, the humanity! O, cruel, cruel Obama; hasn’t Tiger suffered enough?
The writer of the article — Hank Adler, a professor of accounting — goes on to say:
Only once since 1917 has there been a tax-rate increase equal to or greater than the two twin tax proposals being made by Obama. That tax increase, the Revenue Act of 1932, was proposed by Herbert Hoover. The result was an even greater budget deficit, plummeting tax revenue and a lengthier Great Depression.
Oh noooooos! We’re doomed! DOOOOOOOMED! The economy could never survive an Obama-sized tax increase!
Or could it?
Obama’s proposed tax increase2 would be $9 billion in 2009, and increase to $28 billion by the end of his first term.
And as Professor Adler says, there hasn’t been a tax increase that big since 1932.
Oh, except for 1951’s $45 billion dollar tax increase.3
Oh, and the $38 billion in 1990. And the $39 billion in 1982 (signed by Ronald Reagan himself!).
Not to mention the $100 billion tax increase in 1968, and the $133 billion in 1942. To me, $133 billion sounds bigger than $28 billion, but what do I know?
Then there’s 1941, 1951, 1978, 1993…. In fact, our economy has routinely absorbed tax increases as large or larger than we’d expect under Obama, without causing worldwide depressions.4
I guess maybe the economy won’t blow up if Tiger Woods pays more in taxes. Whew!
- Okay, this quote is barely relevant to anything, but it’s one of my favorite Simpsons quotes ever. (back)
- Incidentally, the law to raise taxes was proposed by George Bush, not by Obama — all the tax increases would be the result of Bush’s tax cuts, which were designed by Bush’s people to expire in 2009. Strictly speaking, Obama’s proposals — which lower taxes compared to the status quo laws Bush signed — are tax cuts. Bush has since said he wants the tax cuts made perminant, but that doesn’t change the fact that the President who signed the 2009 tax increase into law was George Bush, not Barack Obama. (back)
- This and all other figures in this post are given in 2008 dollars. (back)
- Sources: The Tax Policy Center’s Analysis of Obama and McCain’s tax plans (pdf link), “Revenue Effects of Major Tax Bills” by Jerry Tempalski (pdf link), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ online inflation calculator. (back)
July 2nd, 2008 at 7:18 am
Personally I think headline figures for the tax take, and whether and by how much it increases or decreases are of little significance. What matters is spending - how much and what on.
There are three (in reality just one) ways to fund public spending:
1. Current Taxation.
2. Deferred Taxation (borrowing).
3. Inflationary Taxation (devaluing Government loans denominated in the currency).
All three of these methods take wealth out of private and corporate pockets, though they differ in terms of whose pockets. Moreover, the amount taken doesn’t depend upon the method. In the long run, it always balances the spending.
So forget the taxation plans. Tell us about their spending plans instead. How much and what on?
(Edited to clarify: I realise that Amp’s comments were intended to critique the media focus on this issue. My criticism is aimed at the same media, not at Amp’s post.)
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July 2nd, 2008 at 7:45 am
And as Professor Adler says, there hasn’t been a tax increase that big since 1932.
But this isn’t what Adler says. He says there hasn’t been a tax-rate
[Aaargh! Michael made an error with his bold coding, which I was editing his comment to correct -- as I routinely do on "Alas." But somehow, my edit screwed up and made everything after the bold disappear!
This is particularly horrible of me to do, because Micheal's comment included an important clarification of what Alder's intention was -- Alder was talking, not about a tax increase, but about an increase in the top rate of taxes paid by the wealthiest taxpayer.
Michael, I hope you'll post again and re-create the comment I managed to lose. I apologize for my mess-up. --Amp]
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July 2nd, 2008 at 7:56 am
Obama’s proposed increases target the self-employed. This is the population that is most able to alter their activities in response to tax burdens. Wal-Mart is kind of locked-in; Tiger Woods can stay home. I think Adler’s argument is that we don’t really want Tiger Woods staying home.
Now, is Tiger going to completely quit because the revenue split between him and Obama goes from 53-47 to 47-53? Probably not. But at the margin, there will be a fairly significant shift in peoples’ activities.
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July 2nd, 2008 at 8:20 am
Ahh, but will there? And if so, which way?
