The New Republic

Right on. But BHO won't like or do any of them. He's an Eisenhower Republican.

- drofnats1

September 20, 2012 at 4:41pm

That pretty well covers it. Thank you, Mr. Noah. I would add only three things: (1) Single-payer medical coverage, with government controls of consumption and prices, as far too much of our economy is devoted to medical costs, and growing, (2) public financing for graduate education for whatever disciplines we need, including doctors when the lure of million dollar incomes is gone, so that we do not need to import labor but the benefits of higher skills flow to American workers, (3) a strong commitment to replacing fraying public infrastructure and then maintaining it, this would increase labor demand and wages and obviate the need and adverse impact of other measures. We do the things on your list plus the things on mine and America will be a paradise for all of its inhabitants. All of them.

- roidubouloi

September 20, 2012 at 4:42pm

Reading Noah's list strikes me as radical; and yet nothing on the list is something that we haven't done before (except scrapping the payroll tax, but the payroll tax of yesteryear was small beans - it was the enormous increase in the payroll tax during Reagan's presidency that has made the tax so regressive and addicted Republicans to it). We are so conditioned to conservative policy preferences that even ordinary Democratic policies of the past seem radical. If we can re-condition ourselves to those policies, who knows, maybe Noah will start wearing bell bottoms again.

- rayward

September 20, 2012 at 5:12pm

"3.) Import more skilled labor. This is the one idea on my list that Republicans will probably like better than Democrats. Business is clamoring for more H-1B visas for highly-skilled guest workers, and I say let’s give it to ’em. The domestic shortage of highly-skilled labor is not only holding back U.S. industry; it’s also contributing to income inequality by bidding up the price of highly-skilled laborers." You're falling for that claptrap? There is no shortage in the technology fields. It's industry trying to drive down wages: http://spectrum.ieee.org/podcast/at-work/tech-careers/why-bad-jobsor-no-jobshappen-to-good-workers This entire thing has been debunked several times over but industry keeps repeating it. There is no shortage, never was in the tech fields. It's funny that the Germans don't have this issue. I've worked in the tech sector for 25 yrs. and the shortage is in management intelligence. Dilbert for us cubicle dwellers is more fact than humor.

- tmmats

September 20, 2012 at 5:14pm

Love this list, esp. #8 -- holy cow, so much good work could be done just in our town! -- and #4. One of our kids earned two years of public preschool because of "special needs." The results were, no joke, astounding. True, s/he is smart, sweet, (etc etc :), but preschool literally changed our child's life by providing explicit lessons in how to succeed, such as working hard, listening carefully and being respectful. Folks can't believe our child has "special needs," and the reason is public preschool (and Early Intervention, for kids younger than 3). Our other, "less special" (?) kid would benefit from two years of preschool too, but for different reasons. Preschool for everykid!

- Wonderland

September 20, 2012 at 6:50pm

The list is anything BUT radical. It's radical compared to the Repub right-- that have made lots of ideological noise for decades w/o pushback. So long as this continues (and it will with BHO as Prez), the country will move further and further right toward policy positions to which pluralities to majorities do not suppport.

- drofnats1

September 20, 2012 at 9:59pm

I love this list. But it's so difficult to fight entrenched interests! I read that Congress wants to repeal the 80/20 rule in the ACA - that 80% of the insurance money has to go to medical care - in order to protect insurance agent's commissions. Well - as long as medical care has to include the cost of insurance agents' commissions we are never going to get affordable care, ever. And the WPA, oh that would be marvelous. What that would mean for artists alone. It would be a g*dsend.

- Sophia

September 20, 2012 at 10:19pm

the impetus for soaring tutition is much the same as for health care; maintaining quality education is considered much like "spare-no-cost" for medical services. the result is that the imperitive for controlling costs correctly is still more difficult than it should be. yet such--and moving the minimum wage upward and correctly indexing it to inflation (and with a better measure of inflation than many that have been used too often) in a prudent way is way overdue. that such hasn't been a major subject in the campaign, tho, is entirely politic--if Obama will have been re-elected, etc. i'd say these two priorities are more urgent than many.

- cdmcl3

September 21, 2012 at 6:10am

please forgive my typos

- cdmcl3

September 21, 2012 at 6:12am

One may not notice what all of Noah's prescriptions have in common. They are all in common, by which I mean designed to help all Americans not just "special interests". The Republicans have successfully painted the Democrats as the party of "special interests": seniors, gays and lesbians, women, immigrants, African Americans. Of course, Democrats have been more than accommodating. And like a golfer or baseball player who recedes to his comfort zone when he is under pressure, Democrats do too. Maybe Noah and others like him can cure the Democrats.

