Tag Archives: mother

Here’s the Price Tag for CAP’s New Child Care Program: About $100 Billion

by DonnaSidhu928 Posted on September 2, 2015

Mother Jones

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The Center for American Progress—aka “Hillary’s Think Tank”—has released “A New Vision for Child Care in the United States.” But it’s not really very new. It’s just a tax credit that varies with income. If you’re at the poverty level, you’d get a tax credit of about $13,000 paid directly to the child care facility of your choice. If you make more, the tax credit would be less. The maximum out-of-pocket expense for families would range from 2 percent at the low end to 12 percent at the high end.

Does this sound familiar? It should: it bears a strong family resemblance to Obamacare.

But it might be a good idea regardless of how new it really is. I’m certainly a fan of both preschool and subsidized child care. The big question is going to be how much it costs, and that’s something the authors don’t address. There’s probably a reason for that. My very rough horseback calculation suggests it could run up a tab of $100 billion per year. Maybe more.1See update below.

That’s a lot of money. How’s it going to be paid for? Danielle Paquet asked CAP about this, and was told vaguely that “restructuring the tax system” and “closing wasteful loopholes” might do the trick. I dunno. That’s a lot of wasteful loopholes.

Needless to say, this is one of the downsides of taking public policy seriously. If you’re Donald Trump, you just tell everyone not to worry. “I’m going to be great for the kids,” and he’ll take care of it from there. But if you’re a Democrat, you normally feel obliged to present an actual plan that can actually work in the real world—and that means people can attach a price to it. And that, in turn, means you can be badgered about how you’re going to pay for it.

Politically speaking, this is something that Democrats will need to be careful about. There’s a temptation among liberals to be the anti-Trump, tossing out dozens of detailed white papers to solve all the world’s problems. But this gives conservatives an opening to add up the cost of all those white papers and start bellowing about how their very own proposals prove that Democrats want to bankrupt the country and tax millionaires into insolvency. It’s best to tread carefully here.

On the other hand, maybe Hillary could benefit from a small dose of Trumpism. Maybe she should adopt CAP’s proposal and just declare that she’s going to soak the rich to pay for it. Why pussyfoot around it? After all, polls show that taxing the rich at higher rates is a pretty popular idea. Maybe it’s time to go bullroar populist and just beat the tar out of the malefactors of great wealth.

Then again, maybe not. That doesn’t really sound much like Hillary, does it?

1The program is for kids aged 0-4. My estimate is based on about 20 million kids qualifying, with an average tax credit in the neighborhood of $8,000 each. That’s $160 billion. If two-thirds of all families take advantage of this tax credit, that comes to about $100 billion. Needless to say, more detailed cost estimates are welcome.

UPDATE: I am mistaken. CAP estimates a cost of $40 billion for their proposal, which they believe would not just help working families, but also stimulate the economy:

The economy as a whole benefits from policies that help working families. As an example, the Canadian province of Quebec developed a nearly universal child care assistance program, and economists at the University of Quebec and the University of Sherbrooke estimate that the program boosted women’s labor force participation by nearly 4 percentage points, which in turn boosted GDP by 1.7 percentage points.

I’m habitually skeptical of claims that social programs will recoup all or part of their costs by boosting the economy, but it’s probably true in this case. The effect of increased employment on GDP is pretty straightforward. The policy question, of course, is how much this will offset the program costs. But then, that’s always the policy question, isn’t it?

In any case, I’m not sure how CAP gets to $40 billion, and it strikes me as a little low. But it might be right. It would be interesting to see an estimate from a reliable third-party source.

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Here’s the Price Tag for CAP’s New Child Care Program: About $100 Billion

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Science Marches On: We Now Have a Yard Sale That Runs Backward In Time

by ScarletCawthorn Posted on September 1, 2015

Mother Jones

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A sentence to ponder:

The world’s longest yard sale runs for nearly 700 miles along a mostly vertical line connecting Alabama and Michigan, from the first Thursday in August through the first Sunday.

But what if the first Sunday comes before the first Thursday? Do they cancel the sale that year? Does it run backward through time? I demand answers.

(Via Tyler Cowen.)

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Science Marches On: We Now Have a Yard Sale That Runs Backward In Time

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September Is Here! Time for Republicans to Get … Um … Something About Donald Trump.

by LillieClifford6 Posted on September 1, 2015

Mother Jones

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It’s September! Hooray! The kids are back in school and Donald Trump’s reign over the silly season will soon be coming to an end. Finally, we can start to get serious about choosing our next presi—

Wait. WTF? Trumpmentum’s sagging fortunes have turned around? He’s now even further in the lead? Well crap.