1. Highly productive people will produce less, because the net financial reward for each unit of production is reduced.
2. Highly productive people will produce more, in order to maintain their net income and standard of living.
3. Highly productive people will produce the same, because their income already greatly exceeds their needs, and is not the motivator for their productivity.
All three arguments seem plausible, and are probably true to some degree, But what’s the overall effect? Does anyone have any cites to empirical investigations into these questions, or are we all baselessly assuming facts which accord with our political leanings?
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July 2nd, 2008 at 9:56 am
I don’t have a cite handy but the economic consensus is (1). (2) and (3) undoubtedly happen on individual cases, but are swamped by the general phenomenon. There is a lively debate over the magnitude of the effect; it’s probably relatively modest when you’re talking about non-seismic shifts in the tax burden, in terms of total effects. The shift might be significant at the margin, but an awful lot of activity takes place away from the margins.
Obama’s plans wouldn’t be the end of the US entrepreneurial economy, they’d just be another bucket of water thrown into the bilge. Whether the bilge can take it really depends on the psychology of the economy at the moment. In boom times, it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference. In bad times, people are probably more susceptible to marginal effects.
If you’d like a safe bet, it’s this: the economic proposals of both Obama and McCain are likely to be moronic. Fortunately, Presidents have only a limited ability to directly impact the economy, and what ability they do have is filtered by Congress. That’s why we do so well when the parties split the branches of government; no idiocy can get through the gridlock and the wealth producers can get on with it.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
July 2nd, 2008 at 11:28 am
I don’t disagree in principle, but the problem is that the same argument is used in boom times: “Do we risk ending the boom by taxing our highest producers a bit more? It wouldn’t matter in bust times, when we really needed the money, but right now our coffers are full, so …”
I mean (and to be clear, Robert, I’m not specifically accusing you of this, it’s just that your comment sparked a thought), the problem with a universal anti-tax philosophy is that I feel like I can’t take any of the arguments seriously, since they all boil down to ‘taxes are bad’ no matter what the surrounding circumstance.
—Myca
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July 2nd, 2008 at 11:40 am
Also known as the ‘yeah, I lived through the 90’s, why do you ask,’ argument.
—Myca
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July 2nd, 2008 at 11:49 am
Taxes are bad. So that’s all right ;)
But there’s bad, and there’s bad. Taxing bazillionaires 0.1% of their net each year to fund orphanages for the children of dead war heroes, it’s worth it. Taxing the poor 90% of their wealth on a daily basis to pay for additional diamonds on the First Lady’s tiara, not worth it. In between is where the harder calls have to be made.
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July 2nd, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Oh, sure sure. I don’t disagree, laffer curve! laffer curve!, etc.
My point is more that I’ve been conditioned to treat that argument as a disingenuous one nearly all of the time because the time for the ‘exception’ never seems to come. I mean, when someone says to you “I don’t oppose all tax hikes, just bad ones,” I think it’s reasonable to ask, “Which tax hikes of the past 20 years have you been in favor of?”
—Myca
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July 2nd, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Personally, I like most tax hikes. But I particularly like death taxes on high value estates and taxes on capital gains. Oh, and corporate taxes, of course.
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July 2nd, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Wouldn’t it make sense to look at the historical record to see if high taxes actually correlate with economic downturns? We could, for example, examine the period in US history when taxes on upper incomes were at their highest, beginning in 1945.
This comment was written by W.B. Reeves.Report this comment to the moderators
July 2nd, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Eh, that would take work. So I’ll just bloviate about two econ topics in general:
1. Backward-bending labor supply: When you raise the price for most goods or services, you generally get more of them produced. But labor, unlike almost any other commodity, does not always follow this pattern. That’s because as people get richer, they consume more of darned near everything – including leisure.
All else being equal, a tax works like a pay cut, reduces the price a worker receives for her labor. Thus, at the lower end of the pay scale I’d expect a tax to diminish the supply of labor. But at the upper end, I’d expect it to increase the supply, simply because I’d expect to be moving back along a downward-bending curve.
2. Rents: Price performs two functions. First, it allocates goods and services among buyers – that is, the guy who is willing to pay the most gets the good or service. Second, price signals when a producer should supply more and when she should supply less of any given good or service. Specifically, if a producer can charge more than her marginal cost of production, she’d typically want to produce more; if not, then not.