- rayward

September 21, 2012 at 7:32am

Curing the Democrats would indeed be a great thing. They drive my nuts, and I am a local party leader. One wishes the Republicans actually offered a sane alternative to put pressure on them. Not even a good alternative, just a sane one, but they don't. If I were to start ranking the various proposals, including my own, I would put the top few in this order: 1. Raise taxes on the high end to eliminate structural deficits: A 67% bracket for incomes above $5 million, no preference for capital gains (with 10-year income backwards income averaging so that timing alone doesn't bump up the bracket in most cases), and a 50% bracket as far down as necessary to balance the budget, and no further. 2. Re-regulate Wall Street to get rid of off-balance sheet leverage and all trading operations that put financial institution at risk. They can have affiliates that play with investor capital, but not with what is implicitly public money. Make financial institutions immune to melt-down by making them boring again -- then watch the absurd profits of the finance sector disappear, leaving a lot more for everyone else. 3. Single-payer health care with the cost and consumption controls that every other industrialized nation employs. 4. Publicly financed graduate education for the disciplines we need, including medicine once million dollar incomes are gone. 5. Public infrastructure. 6. Elimination of payroll taxes in favor of carbon taxes, sufficient to fund entitlements. That is in order of economic importance, not political feasibility. And, really, they should all be done together. We would have an economic revolution, a surge in output such as we have not seen since World War II. The combination of increased demand and newly available resources would be an irresistible force for growth, and cleaner growth at that. The rest of the items would just be tying up loose ends.

- roidubouloi

September 21, 2012 at 8:27am

I suspect, every time you use the Republican's Orwellian word "Redistributionist", a puppy cries. And Roger Ailes smiles quietly to himself. They don't mean what you mean. But their definition is the one inflaming Republicans.

- AllanL5

September 21, 2012 at 11:45am

Roid, makes good sense - however you left out environment except indirectly via the carbon tax. That's another area in which Democrats are trying but not sufficiently and now, there's the fracking lobby.

- Sophia

September 21, 2012 at 11:49am

The WSJ is reporting that Blackstone intends to invest in single family homes, a billion dollars in the Tampa area alone, not to re-sell but to lease; and that Blackstone intends to securitize the investment in the same manner as with mortgages. Some readers will recall that this was Peter Orszag's answer to the housing crisis, but he proposed that investors be allowed to expense (i.e., take an immediate write-off) of the investment in order to provide incentive for investors. I was critical of Orszag because I thought it was his way of repaying his new patrons. Nothing came of his proposal, or any other proposals to address the housing crisis, because the Republicans had no intention of supporting anything that might help the economy recovery, and housing is the key to recovery. Anyway, here we are weeks from the election and Blackstone, and others, are making public announcements about their intended investment in houses. Call me a cynic, but I suspect a deal has been made with key members of Congress for just the thing Orszag proposed. If I'm right, then it suggests that, even if Obama wins, or maybe because he is expected to win, the Republicans intend to end their stonewalling. That's from my optimistic side.

- rayward

September 21, 2012 at 12:42pm

I like roi's list better than Tim's. He also left out universal pre-k education which, according to Tim nets an incredible $94 increase in annual income at age 27. Clearly not cost effective. If single-payer could halve the $750 billion annually the Institute of Medicine says is wasted in our current "system", we could keep the tax rates where they are and still boost the programs that actually work like the Earned Income Tax Credit and food stamps.

