Word: budgeteer
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...coincidence that Obama's budget proposes an ambitious program of automatic-enrollment pensions for workplaces that don't offer 401(k)s or that his stimulus package has billions of dollars for smart meters. Behavioral science - especially the burgeoning field of behavioral economics that has been popularized by Freakonomics, The Wisdom of Crowds, Predictably Irrational, Nudge and Animal Spirits, which is the new must-read in Obamaworld - is already shaping dozens of Administration policies. "It really applies to all the big areas where we need change," says Obama budget director Peter Orszag. (See the top 10 nonfiction books...
...straight out of a behavioral textbook. He has also read Nudge, which inspired him to pick his friend Sunstein - best known as a constitutional scholar - to run the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the obscure but influential corner of the Office of Management and Budget where federal regulations are reviewed and rewritten. "Cass is one of the people in the Administration he knows best," says Thaler, the founder of behavioral economics and co-author of Nudge. "He knew what he was doing when he gave Cass that job." (See who's who in Obama's White House...
This is one reason there's new interest in taxing gas, alcohol, electricity and even trans fats to discourage undesirable behaviors while closing budget gaps. Obama has already hiked taxes on cigarettes and wants to end tax breaks for drilling and offshoring. He seems even more eager to subsidize desirable behaviors like saving, teaching, weatherizing and buying fuel-efficient cars and energy-efficient appliances. Of course, his energy policy goes beyond incentives; he wants a strict national cap on carbon emissions. He has also signaled openness to a national health-insurance mandate. (Read "The Year in Medicine 2008: From...
...state wouldn't approve, which cost the city a one-time federal grant worth $354 million. Combined with sharp budget cutbacks, that leaves the transit authority with a $1.2 billion deficit. Without a healthy subway system, New York will be hard-pressed to grow, green or otherwise. "We have to assume that [transit] will eventually be funded," says Agarwalla. "Otherwise we'd have to plan for citywide shrinkage...
...jockeying around these amendments in the Senate - which are nonbinding, like the overall budget plan - speaks to how intense the energy-reform maneuvering is already. The fact that the amendments - several more of which are in the pipeline - are coming through the Senate shows the impatience of members of the upper chamber, since the Senate will most likely wait for the House to act rather than draft its own bill. And there remain many holes to be filled in the House bill. The Waxman-Markey bill, for instance, doesn't tackle nuclear power, a key issue for Republicans...