“Rents”refers to the amount a seller can charge above the seller’s marginal cost of supply. Curious that people would use the examples of Tiger Woods in this contexts: professional athletes and entertainers are famous for their rents. That is, the price you pay to have Tiger Woods come to your event has EVERYTHING to do with allocating his scare time among many competing demands, but it has NOTHING to do with his marginal cost of production. The supply of Tiger Woods is pretty much fixed, regardless of the demand.
Taxes create a “deadweight social loss” when they discourage people from transactions that otherwise would have happened. If you tax someone’s income enough that he quits his job and takes up a different pursuit, that presumably creates a deadweight social loss.
Now, what is Tiger Wood’s best alternative to being a professional athlete? Say it’s driving a cab. Consider how much you’d need to tax his income before he’d switch to his second-choice career. That’s a pretty big tax, huh? Now, let’s tax him one dollar less than that. Now we’ve raised the maximum revenues without altering anyone behavior. All wealth transfer, no deadweight social loss – the perfect tax!
(Of course, this is a stylized example. The choice to be a professional athlete is not a unitary, all-or-nothing proposition. As discussed regarding the “backward-bending labor curve,” if taxes discouraged Tiger from pursuing an additional hour of golf, Tiger would probably substitute an hour of leisure rather than an hour of cab driving. But the larger public finance principle remains.)
The most efficient tax is an excise tax, designed to achieve the very behavior change it causes. (Pro-life people should support the “Death tax;” it discourages people from dying!) The second best tax is a tax on rents because it triggers the fewest changes in behavior. Thus if we have to raise additional revenues (and we do), Obama’s tax might be about as good as it gets.
This comment was written by nobody.really.Report this comment to the moderators
July 3rd, 2008 at 12:50 am
Myca:
If we accept the premise that raising taxes and government spending hurts the economy, then it’s always bad to raise taxes unless they’re too low. But the specifics of the cost-benefit analysis depend on the situation. In boom times, the cost of raising taxes might not be as great, but neither are the benefits. Poverty rates are lower, the government has plenty of money, and any new spending will be unsustainable once the boom ends. When the economy’s weak, the benefits of increased revenue and spending may be greater, but so are the costs.
And we get the opposite logic from the left. When the economy’s strong, there’s plenty of money to go around, so it’s a good time to raise taxes and create a bunch of new programs. When the economy heads south, then the government’s struggling to make ends meet (mostly because it jacked up spending during the boom), and we get a bunch of sob stories about how we need new programs to help the victims of the downturn.
Each side focuses on what it sees as the most significant side of the cost-benefit analysis. There may be some cognitive bias involved, but it’s not disingenuous.
By the way, nobody.really, could you send me an e-mail? The address is my full name at GMail.
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July 3rd, 2008 at 2:22 am
Me:
Robert:
I’ll take that as a ‘yes’.
By ‘general phenomenon’ you mean that increased taxation inhibits the economy.
What kind of consensus are we talking about here. Do you mean that economists are unanimous that this happens? Remember that was your definition of “consensus” when we debated global warming. Or do you have different standards for what constitutes a ‘consensus’ in favour of theories that agree with your politics vs. those that don’t.
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July 3rd, 2008 at 7:41 am
Do you mean that economists are unanimous that this happens?
I haven’t talked to all of the economists. Some of them live far away, and Bill doesn’t return my calls after that whole thing with his sister. But as far as I know, all economists accept, as a broad proposition, that “higher tax = lower activity”. Googling things like “marginal tax rate effect on economy” brings up lots of papers of people discussing “how much”; I don’t see anybody saying “nuh unh does not either!” Even Marxist economists accept the whole supply-meets-demand theme, and intrinsic to that logic is the notion that a higher price means a lower demand. A tax is a price increase, ergo…
The thing to bear in mind is, economics as a discipline is tricky. There are always oddball cases. Low-value workers and the minimum wage may be an example of an oddball case, for example, where raising the price of a worker doesn’t necessarily lower the demand for that class of workers - at that particular margin, there’s enough slack in the system to shift hiring practices rather than reducing jobs. In the case of marginal taxation, it’s entirely possible that in some scenarios some small net value of tax might not have a measurable negative effect. That doesn’t disprove the general principle. The analogy I would use is the accelerator on a car. Generally speaking, stomping the accelerator makes you go faster. There are undoubtedly scenarios where for one reason or another that isn’t true; but as a general rule, it is true.
