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So the first time the Bush tax cuts were signed into law (by President George W. Bush), my beloved golden retriever “Sunny” (short for “Sunshine”) unexpectedly and very suddenly died in my backyard under her favorite tree.  This was on a rainy Saturday over Memorial Day weekend, 2001–making it a miserable, tragic weekend all around.

I’m relieved to report that at least my dog didn’t die this time around, now that President Obama has signed them into law and turned them into the “Obama tax cuts.”

From the signing ceremony (video above), there’s a lot of happy talk about “bipartisanship” and “compromise.”  But it’s easy to “compromise” when you don’t have to give up anything–when instead you just have to stop resisting what the other side wants.  As Vice President Biden explains (emphasis added):

The famed 18th century British statesman, Edmund Burke, once said, “All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.”  Today, we have a crystal clear example of what he meant.

This package — this package is a result of leaders from both sides coming together to act on behalf of the American people at a time they need it most…

It means accepting some things we don’t like in order to get the job done for Americans as needs to be done.

But that’s not exactly the “barter”–or “give and take”–kind of “compromise.”  It’s the easier “take and take” kind that policymakers have mastered over the past decade that has resulted in such fiscally irresponsible policymaking, where seemingly-free deficit financing becomes the easiest “bipartisan” way out of gridlock.  As I’ve said before, it’s not mutual sacrifice; it’s mutual grabbing.

The President seems to know this was the easy part–”compromising” on a tax cut package that gave him all the deficit-financed tax cuts he wanted in exchange for just accepting a few more the other side wanted, too.  He said (emphasis added):

[W]e’ve got to make some difficult choices ahead when it comes to tackling the deficit. In some ways, this [tax cut deal/"compromise"] was easier than some of the tougher choices we’re going to have to make next year.

Yes, a LOT easier.  We can do this kind of policy making with our eyes closed.

But like I said (optimist that I am), at least my dog didn’t die.

Don’t worry, I’m still here– still trying to keep up with the developments on the tax cut deal (and still have my opinions about it all)…. BUT preoccupied with my daughter Grace’s “Nutcracker week” (coming to a close this weekend) and about to leave for far, far away for a few days, very likely with no opportunity to blog.

Will be back next week sometime.  In the meantime, keep up with some of my fiscal policy musings on Concord’s website.

More than two years ago I blogged about a major infrastructure project I witnessed in its early stages while I was vacationing–the Hoover Dam bypass project.  Well, the project has just been completed, as I learned this weekend from the cover story in Parade Magazine.  Impressive story about its design and construction, and great photos–so check it out.

At the same time more than two years ago I likened my family to a major infrastructure project, as my husband and I were celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary during that family vacation.  Well, just as one of these “major infrastructure projects” has been completed, the other is nearly finally dismantled.  I guess this is sort of my “coming out” as “Divorced Economist Mom.”  (At least a little more to come in the coming weeks and months, but that’s enough said for now.)

I am taking a break this week from my EconomistMom blog while my family life is especially busy–squeezing in what we can for the last two weeks of summer (and the last two weeks of living with my Princeton-bound daughter, Allie–pictured with me above) while I try to work on an issue brief for the Concord Coalition on–guess what?–the Bush/Obama tax cuts!

Because I can’t stand being quiet for so long, I thought I’d post a link to something I wrote earlier this year for a newsletter of the “Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession” (CSWEP)–which is part of the American Economic Association.  It’s an article called “I Blog, Therefore I Am (EconomistMom),” and you can find it here along with articles by Len Burman and Doug Holtz-Eakin.

I may come back a little bit over the next week but mainly to point out some things other people have written rather than provide any of my own original thoughts.

Happy Mother’s Day to all moms out there, but especially to my own mother–who has been an inspiration and a source of wisdom and strength for me my whole life!  (Sorry to put this up so late in the day, Mom; I know you’re probably going to bed already!)

A few weeks ago I posted on my daughter Allie’s college decision, and in particular the debate between going to in-state UVA and Ivy League Dartmouth.  That was before Allie got accepted into Princeton, and before she and her dad decided she would in fact accept her acceptance into Princeton.  It wasn’t exactly the careful weighing of costs versus benefits that I wanted to do with her before she made that decision, but I think it was more in keeping with how I once characterized how parents typically decide how to spend money on “investments” in their kids or how family members decide how to spend money on health care for their loved ones:  two questions, (1) is there any positive expected marginal benefit, and (2) can I come up with the money, somehow?  (not how does that marginal money/cost compare with that marginal benefit).