- Robert Powell

September 21, 2012 at 12:51pm

Hi Sophia, Well, I wasn't really trying to address every problem at once, only the issue of income distribution. However, I am pretty sure that a carbon tax that rises over time to a sufficient level would completely solve the fossil fuels/global warming problem. I had to do a presentation about this for a macroeconomics course. What I learned doing the research startled me. For one thing, there turns out to be a pretty good case that, for technical reasons of recoverability, we have only somewhere between 75 years and 150 years of usable fossil fuels regardless of the climate impact. Second, if we run out the carbon string by using all we can, we will surely fry the world. So, the only issues, really, are whether we can find adequate substitutes and how quickly we do it. If we cannot, there is going to be a world population collapse at the minimum, maybe to a billion or less. The third thing I learned is that, ultimately, there is no alternative other than solar power. When you look at the potential contributions of all other sources, the gross amount of such sources available barely puts a scratch on the need. For example, to go nuclear, the world would have to commission something like one nuclear plant a day for the next 30 years. Turns out, the only alternative energy source where the gross amount available is big enough -- much more than big enough -- is solar. I recall that world would need about six solar arrays each 400 square miles (don't hold me to that, I am working from memory -- it could have been each 400 x 400 miles) to power the world. That is gargantuan to produce, either way, but not in fact a very large part of the surface of the earth hence technically achievable). The rest, bio, wind, wavers, hydro, etc, just don't put a big dent on the consumption. So, the question boils down to whether and how quickly we can transition to solar, with other sources contributing along the way. The only sure way to induce the transition, if we can achieve it at all, is to keep raising the price of fossil fuels with carbon taxes. This induces people to conserve and provides the incentive to find substitutes. The real problem with fossil fuels is that they are very, very cheap. The energy is there, it is only the collection that we pay for. As long as fossil fuels remain cheap, regulatory efforts are doomed to failure. It the price of fossil fuels gradually rises high enough, we have a chance. Cap and trade is effectively a carbon tax, but it is a very inefficient tax. For one, it gives the revenues to business. We should collect them and use them to balance our budget, not give them to business. Also, administration of cap and trade is necessarily very cumbersome and costly. A tax is easy. There is no economic justification for cap and trade. it is a pure giveaway to business interests. The right thing to do is impose a carbon tax, across-the-board, and keep raising it steadily, allowing time for adaptation to higher prices and for innovative responses. If it is tax neutral, meaning we cut other taxes, such as payroll taxes, with the revenues, there is no reason for this to slow the economy. Taxing what we want less of, carbon in the air, and reducing taxes on what we want more of, jobs, is simply good, common sense -- which is why it is so difficult to achieve.

- roidubouloi

September 21, 2012 at 1:27pm

3.) Import more skilled labor. This is the one idea on my list that Republicans will probably like better than Democrats. Business is clamoring for more H-1B visas for highly-skilled guest workers, and I say let’s give it to ’em. The domestic shortage of highly-skilled labor is not only holding back U.S. industry; it’s also contributing to income inequality by bidding up the price of highly-skilled laborers. I have an idea, bring in more skilled journalists! Clearly, TNR could use some. The breathtaking ignorance displayed by this suggestion makes me doubt all of the other suggestions. I don't see wages rising so fast for tech workers outside of places like, perhaps, Silicon Valley, and layoffs, contract jobs, etc., are a constant fact of life for many tech workers. Tmmats provided a good link in a comment above.

- mrheckman

September 21, 2012 at 1:34pm

I have to agree with heckman and others here. The income inequality is being driven by the top 5% grabbing all of income growth, not by engineers and such doing well. Business just wants to pay skilled labor less, as it wants to pay everyone less. That won't help the bottom, just fatten the 5% even more at the expense of those maintaining their income share based on skills. There is no domestic shortage of skilled labor because the price rises until demand is reduced to supply. If that doesn't then induce business to train more skilled labor, why is there a shortage? There is always a shortage at the price business wants to pay, which is always less.

- roidubouloi

September 21, 2012 at 1:50pm

Noah's #3,7 & 8 are intertwined. But #3 is a contradictory policy. We don't need to import more foreign skilled labor. We need less of that and as the BRICs middle-classes grow (as our shrinks) those high-skilled foreign engineers will start staying home because they're needed there. If we want to increase the skilled labor pool here then #7 and #8 rely on having a public education system that is both adequately funded so it can educate the workforce needed but also to teach them the skills for the sectors that need skilled labor. We need to encourage the people that aren't meant for university and encourage skill and trade schools to open and train the folks that have to run the machines, fix the machines and build the machines that make the high-tech manufacturing goods that America excels at. We need a tax code that encouraged domestic investments in education spending and creating jobs here in the America. You know what the fastest growing market is for 'Made in America" goods is? China. China's expanding middle class wants high quality goods that are made here in the US. The US will never be able to recapture the glory days of the textile and clothing industries because our labor force is too expensive but where our labor force is competitive is when we concentrate on the high-quality goods people will pay for. Obama's proposed manufacturing policies are the right ones for rebuilding and expanding the American workforce and middle class. Now we just need some politicians to see that domestic investment isn't some Socialist take-over but actually the American thing to do.

- singlspeed

September 21, 2012 at 2:30pm

Respectfully disagree on immigration. It's a source of strength, on many levels. Depressed wages are more a problem with the current system of importing illiterate helots than of cashing in on the education we've given future leaders of important foreign countries who could contribute more here before going back on their own, as most will, rather than being kicked out. In theory, the price rises until demand is reduced to supply. But pretending it's not a global marketplace doesn't make it less so.

- Robert Powell

September 21, 2012 at 2:46pm

Now you are arguing that trade policy is what is capping labor income. Maybe so. In that case, we should definitely be reducing income taxes on these earners and shifting more to those who make money from capital. From the standpoint of business, it is only the gross that they pay that matters, not what the worker receives net. If offshore competition is capping the gross, we can easily increase labor income by increasing the net, and that creates no incentive for business to import more services from offshore. But you have vigorously argued against just this. Increase taxes on the high end, reduce them or even create negative taxes on the low end; we can have whatever income distribution we want up to the point that financial capital doesn't want to invest here. No time soon. Financial capital is flooding the country which is one way of looking at why we have trade deficits.

