Don Taylor

Later today the House is to vote on HR 325, a bill to suspend the debt limit until mid-May and then the debt limit will automatically be increased by the new debt incurred during the interim.* The idea is to take away the notion of defaulting and then move toward normal order budgeting (Senate and […]

Keith Hennessey has a long piece noting that a debt limit fight is bad politics and bad economics, that prioritization won’t work and that Republicans should instead fight it out around the sequester and the continuing resolution that is funding the government. It is a reasonable strategy that reduces the chance of economic calamity, while […]

A quick post on the cost of smoking v. cost of guns, given the intuitive notion that second hand smoke and violence might be (conceptually) similar. I am not an expert on guns, and this is a quick post, given as food for thought. I have done work on the social cost of cigarette smoking, […]

A new poll shows that raising the Medicare age slowly to 67 (presumably to unify it with the Social Security full retirement age) is not popular. It is a bad idea in policy (TIE FAQ is good) terms because all you are doing in a state with an exchange and a Medicaid expansion is mostly […]

So everyone is prattling away with their grand bargain ideas on tax reform, etc. so I will re-up the basic idea at the heart of the tax reform I proposed in my book Balancing the Budget is a Progressive Priority: A tax reform that resulted in fewer rate brackets: 12, 22 and 28 were the […]

It is a shame that the VP debate did not delve into the proposal of Gov. Romney and Rep. Ryan to block grant Medicaid in a way designed to greatly reduce federal spending on the program; this is where the most profound disagreements on health policy can be found in this election. Aaron Carroll and […]

Bill Keller has an insightful piece on end of life care in England v. the USA, using the example of the recent death of his father in law. First, let me say that it is brave for a family to share such a personal story, and I want express condolences to the family. A few […]

WSJ has a debate on raising the Medicare age featuring Maya MacGuineas (yes) and Aaron Carroll (no). I think Aaron is correct that it is a bad idea in policy terms (and truly dreadful if the ACA is repealed), but I also believe it is virtually inevitable that we will raise the Medicare age as […]

Here is a video (~1 hour) from a Politico health reform policy panel I was on at the DNC last Thursday. Two things from this panel stood out for me, both related to the comments of Gov. Peter Shumlin from Vermont, who wants to create a universal, “single payer” health system in his state. All […]

David Brooks notes that Paul Ryan’s biggest mistake was voting no against the final report of the deficit commission in December 2010. As Brooks puts it: To put it another way, Ryan was giving up significant debt progress for a political fantasy. I agree that Rep. Ryan’s bravery is greatly overrated, and in this case […]