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July 3rd, 2008 at 8:04 am
I would assume that most economists would favor increasing the estate tax, because under the standard economic model, the higher the estate tax is, the less likely rich people are to die.
This comment was written by Rich B..Report this comment to the moderators
July 3rd, 2008 at 8:32 am
It does tend to work that way, even if only on paper. ;P
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July 3rd, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Okay, I have nothing to add other than: Don’t blame me. I voted for Kodos.
This comment was written by Raznor.Report this comment to the moderators
July 3rd, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Abortions for some, small American flags for others!
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July 3rd, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Tax
An auto-recessor ‘taxcut’ of the sort George Bush proposed is common in Europe. Essentially the taxcut expect a two term. Raising taxes would imply that America has infrastructure needs it didn’t in 2000 but for a problem which came up called 1938 bankrupt waterbrick. Too bad, it would give the money to Iraq war over 1993 dechanelling.
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July 3rd, 2008 at 7:02 pm
So in other words, you’re saying higher taxes discourage the poor from working, while they encourage the well-to-do. Interesting. That’s the opposite of what I usually hear. It’s a nice change of pace, but I’m still skeptical of psychic economic mindreading that ascribes different motivations to the rich and to the poor. (”If you give the poor too much, they’ll stop being productive. If you give the rich more, they’ll be even more productive, because every ounce of their labour comes with a greater average reward.”)
Scare time? Is he moonlighting as a zombie in a haunted house ride?
Well, excise taxes are usually more about discouraging certain behaviours (rightly or wrongly, usually wrongly) than about raising government funds.
I agree, but not for the same reason. A tax on rents is optimal not because it doesn’t alter behaviour, but because it alters behaviour away from a market inefficient outcome: namely, a markup of price above marginal cost, when the two should ideally be one and the same. It also works from an ethical perspective - the highest markups tend to be associated with the least competitive markets, so the revenue that’s being taxes is less “earned” than that in a more competitive field.
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July 3rd, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Actually, I think your post on your own blog on Generalities vs. Exceptions holds the answer. A “consensus” is a majority opinion to which disagreement is exceptional within the relevant field.
Most physicists believe in the existence of the Higgs boson, but there’s nothing exceptional about a physicist who doesn’t. Higgs-skeptics don’t self-congregate at the proverbial lunch table, they aren’t identified by their opposition to that theory, and they don’t carry a siege mentality or a cult of victimhood about their idea. They are regular scientists respected in their field who happen to disagree with their colleagues on a certain point.
However, most climatogists do believe that anthropomorphic climate forcing (known by lesser rubes as “global warming”) is happening, and the few that are in opposition definitely are an “exception”. Thus there is a climatological consensus on global warming.
It definitely seems to be true that economists’ consensus does coalesce around (1), though, putting my finger to the wind, it doesn’t seem as strong as scientists’ consensus on global warming. Of course, to say that
… is hell of an understatement, because as a social science economics is not directly testable the way physics and climatology are. Therefore, I don’t put as much store in economists’ consensus as I do from fields in the hard sciences. The best way I can put is… economists differentiate between “normative” (value-judgmental) vs. “positive” (value-neutral) economics. And real economists must, of course, practice the latter. But it is in the nature of a social science, I think, to be normative. I don’t really think there is such a thing as positive economics*.
*The exception would be where economics overlaps with finance, which are more dependent on pure mathematics and thus freer from value judgments.
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July 3rd, 2008 at 9:01 pm
OK.
But my point was against Robert who, in the past, has argued against the existence of a consensus among climatologists on anthropic global warming on the grounds that he could cite a handful of dissenters. It seems that his definition of ‘consensus’ varies according to whether it suits or conflicts with his politics.
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July 3rd, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Right, so if we reduce taxes to zero we’d have the highest activity of all. Of course that would mean reducing spending to zero too.
