Vermont Tiger

What Hath Obama Wrought?

David Sirota, former press secretary to Vermont's Senator Bernard Sanders, is afraid that President-elect Obama

may not deliver the promised "change we can believe in."

After voters rejected the mantra of free trade and deregulation, some of those contacting me say they are upset that Obama is hiring so many free-trading deregulators who birthed today's economic mess.

and concludes

For better or worse, that leaves us relying more than ever on our Dear Leader's [Obama's] impulses. Sure, we should be thankful when Dear Leader's whims serve the people -- but also unsurprised when they don't.

Meanwhile, looking at the same situation, Harvard economist Greg Mankiw (who was the head of the Council of Economic Advisors for two years of the Bush administration) asks,

What would you call a group of economists who are skeptical of regulating mortgage markets, who think unemployment insurance and unions increase unemployment, who say that tax hikes retard economic growth, and who believe that the recovery from the Great Depression was a monetary phenomenon rather than the result of New Deal fiscal policy?

No, it is not a right-wing cabal. It's Team Obama.

After looking at the evidence, Mankiw concludes

These quotations also make me a bit surprised we have not heard more complaining from the left-wing of the Democratic party. But that may be still to come.

It looks like it already has.

Emerson Lynn On Politics

Cut the Budget?
Yes, But Invest, Too

One of the lessons learned in the government’s disbursement of its financial stimulus packages is that it does little good to give a lot of people a little. The effect is negligible and need for a strategic purpose is lost. The same lesson needs to be applied in Montpelier as the governor and the state legislature begin to grapple with ways to cut the budget.

When the governor is of one party, and the Legislature the other, the natural tendency is to submit to the “art of the possible” and to focus on those things that are imagined to be politically negotiable. A premium is placed on what is perceived to be fair – in other words, everyone has to have some skin in the game.

First, We Raise Taxes

In the recessions of the early 1980s and early 1990s, Vermont ran up big budget deficits rather than making cuts in needed services. Richard Snelling, the Republican governor who served during both economic slumps, wasn't afraid to maintain slow but steady growth in state spending and to raise taxes temporarily when the economy slowed. For example, during the budget crisis in the early 1990s, Snelling temporarily raised taxes on upper-income Vermonters to help reduce budget deficits. They were cut after the crisis passed.
    Reformer

We will be hearing this a lot over the next few months.  Just as we are hearing, on the national scene, that another Great Depression is looming and that it is time for a new New Deal.  Two points on that one:

* When FDR took office, unemployment had passed 20% and some 4,000 banks had closed.

* The case for the New Deal is hardly airtight.  We recommend our friend Amity Shlaes' The Forgotten Man for a corrective to the conventional wisdom. 

The Snelling analogy will be pushed hard by those who always want higher taxes and more government. In good times, bad times, and in-between times. 

Another Bailout?

Everybody wants to get in on this act. 

Washington Builds A Car

Be the first in your neighborhood to own one of these babies.

Lincoln On Thanksgiving

"It has pleased Almighty God to prolong our national life another year...to favor as well our citizens in their homes as our soldiers in their camps, and our sailors on the rivers and seas, with unusual health.
    "He has largely augmented our free population by emancipation and by immigration, while He has opened to us new sources of wealth, and has crowned the labor of our working men in every department of industry with abundant rewards.
    "Moreover, He has been pleased to animate and inspire our minds and hearts with fortitude, courage and resolution sufficient for the great trial ... into which we have been brought by cause of freedom and humanity ...
    "Now, therefore, I .... do hereby appoint and set apart the last Thursday in November next as a day which I desire to be observed by all my fellow-citizens, wherever they may be then, as a day of thanksgiving and praise to Almighty God, the beneficent Creator and Ruler of the universe.
    "And I do further recommend to my fellow-citizens aforesaid, that on that occasion they do reverently humble themselves in the dust, and from thence offer up penitent and fervent prayers and supplications to the great Disposer of events for a return of the inestimable blessings of peace, union and harmony throughout the land which it has pleased Him to assign as a dwelling-place for ourselves and for our posterity throughout all generations."

Seems to Me ...

I'm no Art Woolf.  When it comes to the economy, I'm just an average schlep.  But we schleps have opinions about this bailout business too.

Seems to me that companies that advertise low introductory rates on their credit cards are the worst predatory lenders.  Citigroup has enough of our money.  You know, considering that they get to charge 30 percent interest if someone forgets to pay a light bill.   But I suppose if they didn't get the bailout, people would be charged 50 percent, and they'd have three days to make the payment!

Seems to me that Obama's appointments all "know where the bodies are buried" because they had a hand in burying them.  Change we can believe in?

Seems to me that opponents of Social Security privatization have been a little too smug lately.  For what?  Did they think that supporters of it didn't have any idea that the stock market could ever decline?  A smart investor can still beat the government.  Ride it out when you're young.  Get it out when you're close to retirement.  Seems to me.

Some Crunching Numbers

Replacing the energy supplied by Vermont Yankee with 100 percent renewable energy sources could cost Vermont more than $1.2 billion, according to a consultant retained by the state to evaluate the alternatives to continued operation of the nuclear power plant in Vernon.
   Reformer

The report is a sobering reminder that when you talk about energy, you are talking about trade-offs.  For instance:

for Vermont, which receives one-third of its electricity from Yankee, the implications [of closing the plant] would be huge, especially when the Power Purchase Agreement is taken into consideration, which guarantees a price of between 3.9 and 4.5 per kilowatt hour for Vermont utilities.

In addition, stated Albert, Entergy pays millions of dollars in taxes every year and employs more than 500 people in the tri-state region.

Something for the legislature to think about when it considers shutting down Yankee.

Here's Looking at You, Kid

Casablanca opened on this date in 1942.

The Wikipedia site; the IMDB site; listen to a radio adaptation; watch it on your computer if you have a Netflix account; watch some scenes on You Tube; read some great lines.

And yes, it's one of my favorite films.

Emerson Lynn On Politics

How To Guide Vermont Forward

State government, as with any organization, runs best when the priorities are understood and agreed upon. And in Vermont, there seems to be clarity on one thing, which is the inescapable need to reconcile an expensive state budget with a dwindling source of state revenue.

That is one rail of the track that needs to be followed to its logical conclusion. The other is the need to pull out all stops in the drive to stimulate growth.