Taxpayers should get a receipt so they know what they’re paying for, a think tank called Third Way argues in a new paper. Here’s a sample from the group. It includes federal income tax and FICA, which funds Medicare and Social Security. Details are here.
(via Planet Money)
Stephen Colbert appears before congress—in character.
Sarah Palin: The Sound and the Fury
From the October issue of Vanity Fair, a profile of the phenomenon that is Sarah Palin.
Budget Simulator
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget put together this web game where your goal, as the player, is to get the US budget deficit down to sustainable levels.
It’s no secret that America’s finances are a mess. So, what can be done about it? The problem has been mounting for a long time and it cannot be fixed overnight, but we need to start addressing it now.
The debt of the United States is rising to unprecedented – and unsustainable – levels. According to the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform, under reasonable assumptions, the public debt of the U.S. is projected to grow to 85% of GDP by 2018, 100% by 2022, and 200% in 2038. No country can support debt at these levels without huge costs to its standard of living at a minimum and most likely a severe crisis.
I expected this to be much more difficult than it was, although anyone suggesting the policies I selected probably couldn’t get elected in the US, so of course the reality is much harder than the game.
Some hints: wars are expensive, and raising the retirement ages for Social Security and Medicare helps a lot.
The Net Worth of the U.S. Presidents: Washington to Obama
The Atlantic assesses the net worth of all the US Presidents, in 2010 dollars:
Having examined the finances of all 43 presidents (yes, 43; remember, Cleveland was president twice),we calculated the net worth figures for each in 2010 dollars. Because a number of presidents, particularly in the early nineteenth century, made and lost huge fortunes in a matter of a few years, the number for each man is based on his net worth at its peak.
We have taken into account hard assets like land, estimated lifetime savings based on work history, inheritance, homes, and money paid for services, which include things as diverse as their salary as collector of customs at the Port of New York to membership on Fortune 500 boards. Royalties on books have also been taken into account, along with ownership of companies and yields from family estates.
FiveThirtyEight to Partner with New York Times
Congrats to Nate Silver.
Some exciting news this morning: We have reached agreement in principle to incorporate FiveThirtyEight’s content into NYTimes.com.
In the near future, the blog will “re-launch” under a NYTimes.com domain. It will retain its own identity (akin to other Times blogs like DealBook), but will be organized under the News:Politics section. Once this occurs, content will no longer be posted at FiveThirtyEight.com on an ongoing basis, and the blog will re-direct to the new URL. In addition, I will be contributing content to the print edition of the New York Times, and to the Sunday Magazine. The partnership agreement, which is structured as a license, has a term of three years.
Britons Go to Polls in Tight Race for Parliament
It’s election day!
For Obama and past presidents, the books they read shape policies and perceptions
Tevi Troy, in The Washington Post, writes about Presidential reading habits:
In a historical sense, Obama follows a long line of ardent presidential readers, paging all the way back to the founders. John Adams’s library had more than 3,000 volumes — including Cicero, Plutarch and Thucydides — heavily inscribed with the president’s marginalia. Thomas Jefferson’s massive book collection launched him into debt and later became the backbone for the Library of Congress. “I cannot live without books,” he confessed to Adams.
Lib Dems soar in UK polls after debate
Despite their excellent showing in polls, the Lib Dems are not likely to get more than half as many seats in Parliament as the Tories or Labour. English election laws are weird.
Christopher Hitchens re-reads Animal Farm
Still outlawed by regimes around the world, Animal Farm has always been political dynamite – so much so, it was nearly never published. Christopher Hitchens on George Orwell’s timeless, transcendent ‘fairy story’