The Republican field really needs to get its act together. They can’t go on being afraid of him because he’s “tapping into something real,” or whatever the latest excuse is. It’s time for some nuclear-level attack ads. The problem, I assume, is that everybody in the race wants someone else to waste their money attacking Trump, so they’re all left in a weird kind of prisoner’s dilemma where no one is willing to go first. They better figure out soon that this is a losing strategy.

Oh well. The higher they go, the farther they fall. Amirite?

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September Is Here! Time for Republicans to Get … Um … Something About Donald Trump.

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Lone Gay Marriage Holdout Acting "Under the Authority of God"

by AstridTerrill62 Posted on September 1, 2015

Mother Jones

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Sigh.

A county clerk in Kentucky who objects to same-sex marriage on religious grounds denied licenses to gay couples on Tuesday, just hours after the Supreme Court refused to support her position.

In a raucous scene in the little town of Morehead, two-same-sex couples walked into the Rowan County Courthouse, trailed by television cameras and chanting protesters on both sides of the issue, only to be told by the county clerk, Kim Davis, that she was denying them marriage licenses “under the authority of God.”

The optimist in me says that if the biggest backlash to the Supreme Court’s gay marriage decision is one clerk in a tiny town in Kentucky, then we’ve gotten off pretty easy. And really, the more I think about it, that really does seem like the main takeaway from this.

But it’s obvious that the endgame here is for Kim Davis to be fired, or tossed in jail for contempt. The Supreme Court itself has ordered her to issue licenses, so she has no further legal recourse. Only recourse to God.

I’m now curious to see what the Republican field will make of this. On the one hand, most of them are treating the primary contest as a zero-sum race to see who can move furthest to the right. On the other hand, do they really want to get on the wrong side of gay marriage and immigration? On the third hand, there’s the whole rule of law thing. And on the fourth hand, Donald Trump is not an anti-gay warrior. He’s the guy everyone is responding to, so maybe that means this will stay low key.

The Huckabees and Carsons of the world will surely support Davis. The rest of the field….probably not. That’s my guess. Then again, if video of Davis being hauled off to the county pen ends up on a 24/7 loop on Fox News, who knows? Defying the will of a small groups of pissed off base voters is not something the Republican field is exactly famous for.

UPDATE: Greg Sargent confirms my sense that holdouts like Davis are very rare. “In the seven southern states where the backlash might have been expected to be fiercest, only one — Alabama — still has multiple counties that are holding out. One other — Kentucky — has only two remaining counties holding out.” The national campaign director for Freedom to Marry says that, all things considered, “things are going exceedingly smoothly.”

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Lone Gay Marriage Holdout Acting "Under the Authority of God"

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Sovereign Citizens Leapfrog Islamic Extremists as America’s Top Terrorist Threat

by YaniraAWOQ Posted on August 31, 2015

Mother Jones

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Who do actual law enforcement officers see as the biggest terrorist threats in America? Surprise! It’s not Islamic radicals:

Approximately 39 percent of respondents agreed and 28 percent strongly agreed that Islamic extremists were a serious terrorist threat. In comparison, 52 percent of respondents agreed and 34 percent strongly agreed that sovereign citizens were a serious terrorist threat.

….There was significant concern about the resurgence of the radical far right following the election of President Obama, but it appears as though law enforcement is, at present, less concerned about these groups.

That’s odd. The authors of this report apparently don’t consider the sovereign citizens part of the radical right. But their roots are in the Posse Comitatus movement, and they identify strongly with both the white supremacist Christian Identity movement and the anti-tax movement. That’s always sounded like the right-wing on steroids to me.

I’m not trying to foist responsibility for these crazies on the Republican Party, any more than I’d say Democrats are responsible for animal rights extremists. Still, their complaints seem like preposterous caricatures of right-wing thought, in the same way that animal rights extremism bears a distant but recognizable ancestry to lefty principles.

In any case, this comes via Zack Beauchamp, who explains the sovereign citizens movement in more detail for the uninitiated.

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Sovereign Citizens Leapfrog Islamic Extremists as America’s Top Terrorist Threat

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It’s Not the Economy, Stupid. The Spanish Language Is the Ur-Motive of Anti-Immigration Sentiment.

by AbbeyAGWvozn Posted on August 31, 2015

Mother Jones

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Ed Kilgore on the conservative hostility toward illegal immigration:

This very weekend I was reading an advance copy of an upcoming book that includes the results of some intensive focus group work with what might be called the “angry wing” of the GOP base. The author notes that one thing that simply enrages grass-roots conservatives is the use of non-English languages by immigrants.

