I seem to have missed the annual boastfest last year, but I will put in a few words this time. (For those interested, you can find the original set here and a 2013 sequel.)

Financial Transactions Taxes

First, one of big five predictions of things to come seems to be happening. The idea of a financial transactions tax (FTT) has made it into polite circles. Two of the declared presidential candidates openly support it, with long-time proponent Bernie Sanders leading the way. The Tax Policy Center of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute did an analysis showing that a tax could raise more than $50 billion a year and would be highly progressive. And Representative Chris Van Hollen, a member of the Democratic Party leadership in the House, proposed an economic plan that had a FTT as its financing mechanism.

The financial industry is of course hugely powerful. The cost of the tax to the industry swamps the cost of Dodd-Frank and any other financial reform measures currently being discussed. For this reason, the Wall Street folks will do almost anything to stop a FTT, so we are very far from having a bill passed into law or even being seriously debated. But we have made enormous progress. The FTT is no longer treated as a nutty idea.

The Death of the Young Invincibles and the Affordable Care Act

There are a few other areas where I will take some credit. First, I helped to kill the young invincibles. This is the idea that healthy “young” people are somehow essential for the smooth workings of the health care exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act. It is essential that healthy people sign up for the exchanges, but it doesn’t matter that they are young. In fact, it is actually better for the system to get an older healthy person since they will pay three times as much on average in premiums as a healthy young person.

Reporters seem to have come to understand this basic point. (A Kaiser Family Foundation study was very helpful.) There is much less talk of the need for young people to sign up for the exchanges.

The End of “Free Trade”

In another area, reporting on trade agreements seems to be improving as it is less common to hear reports refer to these deals as “free trade” agreements. There appears to be a growing recognition among reporters that these deals are primarily about putting in place a new regulatory structure. (In fact, the goal is a business friendly regulatory structure, but we’ll leave that one aside for now.) For the most part these regulations have little to do with trade and some quite explicitly involve more protection, such as patent and copyright protection.

Deborah JamesAlternet, July 10, 2015

Democrats and Republicans may not see eye to eye on much these days, but one thing a number of them do strongly agree on is the need for greater accountability and transparency around U.S. assistance to Haiti. Last year, Republican representatives Ileana

July 10, 2015

Dean Baker
The Guardian, July 10, 2015

In September 2013 the Dominican Republic’s Constitutional Court ruled that those born to undocumented foreigners would not be able to maintain citizenship, mainly impacting Dominicans of Haitian descent. The deadline to formalize one’s legal status passed in June, with many thousands left unable to do so because of a lack of documentation. Already nearly 40,000 have “voluntarily” self-deported to Haiti, fearing a looming crackdown in the country many of them have never left. At a meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS) Wednesday, Haitian foreign minister Lener Renauld accused the Dominicans of leaving Haitians at the border “like dogs.”

But just three months after the court’s ruling, before the world’s attention turned to the island of Hispaniola and the humanitarian crisis on the border, the Dominican Republic hired a D.C.-based lobbying firm to assist with “consolidating and strengthening the image of the Dominican State in the eyes of the [sic] international public opinion,” according to documents filed as part of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

The documents show that the Dominican Republic paid the lobbying firm Steptoe & Johnson over $820,000 between January and August of 2014. The relationship appears to be ongoing however, and it is likely that those costs have only increased with the spotlight now firmly on the Dominican Republic and the firm bringing in hourly rates of around $1,000.

Image: Talking points distributed by Steptoe & Johnson to congressional and executive offices

Lobbyists for Steptoe & Johnson distributed copies of talking points (image above) to congressional and executive offices, describing the migration policy as “modern and transparent” and as a means of protecting the “fundamental rights” of everyone living in the Dominican Republic. Between January and May 2014, the lobbyists met with the offices of at least 24 members of congress, including key players on the foreign affairs committee. In addition to interactions with congress, the contract between the Dominican Republic and Steptoe & Johnson describes a number of other actions, including placement of “interviews, features, opinion pieces in U.S. mainstream media.”

The Conservative victory in the recent UK national election allowed the party to form a government without the need for coalition partners, and to put its stamp on economic policy without the need to compromise. It’s the first time since 1996 that the Con

Mark WeisbrotAlbany Times Union, July 9, 2015 

Last week CEPR Co-Director Dean Baker commented on one of the more positive aspects of June’s jobs report:

“One clear positive is that the number of people voluntarily working part-time rose sharply even as the number of people involuntarily working part-time fell...This is undoubtedly due in large part to the ACA which freed workers from the need to get insurance through their employer.”

There’s good reason to think the Affordable Care Act (ACA) could be leading to greater voluntary part-time employment. To explain: if an employee is working part-time and would like to work full-time, his or her status as part-time is a negative; that employee would like to work more, but hasn’t been given the opportunity to do so. However, if an employee is voluntarily working part-time, it means that he or she is making an active decision to pursue part-time employment. Since health insurance was linked to a worker’s status as a full-time employee before the ACA went into effect, many Americans worked full-time simply to receive health insurance benefits; this was true even for workers who otherwise would have preferred to work part-time. Thanks to the ACA, workers no longer have to work full-time in order to receive insurance, meaning they can work fewer hours if they want to, assuming they can still pay the bills.

Mark Weisbrot
Al Jazeera America, July 8, 2015