Think about it. No spending on roads, on police, on defence, on prisons, on hospitals, on schools. America’s economy would boom.
So, does the consensus of economists really advocate “no taxation” (hence no spending) over “some taxation”?
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July 4th, 2008 at 12:18 am
So, does the consensus of economists really advocate “no taxation” (hence no spending) over “some taxation”?
No, it doesn’t. Nor is that what I said. We’re talking about at the margin, not in terms of absolutes and extremes. Vitamin D is good for you; if I drop fifty thousand pounds of it on your head, you’ll die. At the margin, increasing your consumption of it by 10% is probably going to slightly improve your health.
My opinion of “consensus” is what it’s always been: no meaningful level of dissent. On AGW, many scientists disagree with the “consensus view”. There’s certainly a preponderance of professional opinion, although it is weaker than AGW proponents claim; there isn’t consensus. On the economics of taxation, as far as I am aware, there are no economists who reject the broad principle at the margin. If you know of one, speak up.
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July 4th, 2008 at 1:22 am
Robert, you said that the economic consensus is that if a tax increase like Obama’s becomes law, “Highly productive people will produce less, because the net financial reward for each unit of production is reduced.”
Then, later, you claimed that “all economists accept, as a broad proposition, that ‘higher tax = lower activity’.”
The two claims aren’t interchangable. There probably is a consensus among economists for the latter statement, because it’s a broad proposition — obviously, if taxes are raised ENOUGH, they will suppress economic activity — but that doesn’t mean that there’s a consensus for the earlier statement.
* * *
As for global warming, two years ago, in the discussion I believe Daran was referring to, you claimed that “There’s no consensus among international scientists that anthropogenic global warming exists.”
You were wrong then, and you’re wrong now.
At best [*], the link you provided shows that there’s no consensus among some people, most of whom don’t have PhDs, and most of whom don’t work in a relevant field, that greenhouse gases will cause a catastrophe. Even if the petition is accurate, and not a scam, that doesn’t change the fact that there’s a consensus among climatologists that “anthropogenic global warming exists.”
I suspect that there’s a similar consensus that global climate change could plausibly lead to disastrous consequences for many people. According to Scientific American, only a small fraction of climatologists agree with the Oregon Petition as it’s currently written; it’s safe to bet that the fraction would be even smaller if it were modified to use less certain language.
[*] And that really is the best-case scenario — there are a lot of reasons to doubt the validity of the survey you cited.
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July 4th, 2008 at 5:24 am
Edit from earlier: I should have said, anthropogenic climate forcing, not anthropomorphic. Anthropomorphic would mean climate change is taking on the physical or emotional characteristics of a human being. On that, I can agree there is no scientific consensus.
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July 4th, 2008 at 6:27 am
I’m not responsible for Daran’s formulation; you’re right that his phrasing and mine aren’t equivalent. Accordingly, I shouldn’t have said there was a consensus on his formulation, but only on mine.
You’re grasping at comparatives on AGW. “Most of whom don’t have PhDs” is still 9,000 who do. “Most of whom don’t work in a relevant field” is disingenuous; I’m pretty sure that math, physics, earth science, meterorology, etc. are all “relevant fields”, and that’s about 10,000 signatories (or ~3,000 “relevant PhDs”). Another third are engineers, which is a fairly broad-based competence.
“Only a small fraction” is quite enough to demolish consensus. And I note with quiet satisfaction (well, not that quiet) that you’re backing down from “consensus of international scientists” to “consensus of climatologists”. Give it a couple more years and it’ll be “consensus of climatologists who signed the IPCC reports”.
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July 4th, 2008 at 9:28 am
Comment deleted by Decnavda after rereading the comment to which he was replying.
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July 4th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Well now we’re curious.
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July 5th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Of course there is. Everyone knows that the increase in hurricane activity in the Carribean is because the weather hates America.
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
July 5th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
No, I do not agree that someone who specialises in designing bridges is necessarily competent to opine on whether there is “convincing scientific evidence” on the subject of Anthropic Global Warming. The criteria for that is 1. “has formal training in the analysis of information in physical science”, and 2. “has studied the evidence“. I took criterion one from the petition, and to be quite honest, They’ve set the hurdle pretty low there to start with. Dammit even I qualify (or would if I was American), and I haven’t done anything scientific in twenty years.
