Saying “Happy New Year” is a reflex for many, though I am sincere when I do. But my personal outlook this year follows my mother’s advice to “hope for the best and expect the worst.” “Ominous” is the word I…
Category: Other
We must understand basic facts about federal finance before we can act rationally
Contrary to what many expected just two weeks ago, Congress passed a tax bill and President Donald Trump signed it. So we face the largest changes in our tax system since the Reagan administration of the 1980s. My own opinion…
Could the Fed undermine tax-cut stimulus?
Newspaper readers are smarter than politicians. Several readers have queried me about a key issue to which Congress and the White House seem to be ignoring: What will happen if GOP tax cuts stimulate the economy, but the Federal Reserve,…
In tax code, death by a thousand cuts
Restoring efficiency and reducing complexity must hurt all, at least a bit. Both houses of Congress have passed tax bills. Exactly what reconciliation will bring is unknown, but some bill will be signed. It will include substantial corporate rate cuts…
“Exemptions, deductions and credits” are at the root of true tax reform
As I write this, late last week, the U.S. Senate seemed poised to indeed pass a tax bill. This will no doubt be followed by reconciliation with the House version and a signature by President Donald Trump. A tax plan…
3M PFC lawsuit classic example of economics of external costs
The state of Minnesota, acting through Attorney General Lori Swanson, is suing 3M Co. for $5 billion in damages caused by the company’s disposal of chemicals called PFCs in ways that allegedly polluted sources of municipal water in Oakdale and…
Misunderstandings and misinformation about the corporate income tax
True tax reform is complicated, and the current bastardized faux-reform is moving through Congress in such helter-skelter manner that a comprehensive evaluation is near impossible. But it can be helpful to examine key issues that are complex and often misrepresented…
Local TB cases are full of economic lessons
Modern medicine has found responses to so many diseases in recent decades that we often are taken aback when an old scourge re-emerges. Yet that has happened in the 17 cases of drug-resistant tuberculosis seen in Ramsey County over the…
Powell nomination at Fed shows good judgment
In naming attorney and investment banker Jerome Powell to succeed economist Janet Yellen as chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, President Donald Trump steered a moderate and prudent course. This was not foreordained. This happened on the day…
Weathering the adjustments of progress
Economic growth is good, but often involves dislocations that hurt some people. This is true on the consumption side of the economy as well as on the production side. It is evident in the Twin Cities urban metro right now,…