Thursday, July 7, 2011

two good articles

The first, thanks to my friend Rakim Brooks, suggests the development of a federal banking institution in Europe as a means of addressing European debt crises. In pointing out that Alexander Hamilton thought of this over 200 years ago, the author seems to implicitly celebrate the American ingenuity that would lead that young nation to become a global power just 100 years later:

A question that a lot of people seem to be asking now is whether our present day elected officials can rally in a similar spirit of ingenuity (and compromise--Hamilton surrendered New York's claim to hosting the capital) to meet this generation's pressing fiscal challenges. Hopefully they figure something out before August, when the U.S. Treasury will exhaust its means of meeting current financial obligations and slowly begin to default. Unfortunately, it seems to be an article of absolute and unchallenged faith among congressional Republicans that any move to raise taxes would be a mortal sin against 'the American people.' In spite of holding core conservative convictions, I see no compelling reason why certain tax loopholes are continually left open and believe it is appropriate to tax the personal incomes of America's millionaires and billionaires at a higher marginal rate. Nicholas Kristoff made this point today in a decent Op-Ed.


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