As for criterion 2, well, there’s apparently no need so certify to any knowledge about the subject at all. You don’t even need to have read their review paper.
And on the subject of their paper: “This article was submitted to many scientists for comments and suggestions…”
Which scientists, and what did they say about it? In particular do those who were cited agree that their research has been fairly represented?
“…before it was finalized and submitted for publication. It then underwent ordinary peer review by the publishing journal.”
Which was “Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons”, whose review panel is stacked with experts in climatology, I’m sure. I wonder how many journals they had to go through before they found one that would publish it.
It’s an astroturf campaign.
The phrase was mine, and to honest, I never thought you would be so desperate to deny AGW that you would dismiss the experts in the field, in favour of those ignorant on the subject. Clearly I seriously underestimated your intellectual dishonesty.
Your own definition of consensus also appears to have changed. Back then it was “nobody who should be taken seriously doubts the consensus theory”. A single dissenter is enough: “Lindzer is a top man, and he says “no”. That’s enough to blow up consensus right there.”
I agreed that Lindzer should be taken seriously. His views on who should be taken seriously, should also be taken seriously:
Ditto their disagreement, which pretty well dismisses your petition, and leaves us with… well, with Lindzer.
By your consensus criterion back then, there is no consensus among cosmologists that the Big Bang ever happened, among physicists that Newton’s laws of motion are correct (Eric Laithwaite, for example), even among mathematicians about whether a theorem has been proven (De Branges, for example, thinks he has proven the Riemann hypothesis, but most mathematicians disagree).
Are you seriously claiming that there is not a single economist who favours Obama’s policies over McCain’s?
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July 5th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Are you seriously claiming that there is not a single economist who favours Obama’s policies over McCain’s?
No, I’m not. You can tell what I claim; it’s the stuff I claim.
There are a dozen reasons why an economist might favor Obama’s policy over McCain’s. “This underlying principle of economics doesn’t actually function the way we think it functions” just isn’t one of them. A trend at the margin is not always the smart way to act; economic growth, while important, is not the ultimate value.
Since AGW is a tertiary issue to this thread, at best, I won’t continue to advance the argument, other than to note that “astroturf” campaigns are those which are funded by someone (usually someone with an agenda) to appear grassroots. I have seen no evidence that this is the case with the Oregon petition; if you have any such evidence, I’m sure it would be of remarkable interest, and you should blog about it. But you don’t; you’re using “astroturf” to mean “people who are refusing to accept the narrative that I’ve accepted”. Everything I’ve seen indicates that the Oregon petition is a self-organizing group.
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July 6th, 2008 at 1:08 am
Then I really wish you would state your claims precisely. This conversation started when you said “But at the margin, there will be a fairly significant shift in peoples’ activities.” You didn’t even say which way they would shift. OK, it was easy for me to guess that you meant toward less productivity. But I shouldn’t have to guess.
So, sorry for guessing wrong about the details of your position. Next time, state it more clearly, so that we won’t have to guess.
There are indeed a dozen or more reasons why Obama’s economic policy might actually be better than McCain’s*. There are certainly a dozen or more factors that ought to be taken into consideration. So why aren’t we talking about them? Why do economic discussion with rightwingers always tunnel-vision onto the tax take?
*I know next to nothing about the policies of either, but I do have a BSc in mathematics. Perhaps I should sign a petition.
I totally accept that, taking nothing else into account, taxation always or nearly always operates to depress economic activity - assuming the same public spending, productivity is negatively correlated to taxation.
The opposite is true for spending. Assuming the same taxation, productivity is positively correlated to spending.
But neither assumption is valid. Taxation pays for spending. To assess the impact of a tax cut on the economy, you need to look not just at the effect of the change in taxation, but also of the cut in spending necessated to enable it. (If spending is not cut, rather funded by borrowing, then that’s not a real tax cut, just a tax deferral.)
So why has my first post in this thread met with such deafening silence?
I don’t really have time to research it right now, but I find this alleged groundswell of dissent against the climatological consensus highly suspicious. You don’t see it in many other scientific fields. You don’t see, for example, petitions signed by large numbers of non-medical scientists to the effect that doctors have it all wrong. You don’t see people who aren’t engineers jumping up and down and complaining that the principles of engineering are bunk.