Yep. You can read all about it from one of Kilgore’s predecessors, who wrote about it during our last big try at immigration reform in 2006. It’s based on an excellent piece by Chris Hayes, written before he sold out to the bright lights and big paychecks of cable television.

I agree that language is probably the key original driver of anti-immigrant sentiment, though it’s long since inspired further animus based around crime, gangs, social services, and other culture-related issues. The odd thing is that this is one of the few areas where I think the anti-immigrationists have a bit of a point. It’s not a very big point, since (a) Spanish occupies no official role in the United States, and (b) Latin American immigrants all end up speaking English by the second and third generations anyway. Hell, the third-generation Latino who speaks lousy Spanish is practically a cliche.

That said, I’ve long believed that having multiple official languages makes it very hard to sustain a united polity. The Swiss manage, but the whole reason they’re famous for it is because it’s so unusual. Even the Belgians and Canadians have trouble with it, and they’re pretty tolerant people.

Would a congressional declaration that English is the official language of the United States do anything to calm anti-immigrant fervor? At this point, probably not. But if it were written narrowly and carefully, I’d probably support it. I figure that if God considered a single common language such a boon that it threatened his dominion, it must be pretty powerful stuff.

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It’s Not the Economy, Stupid. The Spanish Language Is the Ur-Motive of Anti-Immigration Sentiment.

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The Internet Is Making Us Sicker

by ShaunLadprsnu Posted on August 30, 2015

Mother Jones

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The placebo effect, as we all know, is the mechanism by which we sometimes feel better even when we’re given meds that later turn out to be sugar pills. The mere expectation that we will get better somehow helps us actually get better. The most eye-popping example of the placebo effect is probably this one here.

But there’s also a dark side to this. I don’t know if it has an official name, so let’s call it the anti-placebo effect.1 Basically, it means that your mind can invent miserable side effects from taking medication merely because you know that certain side effects are possible. Take cholesterol-lowering statins, for example:

At the Mayo Clinic here, Dr. Stephen L. Kopecky, who directs a program for statin-intolerant patients, says he is well aware that middle-age and older adults who typically need statins may blame the drugs for aches, pains and memory losses that have other causes. He also knows his patients peruse the Internet, which is replete with horror stories about the dangers of statins.

Yet he, like other doctors, also thinks some statin intolerance is real despite what clinical trials have shown. The problem: In the vast majority of cases, there is no objective test to tell real from imagined statin intolerance.

So there you have it: the internet is making us sicker. Does it make up for this by also making us healthier? I have my doubts. It is a spawn of evil.

And no, you still can’t take mine away. However, this is one of the reasons why I’ve avoided reading about multiple myeloma on the internet. I figure it’s unlikely to help, and might very well hurt.

1Turns out it’s called the nocebo effect. How about that?

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The Internet Is Making Us Sicker

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Inflation Is Low? Let’s Tighten Monetary Policy Anyway.

by NewtonVallejos Posted on August 29, 2015

Mother Jones

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Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer comments on inflation and monetary policy:

The Federal Reserve’s No. 2 official said there is “good reason” to think sluggish U.S. inflation will firm and move back toward the U.S. central bank’s 2% annual target, touching on a significant assessment facing the Fed ahead of its September policy meeting.

….When the time comes to raise rates, Mr. Fischer said, “we will most likely need to proceed cautiously” and with inflation low, “we can probably remove accommodation at a gradual pace. Yet, because monetary policy influences real activity with a substantial lag, we should not wait until inflation is back to 2% to begin tightening.”

A lot of people think the big problem with Fischer’s statement is the first bolded sentence. There’s been “good reason” to think inflation will increase for a long time. And yet it hasn’t. Why are we supposed to believe that this year’s good reason is any better than previous ones?

That’s fair enough. But I think the real problem is in the second bolded sentence: Fischer is intent on tightening monetary policy well before inflation shows any sign of hitting 2 percent. This illustrates a serious asymmetry in the Fed’s decisionmaking. If inflation goes below the 2 percent target, they’re willing to wait things out. But if it shows even the slightest sign of maybe, someday going a few basis points above the 2 percent target, then it’s time to tighten. The net result of this is that inflation won’t average 2 percent. It will swing between 1 and 2 percent, maybe averaging 1.5 percent or so.

