The Obama administration corporate tax overhaul would boost manufacturing: "The Obama administration, seeking to promote domestic manufacturing without increasing the federal deficit, proposed Wednesday to offset new tax breaks for manufacturers by raising taxes on a wide range of other companies. Some of the prospective losers are familiar targets, including oil and gas companies, private equity firms and companies that move jobs overseas ... The White House provided few details on Wednesday, and most concerned the proposed reductions rather than the offsetting increases, thwarting detailed analysis. The administration introduced its overhauls of financial regulation and health care in the same way. But the high-concept approach also reflects that Wednesday’s announcement was a campaign event. There is little chance that a divided Congress, its attention focused on November, will overhaul the corporate tax code this year." reports Binyamin Appelbaum
The SEC is worried about the rise of high-frequency trading: "The chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission is worried about the rise of high-frequency trading, but two years after the agency flagged the phenomenon as a potential problem, Chairman Mary L. Schapiro says regulators still don’t know enough to do much more about it. High-frequency trading, which is practiced by hedge funds and other technologically turbocharged investors, involves the purchase and sale of large volumes of shares in tiny fractions of a second...Last year, a congressionally mandated consultant’s report on the SEC said high-frequency trading accounted for about 56 percent of the stock trading volume in the United States, up from 35 percent in 2005. The behavior of high-frequency traders is believed to have contributed to the 'flash crash' of May 6, 2010, when markets swung wildly, the report said. Such trading 'creates new potential for market manipulation' and can create 'an uneven playing field,' the report by Boston Consulting Group said." reports David Hilzenrath
Parties are bad guides for ideology: "Perhaps my biggest frustration with the U.S. news media (and yes, I am a card-carrying member) is that we permit the two parties to decide what is 'left' and what is 'right.' The way it works, roughly, is that anything Democrats support becomes 'left,' and everything Republicans support becomes 'right.'...Parties -- particularly when they’re in the minority -- care more about power than policy. Perhaps there’s nothing much to be done about this. And as I said, it isn’t clear that the media, or anyone else, should try. But it puts the lie to the narrative that America is really riven by grand ideological disagreements. America is deeply divided on the question of which party should be in power at any given moment. Much of the polarization over policy is driven by that question, not the other way around. But the voters who trust the parties don’t know that, and they tend to take on faith the idea that their representatives are fighting for some relatively consistent agenda." writes Ezra Klein
The contraception debate highlights the need to end employer-based insurance: "It’s important not to let this contraception clash pass without understanding the true source of the problem. It’s not President Obama’s debauched liberal drive to shower teens with condoms and morning-after pills. It’s not the bishops’ urge to enforce a moral code from which most of their flock dissents. A sane America would never deny women who work for Catholic employers access to the contraception that every other health plan offers -- but it also wouldn’t force Catholic employers to offer coverage that violates their beliefs. Instead, a sane America would solve this whole problem by moving into the 21st century and making sure people can buy group health coverage on their own and not tied to their employers." writes Matt Miller
Health care is undergoing a price revolution: "Two years on, the major achievement of President Obama's new entitlement and its regulatory apparatus has been to heighten the contradictions and dysfunctions of the health-care status quo even as it creates multiple new problems. The good -- and less noticed -- news is that the growing disruption is driving the industry toward the solution that prevails in the rest of the economy: the price mechanism. In the context of American health care, this might be a watershed ... Insurers are starting to give workers and businesses the information and tools they need to lower costs. This is, in fact, a remarkable period of industry innovation and creative thinking. All the major insurers -- UnitedHealth, Aetna, Cigna, WellPoint -- are now mining their billing data and attempting to accurately measure costs and compare them with outcomes. 'Moneyball' is coming to health care for the first time." writes Joeseph Rago
The best way to help the poor is focusing on the middle class: "We’re back to arguing about how the middle class is doing over the long sweep of history since the 1980s: Have they been dragged down by stagnating wages, high-end inequality, economic insecurity, and a greater chance that economic mobility will take them downward than up? Or is the middle class doing OK? ... With the unifying experience of the recession, low-income Americans are no longer 'them' -- they’re people who have suffered or worry about job loss, bankruptcy, foreclosure, or a costly health crisis just like many others. Studies that show how these experiences are shared by those in the bottom income quintile and the middle quintile -- even if the circumstances are different in scale -- can create a kind of cross-class solidarity ... To the extent that many middle class families are experiencing insecurity, stagnating incomes, and doubts about mobility, it’s a chance to create a safety net that can support both the least-advantaged and those with a surer footing on the economic ladder." writes Mark Schmitt
Experts are divided on the benefits of manufacturing: "The Obama administration is undertaking an athletic push to promote manufacturing employment in the United States: proposing giving manufacturers new tax breaks, closing loopholes that benefit companies that send manufacturing jobs offshore, expanding worker training programs and increasing trade enforcement, for instance ... But what’s so special about manufacturing? Is there really a reason for the White House to champion that certain set of businesses? Why not services? Or another growing sector of the economy, like agriculture? Policy experts have long been divided on these questions. Many economists argue that there’s nothing special about manufacturing, and that Mr. Obama’s proposals are simply an election-year sop ... But others say the United States can create, retain and regain higher-end manufacturing jobs. They also argue that manufacturing has potent spillover effects that make it worthwhile for the government to promote." reports Annie Lowrey
Shaming teachers is a bad way to improve teaching: "Last week, the New York State Court of Appeals ruled that teachers’ individual performance assessments could be made public. I have no opinion on the ruling as a matter of law, but as a harbinger of education policy in the United States, it is a big mistake. I am a strong proponent of measuring teachers’ effectiveness, and my foundation works with many schools to help make sure that such evaluations improve the overall quality of teaching. But publicly ranking teachers by name will not help them get better at their jobs or improve student learning. On the contrary, it will make it a lot harder to implement teacher evaluation systems that work ... Developing a systematic way to help teachers get better is the most powerful idea in education today. The surest way to weaken it is to twist it into a capricious exercise in public shaming. Let’s focus on creating a personnel system that truly helps teachers improve." writes Bill Gates
American industry isn't to blame for the recent spike in gas prices: "America is pumping more oil out of the ground than it has in years thanks to a surge in onshore drilling. U.S. refineries are producing more gasoline and diesel than ever. And Americans' gasoline consumption is at an 11-year-low. So with all that supply and not much demand, why have gasoline prices risen high enough this year to resurface as a national political issue? The short answer, experts say, is that the global economy and geopolitics, not the U.S. industry or economy, are driving gasoline prices. The national average price for a gallon of unleaded as of Wednesday was $3.579, some 40 cents more than this time last year, according to AAA, the automobile association. The current price is 53.5 cents shy of the record, and the peak driving months, with their increased demand, are still ahead." reports Tom Fowler
