American - Economist | -
Economists have the same occupational hazard as baseball managers and football coaches: Every person on the street knows their job better than they do.
Kevin Hassett
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Given the importance of Washington, outsiders probably have an unrealistic perspective on how large the city is. The fact is, Washington D.C. is a small town, and most everyone knows most everyone else. That person of the other party who you despise will someday be at your daughter's birthday party.
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I think that one of the things that we have to recognize is that the longer somebody doesn't have a job, the harder it is to get a new job. You know, the reality is that if you're out of job, and you're looking for a job, then the new employer's going to say, 'Well, why, you know, don't you have a job now? What's wrong with you?'
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The term 'business cycle' is imprecise. Economic fluctuations affect everyone, not just businesses, and they are, unlike astral cycles, anything but regular.
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If you look at the geographic variation in long-term unemployment, it's really striking. There are pockets where employers don't want to go, but for some reason, in part because of adequate safety nets, people don't want to leave.
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There are folks who we have a moral responsibility to help, who are going to cost the taxpayers lots of money in the future, so there's a strong argument for us to help them with current cash.
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Today we hear that the gains from economic growth accrue to the highest-income earners while the standard of living of the poor and middle America stagnates and the gap between the richest and the poorest grows ever wider. That portrait of the country is wrong.
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When a totally offensive tax hits a few million people, Washington is prepared to look the other way. But when everyone is harmed, self preservation kicks in, and Washington gets going.
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Historically, figuring out what to do to the tax code has been almost as contentious a political issue as judicial appointments.
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Too often, politics is like bad theater. The mass media simplifies stories and personalities into their most basic, digestible and familiar bits. Listeners prefer songs they have heard before, after all.
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The most real characters in a great play are those who are so meticulously drawn that the audience could predict how many pairs of shoes they might have in their closet or how many close friends they had in grade school. Have any of our public figures been as fully developed in the media?
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The problem is that there is no reliable source of information left, no way to accumulate trusted accounts of the plusses and minuses of any given political choice.
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