When science is attacked in this way, it is invariably because it’s either inconvenient to big business (tobacco is a historical example where the astroturfing has been documented) or it offends some people’s religious sensibilities (evolution).
But ultimately, whether or not the petition is sponsored by vested interests isn’t that important. The petition has no credibility because those who sign it aren’t experts in the field, and aren’t verifiablly experts in any field.
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July 6th, 2008 at 9:11 am
Daran brought up the journal this article was published in. That journal is pretty much a scam; it’s not even listed in pubmed, because it’s a political hack sheet, not as a scientific journal.
The person who organized the Oregon Petition spent his scientific career in the pay of tobacco companies, claiming that there’s no evidence that cigarrette smoking causes cancer. No credibility problems there.
Robert:
Either through carelessness or ignorance, you’re shifting the case. The 9,000 you cite have nothing to do with AGW, because the petition didn’t disagree with the premise that there is AGW.
Could you please address this? Because at this point, I’m not sure if you realize what the Oregon Petition — piece of crap that it is — actually said.
Scientific American estimated (based on a small sample they surveyed) that when you eliminate the uncredentialed, the folks in irrelevant fields, and the folks who didn’t recall signing any such petition, there were about 200 signatories left in the Oregon petition.
It’s hard to say for certain, since we have only the Oregon Petitioners’ word for it that there has ever been any independent check of the validity of the signatures, and the list isn’t formatted in a way to allow independent checking of all the names. (Because they don’t list institutional affiliations.)
So (for example) one-tenth of a percent is enough to demolish consensus, in your view?
I don’t recall that I ever made a claim about “international scientists,” to be able to back down from it.
My belief is that the consensus among actual experts (i.e., not the flat-earthers with no relevant credentials you prefer as experts) exists internationally. But for all I know there’s some country where right-wing religious conservatives have succeeded in repressing all alternative views. In such a country, it is possible that there is no scientific consensus on global warming.
Lacking such a country, however, I’m certain that the consensus is international.
Robert, the momentum is entirely in the other direction.
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July 6th, 2008 at 9:30 am
That was my claim, in the thread from two years ago.
That’s a bit harsh, in my opinion. I’m sure there are some among the signatories who would fit that description, but the majority, I suspect, are just deceived. For all my skepticism, it never occured to me that such a respectable-sounding organ as the “Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons” might not, in fact, be a reputable scientific publication. It sounds so… well… so respectable.
Nice bit of social engineering, that.
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July 6th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Well, I didn’t want to derail the thread further with AGW arguments, since it was a tangential point, but you’re arguing it and it’s your thread, so I guess by definition that’s not a derail. ;P
I recognize what the petition says. The text, in full:
That sounds like AGW to me. If you’re quibbling about the word “catastrophic” - well, OK, I’ll grant you that there could be AGW that wasn’t catastrophic, and this petition doesn’t address that. But if it isn’t catastrophic, then who cares? The cure for AGW with modest effects is to wait and see what happens, because the climate changes modestly ALL THE TIME.
In reality, proponents of AGW believe it is a catastrophe, that requires large adjustments in our economy and our political institutions to save us from the floodwaters. Al Gore is not concerned that there will be a 2 cm rise in sea level. You can’t have it both ways; if AGW is this huge problem, then this petition is in fact talking about AGW.
The person who organized the Oregon Petition spent his scientific career in the pay of tobacco companies, claiming that there’s no evidence that cigarrette smoking causes cancer. No credibility problems there.
Frederick Seitz was a brilliant physicist of distinction. He spent the first 35 years of his career as a physicist. In 1979, around the time he retired from his equally distinguished career as the President of the National Academy of Sciences and as President of Rockefeller University, he consulted for RJ Reynolds as an advisor to their research program, for about ten years. If you have a cite of him saying what you claim he said, I’d love to see it. Otherwise I am going to dismiss this as a smear.
Scientific American estimated (based on a small sample they surveyed) that when you eliminate the uncredentialed, the folks in irrelevant fields, and the folks who didn’t recall signing any such petition, there were about 200 signatories left in the Oregon petition.
