Word: idea
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...vary from practicing Turkic-speaking Uyghurs in the west to non-practicing Chinese-speaking descendents of Muslims in the east. “I wanted to mess with [audience members’] minds,” he said in an interview after the event. “The idea that ‘Muslim’ and ‘Chinese’ are whole homogenous black-box categories—that you are either Chinese or Muslim—is just not reality.” Lipman, also a history professor at Mount Holyoke, said he was careful...
...wait. Hold the presses. One of those political stunts might actually have merit. “Merit” as in public policy merit, but merit also because it presents a political opportunity for Obama. There’s an idea being circulated by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum, and even gracing the airwaves of “El Rushbo,” that could be the first truly bipartisan achievement of the Obama era: a payroll-tax holiday. Some proponents suggest a year or two (more like...
...discourage. (It should be noted that such a proposal has zero prospects for being considered in the short term, as it completely upends the fundamental premises of the current entitlement system, but perhaps as we get further down the line with entitlement spending and more comfortable with the idea of a means-tested system, it might get a more serious look...
...regressive taxes and put money back in the hands of low- and middle-income families to spur household consumption. While economists can argue about the relative effectiveness of government spending as opposed to tax cuts in stimulating the economy (Krugman would presumably find a reason not to like this idea), who can deny that there would be a positive jolt to consumer spending from something as dramatic as a complete suspension of payroll taxes, even for a relatively short period of time? The February stimulus bill contains something along these lines, the Making Work Pay tax credit, which will mail...
...politics would work pretty well, also. Because it solely benefits workers making $106,800 or less, it should be a no-brainer for congressional Democrats. Yet Obama could very conspicuously present it as a Republican idea. Would the Republicans run from it on the pretext that we are now too covered in red ink for it to be “fiscally responsible”? Or will they pose for those smiling photographs with Obama that will do little for their own political standing and make Obama seem even more above the partisan fray? Either way, Obama will emerge...