EconomistMom.com

STILL NOT WORKING THURS. 10/15…

My spam blocker isn’t working right again (Wed. 10/14), so all comments will be queued up for moderation again until I figure out it’s back to normal. Bear with me. The last time this happened it didn’t last too long. I will try to check every few hours except for overnight.

(***UPDATE Friday: My spam blocker is showing a little more life now, so I’m cautiously going to open up unmoderated comments today and just keep checking often. Keeping fingers crossed.)

I’ve been bombarded with spam comments (I mean real spam not just comments that are critical of me!) over the past couple days–so much so that until I figure out the problem, I want to hold all comments in a queue for me to review before they are published on the site.  That will mean (if the moderation queue works properly) that your legitimate comments will not appear right away but only once I can sit down with my laptop and internet connection and “approve” them.

My being out of town for the next day means there will be a longer wait in the comments queue than I would ideally like to make you sit through.  Perhaps when I’m back at the office I can open it up again and just swat away the spam as soon as I catch it.  But ideally I will figure out how to more permanently fix it (or it will magically fix itself)–to get my automatic spam blocker to “reconnect” with my site again.  I appreciate your patience.

Donald Marron and I agree about what’s wrong with the House climate bill passed last week–just another example of how economists on different sides of the political aisle often share more common ground than any other two people on different sides of the aisle.  I’ve complained before about how odd it is to hear politicians who advocate for stronger environmental goals at the same time claiming that they don’t want a policy that actually raises energy prices.  (News flash: then the policy wouldn’t actually change incentives, would it?)  Donald emphasizes what a supreme waste of money the House-passed bill is.  Even if on net it wouldn’t actually cost the government anything, the opportunity cost is huge:

The number one thing you should know about this bill is that the allowances are worth big money: almost $1 trillion over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and more in subsequent decades.

There are many good things the government could do with that kind of money. Perhaps reduce out-of-control deficits? Or pay for expanding health coverage? Or maybe, as many economists have suggested, reduce payroll taxes and corporate income taxes to offset the macroeconomic costs of limiting greenhouse gases?

Choosing among those options would be a worthy policy debate. Except for one thing: the House bill would give away most of the allowances for free. And it spends virtually all the revenue that comes from allowance auctions.

As a result, the budget hawks, health expanders, and pro-growth forces have only crumbs to bargain over. From a budgeteer’s perspective, the House bill is a disaster.

The potential revenues from climate change/carbon policy are one of those actually desirable ways to raise revenue that economists (from both sides of the aisle) like to dream about.  That and limiting or eliminating the tax exclusion for employer-provided health care–you know, those ideas that go over really well with politicians and lobbyists…  We need these additional sources of revenue, because it’s clear our federal revenue base is insufficient and will remain that way even after the recession is over.  I’ll write more on that tomorrow.

OK, I think I’m back up and newly scoured and sanitized… hopefully “safe” to read again.  I’ll get back to posting within the next day.  Thanks to all the loyal (Firefox) readers who actually noticed the problem and were missing me!

If you use Firefox as your browser, you might have seen there’s a problem/warning message that’s cropped up when you try to access this website–claiming that this website is an “attack site.”  Meanwhile, I’m on vacation with one of my kids (in lovely San Francisco!) and haven’t been able to keep up with the posting OR the sleuthing.  I’m not yet sure how serious the Firefox/Google warning is.  (Internet Explorer fails to show any problem.)  I’ll try to investigate further on Tuesday and hopefully fix any problems before I put up my next substantive post.

Thank you to the readers who alerted me to this problem.  I will understand if now you “Internet Explorers” want to avoid me for a few days while I make sure I’m safe!

I already wrote this on my Facebook wall, but I’m so proud to hear the close-to-official word that my friends Jason Furman, Austan Goolsbee, and Peter Orszag will be at the top of President Obama’s economic team.  From today’s Wall Street Journal story on the pick of Tim Geithner for Treasury Secretary: 

Already, the backbone of an Obama economic team has emerged. Congressional Budget Office director Peter Orszag will be Mr. Obama’s budget director. Jacob Lew, a former Clinton budget director, will head the White House’s National Economic Council. Jason Furman, the economic policy director of the Obama campaign, is likely to be Mr. Lew’s deputy. And Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economist and long-time policy confidante, is expected to chair the Council of Economic Advisers.

The team represents a re-emergence of more academic economists and technocrats after a Bush administration that elevated aluminum-company and railroad executives to be Treasury secretary.

I’ve already pointed out during the campaign that Jason and Austan understand the importance of fiscal responsibility, at this post.  Jason was a member of the Concord Coalition’s Fiscal Wake-Up Tour for awhile, after all.  And Peter has written about why deficits matter many times including with none other than Bob Rubin, and of course, Peter’s had to care about this full time in his job as director of the Congressional Budget Office over the past two years.