Scientific American wrote in 2005 that:
My bold. That was in 2005, when the petition had about 1400 atmospheric and earth scientists; today it has 3,697. Their sample was tiny and their methods self-admittedly crude. Equally crudely, the number today would be 528.
By your own cite and criteria, there are more than 500 climatologists who disagree with the “consensus” position.
So (for example) one-tenth of a percent is enough to demolish consensus, in your view?
Depends on the one-tenth of a percent; if it’s all nobodies, maybe not. If Lindzer is in there, then yes.
The problem you have here is that “consensus” is a very, very strong word. It’s a word that anyone with a political agenda would like to have on their side. But it’s also a word that requires a pretty rigorous standard. See below.
I don’t recall that I ever made a claim about “international scientists,” to be able to back down from it.
See your comment #26. I claimed that there was no consensus of international scientists; you said I was wrong. If you assert that I’m wrong in my negative statement, then that to me translates you to asserting the positive statement.
Lacking such a country, however, I’m certain that the consensus is international.
OK…then why are you even bringing it up?
Tell you what, let’s be fair. You tell me what your claim is, regarding the consensus, and tell me what it would take to falsify that claim. How many scientists have to disagree, before you will admit that it isn’t a consensus? One? One thousand? One million?
You tell me.
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July 6th, 2008 at 11:50 am
Okay, but you implied a false equivalence between (1) taxes affect economic behaviour at the margins, a statement so general if not banal that the null hypothesis would really take some extraordinary evidence, and (2) Al Gore is right. From this, I’m guessing the expected conclusion is that right wing anti-income tax positions are more grounded in its respective field than is climate change.
The problem is, this is a stacked and invalid comparison. The logical counterpart to “taxes affect behaviour at the margins” isn’t “everything lefties say about global warming is true” (which I basically agree with, mostly if not everything, but that’s beside the point), but “broad-scale human activity can affect the weather”. And the counterpart to “Al Gore was right” on climate change is “G. W. Bush was right” on tax cuts. How many economists do you think dissented with Bush’s tax cuts? That’s the question you should be asking if you want to draw out this comparison.
Sure, they can be - meteorologists, physicists, and mathematicians could have worked on climate change in the past and penned their name to a paper or at least a respectable article on the subject, for instance. Those that haven’t, however, are no more qualified to speak on the veracity of climate change than are climatologists who haven’t done either of the above - who are themselves are no more qualified than a CERN physicist or a mechanical engineer is to head NASA’s astronomy department.
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July 6th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
To be clear, the only reason I referenced the AGW discussion was for Robert’s explanation for what he thinks the word “consensus” means. All other analogies belong to their respective authors.
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July 6th, 2008 at 11:19 pm
The Problem with Progressivity
There’s an argument in the comments section of this post at Alas about the effects of marginal tax rates on labor supply.
I do think that there’s something to the idea that the short-term labor supply is somewhat inelastic. Ronald Reagan’s stories …
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July 7th, 2008 at 6:32 am
Well, of course taxes are bad. They take money from people without their consent. Plus, it ends up going to the government, and as P. J. O’Rourke says giving money to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
Here in Illinois we have a desperate need for capital investment in things like roads, bridges, sewage systems, etc. Stuff that pretty much everyone agrees is the proper kind of thing for government to spend money on. But there’s no support from the electorate that spends its time driving over the crappy roads and dangerous bridges for getting a capital bill passed because we are convinced that large amounts of the money will be wasted through corrupt practices. We’d rather buy new shocks for our cars than see the buddies and relatives and political contributors of Blago and Stroger and Daley line their pockets while building slightly less shitty roads and bridges and take forever doing it.
[ /rant ] [it's true, though]
[back on topic]
Frankly, I’m more interested in seeing what Sen. Obama wants to do with this money, and why he doesn’t think we can’t re-allocate money from existing taxes for the purpose. Taxes are a necessary evil if you’re going to have a functioning government, but they are an evil nonetheless regardless of the target group you’re taking them from. The issue is not whether or not the people you are taking them from will or will not miss the money or whether or not they got the money they have in a fashion that people approve of, but what the money is going to be used for and whether the purpose they are going to be used for is properly the role of government as opposed to private action.
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