That’s a bad thing, and it’s especially bad if, like me, you think our inflation target should be more like 3-4 percent anyway. But that’s the way it is.

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Inflation Is Low? Let’s Tighten Monetary Policy Anyway.

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Palin Ponders the Infinite: Does the Lamestream Media Ever Ask Hillary About Her Favorite Bible Verse?

by Betsey52Rib Posted on August 29, 2015

Mother Jones

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Huh. I almost forgot about the Palin-Trump lollapalooza. But it’s all on YouTube, and it was pretty boring. Palin’s word salad was subpar and it was just the same-old-same-old from Trump. My favorite part was this bit from Palin:

So you get hit with these gotchas, like most conservatives do. For instance, asking what’s your favorite Bible verse. And I listen to that going, what? Do they ask Hillary that?

Indeed they do! On August 27, 2007, in a nationally televised debate, Tim Russert asked every Democrat on the stage to share their favorite Bible verse:

RUSSERT: Before we go, there’s been a lot of discussion about the Democrats and the issue of faith and values. I want to ask you a simple question.

Senator Obama, what is your favorite Bible verse?

OBAMA: Well, I think it would have to be the Sermon on the Mount, because it expresses a basic principle that I think we’ve lost over the last six years.

John talked about what we’ve lost. Part of what we’ve lost is a sense of empathy towards each other. We have been governed in fear and division, and you know, we talk about the federal deficit, but we don’t talk enough about the empathy deficit, a sense that I stand in somebody else’s shoes, I see through their eyes. People who are struggling trying to figure out how to pay the gas bill, or try to send their kids to college. We are not thinking about them at the federal level. That’s the reason I’m running for president, because I want to restore that.

RUSSERT: I want to give everyone a chance in this. You just take 10 seconds.

Senator Clinton, favorite Bible verse?

CLINTON: The Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I think it’s a good rule for politics, too.

RUSSERT: Senator Gravel?

GRAVEL: The most important thing in life is love. That’s what empowers courage, and courage implements the rest of our virtues.

RUSSERT: Congressman Kucinich?

KUCINICH: I carry that with me at every debate, this prayer from St. Francis, which says, Lord, make me an instrument of your peace, and I believe very strongly that all of us can be instruments of peace. And that’s what I try to bring to public life.

RUSSERT: Senator Edwards?

EDWARDS: It appears many times in the Bible, What you do onto the least of those, you do onto me.

RUSSERT: Governor Richardson?

RICHARDSON: The Sermon on the Mount, because I believe it’s an issue of social justice, equality, brotherly issues reflecting a nation that is deeply torn and needs to be heal and come together.

DODD: The Good Samaritan would be a worthwhile sort of description of who we all ought to be in life.

RUSSERT: Senator Biden?

BIDEN: Christ’s warning of the Pharisees. There are many Pharisees, and it’s part of what has bankrupted some people’s view about religion. And I worry about the Pharisees.

Hillary Clinton’s choice wasn’t very original, I admit, but neither was Obama’s. Biden, as usual, provided the most entertaining answer: “I worry about the Pharisees.” I guess we all do, Joe. In any case, the lamestream media had no problem asking, and the Democrats all had no problem answering. See? It’s not so hard.

What’s your favorite Bible verse? I’d recommend Mark 12:38 “Beware of the scribes.” I think Palin would agree that it’s good advice for any era.

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Palin Ponders the Infinite: Does the Lamestream Media Ever Ask Hillary About Her Favorite Bible Verse?

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Either 35, 36, or 39 Percent of Psychology Results Can’t Be Replicated

by AltonDeyoung Posted on August 28, 2015

Mother Jones

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The Washington Post informs me today that in a new study, only 39 out of 100 published psychology studies could be replicated:

I wonder if I can replicate that headline? Let’s try the New York Times:

Huh. They say 35 out of 100. What’s going on? Maybe Science News can tell me:

Now it’s 35 out of 97. So what is the answer?

Based on the study itself, it appears that Science News has it right. It’s 35 out of 97. Using a different measure of replication, however, the answer is that 39 percent of the studies could be replicated, which might explain the Post’s 39 out of 100. And it turns out that the study actually looked at 100 results, but only 97 of them had positive findings in the first place and were therefore worth trying to replicate. But if, for some reason, you decided that all 100 original studies should be counted, you’d get the Times’ 35 out of 100.

So there you go. Depending on who you read, it’s either 35, 36, or 39 percent. Welcome to the business of science reporting.

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Either 35, 36, or 39 Percent of Psychology Results Can’t Be Replicated

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