So for a couple days now I am here at Princeton with Allie for her “Princeton Preview” weekend, hoping to be constantly “WOWed” by everything Princeton has to offer, and hoping that come Sunday I will have decided that yes, the expected marginal benefit is high even relative to the (certain and high) marginal cost.  Oh, and I am also doing a lot of searching and begging for aid and any way to pay for it that we can find.  Because although our family is not considered “needy,” when it comes to the Princeton price tag, I still think we “need” a lot of help.  As the summer comes and the first bill due draws nearer, I’ll keep you posted on how we manage.

Meanwhile, I would love any Princeton alums to tell me all the wonderful ways in which your Princeton education clearly enhanced your lifetime income and any other “values” in your life.  Those who disagree, please keep quiet. 

It’s a question I am asking this week, as my oldest daughter hears about her admission status at the 7 schools she’s applied to–4 of them Ivies, who do not give any merit-based aid. As I tweeted yesterday, she’s received a national merit scholarship of $2500 (one time) to any school she decides to attend, but that is only about 1 percent of the 4-year cost of her going to Dartmouth–which in a money-blind contest she picks as her first choice.

There are big reasons why her dad and I chose to raise our (four) children in northern VA when we first decided to come work in Washington, DC, and two of them are called “U VA” and “William and Mary” (or is that three of them?!)–note their places in this Kiplinger “best value” ranking.  She’s gotten into both. As an “Economist” and a “Mom” readers will understand why I find this agonizing.

If you are willing to follow my agony over the next few weeks, I am willing to share…

I am looking for advice everywhere–from Ivy League grads who believe they wouldn’t be where they are today were it not for their Ivy League education, to Ivy League grads who regret graduating with so much debt, to public university grads (like myself) who don’t believe life could have turned out that different had we gone to an Ivy League school instead (and who paid off their small loans rather quickly after graduation).

And naturally I’ve been scouring the internet, which is how I found the ABC News video above with the very bright young man who is the CEO and founder of Unigo.com–a fascinating site that features “insider” info on colleges and which I had never heard of until tonight when I was googling on this very question.

Stay tuned for updates, and feel free to advise!

I have a lot going on in my real (mom) life over the next few days, so I won’t be posting for awhile. I won’t even be able to moderate comments for at least the next couple days. No family emergency–just busy. (And no, this is not at all related to Charlie Rangel’s leave of absence from his Ways and Means chairmanship…)

Keep up the comments without me. (I know a few of you will.)

Oh — here’s a good post by Bruce Bartlett critiquing the idea a couple of House Republicans have for reining in spending.  That is quite a contrast to Paul Ryan’s approach, which although (I believe) unrealistic, is still brutally honest.  Steny Hoyer gave the proposal and its author some credit the other day when he said:

It’s also clear to me that if the commission takes a one-handed approach, it will fail, both politically and substantively. Congressman Ryan’s thoughtful budget proposal shows what an approach looks like when it relies entirely on cutting spending. He should be commended for putting together a serious and detailed plan to tackle the deficit. It doesn’t raise a single tax. But as a consequence, it significantly changes Medicare.

That strikes me, as I think it would strike most Americans, as very much the wrong solution. But Congressman Ryan deserves respect for his honesty—for being one of the few members of his party, or of either party, to tell the public exactly what he’d cut. That’s far better than pretending that the solution to higher deficits is simply lower taxes and wishful thinking. In fact, as much as his party’s leadership tries to distance itself from his plan, Paul Ryan’s program, or something very much like it, is the logical outcome of the Republican rhetoric of cutting taxes and deficits at the same time.

In today’s Washington Post (not that I received it on my doorstep this morning, but just that I read online), Steve Pearlstein has an entertaining little rant about how ill-prepared the DC area is to handle this kind of snow:

Here’s a little thought experiment:

You’re sitting at home for the third straight day, unable to get to work because of the snow. Your kids are on the fourth day of a snow vacation that is likely to last through the end of the week. How much would you have been willing to pay to guarantee that the streets and sidewalks were clear and things could have run pretty much as normal? $10? $25? $50?

Or imagine that you own a business with 50 employees that is closed for three days because of the snow, but you still have to pay $30,000 in salaries for work they didn’t do. What would you have been willing to pay to have things running normally this week? $1,000? $2,500? $5,000?

