Commenting on the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mess, Paul Krugman asserts in his column today: Fannie and Freddie had nothing to do with the explosion of high-risk lending a few years ago, an explosion that dwarfed the S.& L. fiasco. In fact, Fannie and Freddie, after growing rapidly in the 1990s, largely faded from the scene during the height of the housing bubble. Partly that’s because regulators, responding to accounting scandals at the companies, placed temporary restraints on both Fannie and Freddie that curtailed their lending just as housing …
A major plank of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) efforts to convince the American people that liberals actually want to reduce gas prices is a bill that adds “new restrictions for commodity traders whose speculation has driven up the price of oil.” But as liberal New York Times columnist Paul Krugman shows today, blaming speculators for the price of gas is long on politics and short on reality. Krugman writes: Why are politicians so eager to pin the blame for oil prices on speculators? Because it lets them believe that we …
Yesterday we noted that the U.S. has the second-highest corporate tax rate in the world. Currently, Americans’ personal income tax burden is not nearly as bad, but under Sen. Barack Obama’s tax plan, it would be. Combining Obama’s promise to end the Bush tax cuts with his promise to uncap the Social Security payroll tax for those making more than $250,000, the Tax Policy Center notes that Obama would create a top marginal rate of almost 60 percent. The top rate would exceed two-thirds and could even approach 70 percent for citizens …