- roidubouloi

September 21, 2012 at 3:27pm

Trade policy okay, but mainly the global marketplace for skilled workers. As long as business is free to out-source and/or recruit internationally, as seems sure to be the case going forward, we have to recognize reality. I've argued vigorously against large tax increases as a panacea or first response, but am very much in favor of "increasing the net"--the earned income tax credit and increased deductions for families with kids may be the most effective anti-poverty programs we've ever had. FWIW, I don't think your proposal #1 is excessive in a context that includes reducing counterproductive spending, and also go along with your #6 in regard to increasing the net and aiding the energy transition.

- Robert Powell

September 22, 2012 at 4:34am

Then we are making progress. The deeper issue is that, while it is productive, efficient, and possibly necessary to trade things, including labor, at market prices, which may mean world market prices, there is no reason at all why society must then accept the income distribution that results. Once you get over the theological notion that there is something just or ideal about the distribution produced by the marketplace, why not? Especially when there is a great deal of evidence that a more equal distribution than the one we have now is more productive. The Randians, and the Republicans, think that the market outcome demonstrates "worth" and that changing the market distribution therefore transfers money from the worthy to the unworthy. That's ridiculous. Individuals have no control of the numbers and types of jobs the economy generates and by no means does it generate jobs that make the most of everyone's willingness and ability to work. They focus our attention on the relatively few who won't work or have such bad discipline that they are unemployable. That is not 47% of the country, let alone the much larger share of the country that have seen either no gain or a loss in income because the gains in income have been flowing almost entirely to the top 5%.

- roidubouloi

September 22, 2012 at 7:36am

Wonderful post and thread. In the end it comes down to some practical strategy for making these things happen. Most are not even on the radar. It is impossible without somehow making these things core values for the Dems, not just idle talking points. And I would add that the impetus has got to come from the young, it has to be organized and sustained. Unfortunately I think the young activists get sucked into single issues: environmental, Hispanic, black, gay and women's groups--then the broader focus is lost. This is classic political stupidity. I actually think of Chis Hayes excellent show. The reps are bright and energetic, but they are invariably single issue people. There is no grand vision for the country. Too bad. We need the illusive One Big Union!

- Vogelfam

September 22, 2012 at 11:36am

Mr. Noah, your list is incomplete. What would finish the job would be to reverse the privatization that is ruining our democracy by making it possible for some persons to earn more than others. If we raise taxes on the rich sufficiently, government revenues would rise enough so that government could buy out the entire private sector. After that, with every worker a government employee, it would be easy enough to rule that all workers earn the same amount of money. With all investment being done by the government, the stock and bond markets, which make it easy for some persons to earn more than others, would be done away with. Income would be limited to wages only, which would make it impossible for one person to earn more than the other. That would not be enough, however. By saving more than others, some persons might accumulate more money than others. To prevent that, the government would need to prohibit savings, and to confiscate any savings that some persons might accumulate by stashing money under the mattress or burying it in the backyard. Because the government would own all the means of production, there would be no need for savings anyway, so nothing would be lost by doing this. The final step would be to decree that the fruits of production be divided among all, based solely on their need for those goods and services, the magnitude of which need would be determined for each person by those in the government most qualified to make that determination. After each person had paid for his or her allotment of goods and services, any monies left over would be returned to the government to be distributed to someone whose need for goods and services exceeds his wages. Because the total amount of money paid out by the government in wages divided by the unit prices for the goods and services produced would, by government's central planning, equal the total unit volume of production, everything would stay in balance. The total amount of production would be determined by the aggregate abilities of the work force. In this ideal system, we could achieve a truly fair and equitable distribution of wealth and income in which society would receive from each person according to his or her abilities and give to each person according to his or her needs. Seriously, when I read Timothy Noah's article I thought it was joke, a send-up. It was only when I read the reviews of his book that I realized that the nonsense I was reading was meant to be serious, even though it violates and ignores every sensible theory and thesis of economics and human behavior that I've studied and seen verified by real life experiences in the 5 1/2 decades I've worked in business. When I see something like this, I realize the true extent of the failure of our educational system in the fields of economics and finance. The extent of the resulting ignorance is truly astounding, as evidenced by this article, most of the comments posted below it, and the reviews of Noah's book, which book I haven't read, but which apparently is fairly represented by the contents of this article. All I can say is heaven us and heaven help our children and grandchildren if such thinking represents the direction our country is heading.

- truthman

September 25, 2012 at 7:30pm