Showing posts with label The Big Six. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Big Six. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 4, 2021

Briefly Evaluating Biden’s First 100 Days

The short, short version is Gerald Ford doing a bad Jimmy Carter impersonation--with apologies to the very underrated Jimmy Carter.

I look forward to the point when the gesture politics will take a back seat to actual governing, and I hope they get religion on spending before reality forces a come to Jesus moment.

Let's do it by focusing on The Big Six.
  • Drug Prohibition - Perhaps this summarizes where we are. I am shocked, SHOCKED!. We elected an OG drug prohibitionist and a bully cop, and we’re surprised that instead of legalization we got more of the same. (0/1)
  • War - The administration seems to be content to continue Trump's policies on China, but the promised withdrawal from Afghanistan is potentially a significant improvement.  (0.5/2)
  • Taxes - The plan so far is not too surprising, but it is still undesirable. The corporate tax increase is much much bigger once you account for the fact that Trumps reductions we’re paid for with reductions in loopholes. Going back to the prior rates without the loopholes is a big net increase on AN ENTITY THAT DOESN'T PAY TAXES! People pay taxes. When you tax corporations, the tax incidence falls on owners, employees, and customers. (0.5/3)
  • Education - Biden specifically and the administration and Democratic Party generally cannot part ways from the teacher’s unions. Clearly the direction is for the government to vastly increase its role. They lost me at "12 years of [compulsory] schooling is not enough". (0.5/4)
  • Immigration - Finally something we should be able to give a clear win on, but . . . it is hard to see these as anything more than better promises but very short actual results. Still, let's grade on a curve and hope for the best. (1.5/5)
  • Housing Development - It appears there is hope that the Biden administration will lean toward YIMBY policies. As Republicans and many conservatives retrench deeply into antidevelopment rhetoric, the progressives may stumble into enlightenment simply by trying to be the opposite. (2.5/6)
Trade policy would be another important and interesting area given the place this issue held over the past administration. Sadly Biden hasn't changed in all these decades. He is still economically ignorant or simply a captured interest. And he looks like Trump 2.0 on China trade specifically.

Sigh***


Saturday, May 1, 2021

An Addition to My The Big Five

I hate having to do this, but I feel it is necessary to add to my list of the low-hanging fruit of public policy where 90% solutions (improvements) on these issues are several orders of magnitude more important than 99% solutions on a thousand others. In my defense this was always filed under "partial list", and it continues to be. I just hate making a tag and then needing to update it. 

Keep in mind that I did issue addendums to the list shortly after first publication. This will take one of those and elevate it to the new big list.

The Big Six:
  • Drug Prohibition (end it--allow adults to make their own choices)
  • Education (privatize it--give the government an ever-smaller role)
  • Immigration (open it up--allow people to freely move and freely interact with other people)
  • Taxation (simplify and redirect it--efficiently tax the use of resources not the creation of resources)
  • War (move away from it--make postures less bellicose and violence less of an option).
  • ***AND*** Housing Development (greatly reduce the obstacles and restrictions so that the owners of capital can buy, build, and reconfigure real estate as they see fit)
First because of Kevin Erdmann's work and recently because of Bryan Caplan's current discussion and forthcoming work, I have become radicalized to make this addition to my reform agenda canon. 

Living in a historic district with all its well-intended nonsense, I see this issue close at hand. The HD seems to be a classic case of people being nostalgic for a past that didn’t actually exist. The effect is expense for homeowners, self-righteous satisfaction for busybodies, a jobs program for the rent-seeking suppliers and regulators, and general exclusion for those who don’t fit in or can’t afford to. 

Every day I see stark examples of the perfect being the enemy of the good.