My guess is that, given the benefit of hindsight and several days of house arrest, “snow insurance” sounds tempting…

Steve then argues that it would be reasonable for local policymakers to consider raising revenues (i.e., taxes or fees) to pay for this more adequate “snow insurance”–but the only reason that’s a fantasy is because of the “broken politics” that makes it so hard to raise taxes for any reason:

Republicans would immediate call it “the biggest tax increase in history” and declare unequivocally that it would send the economy into a tailspin while radically expanding the government. Chambers of commerce would issue news releases warning that the tax would particularly hurt small-business owners, who as we all know create every new job and would now be forced to cut their payrolls or close their doors. Virginia’s House of Delegates would move immediately to kill the proposal, thereby dooming consideration by all the other jurisdictions.

It is a measure of the dysfunction of our political system that we can no longer rationally debate whether it is penny-wise and pound-foolish not to spend a little more to try to keep the Capital of the Free World from grinding to a halt every time a snowflake descends from the heavens.

I realize there are lots of problems that cannot be solved just by throwing money at them, but snow removal is not one of them. We have the know-how, we have the technology and we have the money and economic self-interest to do it right. What we don’t seem to have is the leadership or political will.

Steve then goes on to do a “back-of-the envelope” calculation of how costly these lost days of work and school have been to this region, as evidence that government has not spent enough money on their snow-removal capabilities.

Yes, I agree with Steve that our local governments are ill-prepared to deal with these kinds of snowstorms.  Growing up in the Great Lakes region, I know that there are other parts of the country that do it much better and faster.

But we in DC are ill-prepared for this kind of snow, not so much because of our bad politics (I think politics over the rest of the country are just as bad, no?)–but because this kind of snow is such a low-probability event here.  Here’s a chart from a WashingtonPost.com weather blog (weather-blogger Matt Rogers)–as of before today’s blizzard which is supposed to add maybe a foot more!–showing the rarity of 2′+ snow seasons here in DC:

Matt puts this in perspective:

With the impending storm for tomorrow and Wednesday, we have a legitimate chance for an all-time (since records have been kept in the late 1800s) seasonal snow record.

Our big weekend storm surged Reagan National Airport’s seasonal total to 45″ with the balance of February and March yet to go. This places our current winter in position number three for the snowiest winters on record, behind 1995-96 (46″) and the big one, 1898-99 (54.4″). Of course, that all-time record was set at a more downtown location (M Street), so some may argue the higher elevation and location away from the Potomac was an easier accomplishment. But in my mind, that makes this potential record season all the more notable.

The chart above tracks seasonal totals since the 1990-91 snow season. Just look at that volatility. Get this: our 45″ this season is more than the last four winters COMBINED (which was only 35.5″).

An economist would say we’ve got to make decisions about public infrastructure and contracted services from a cost-benefit perspective, which has to be evaluated under conditions of uncertainty–weighing expected marginal costs against expected marginal benefits.  Of course, from an “ex post” perspective (after the snow has fallen–e.g., Steve’s current view), it looks like local policymakers got it all wrong and spent way too little on snow-removal equipment and services.  But from an “ex ante” perspective (before the snow has fallen or any even long-term weather forecasts have been made, maybe with the exception of the farmer’s almanac) I can’t imagine that any cost-benefit analysis would suggest it makes sense for the DC area to gear up for the kind of major snowfall we’ve experienced this week–in terms of purchasing equipment or advance contracting for services or otherwise committing to spending their budgets on something they might not ever use.

Instead, what such low-probability-but-bad-outcome events suggest is the need for local governments to have adequate “rainy-day” (ok, “snowy-day”) funds in place, in order to be prepared for what this snowfall really is (in this part of the country): an unanticipated emergency.  That’s where the “broken politics” messes things up, because Steve is right: we can’t seem to raise taxes for any reason, especially if it is to be better prepared for the future–be it a big snowstorm or even our kids’ standard of living.

***UPDATE (5 pm):  We just broke the all-time record for the snowiest season in the DC area!  Here’s a new graphic from the WashingtonPost.com weather gang below.

Well, they come in lots of varieties and come from all different parts of the country.  Here’s a neat little video CNN-Money produced out of their tagging along with the Concord Coalition’s “fiscal advisory councils”–whose representatives came to DC earlier this week to take their message (and model good behavior) to Congress.

…and A Side Note to Readers:  By the way, this is “Nutcracker week” on the homefront–which means I don’t have much time to think and write because I’m spending most of this week doing things like shopping for false eyelashes, sewing ribbons onto ballet slippers, and attending performances (as well as attending to injuries).  Glad there are so many good things out there to point to in place of doing my own work!…