Andrew Biggs reveals that when it comes to tax policy, Barack Obama has got some 'splainin' to do:

As the presidential campaign heats up, a key issue is whether to extend the 2001 and 2003 income tax cuts, which expire in 2011. John McCain wants to make the tax cuts permanent. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton want to let the rates rise.

Opponents of the tax cuts point to spending programs that could be financed by the extra revenues. Chief among these is Social Security. Sen. Obama's Web site, for example, argues that "extending the Bush tax cuts will cost three times as much as what is needed to fix Social Security's solvency over the next 75 years."

Such statements imply that if we return to the seemingly modest tax rates of the 1990s, we could fund the $4.3 trillion Social Security deficit, and so much more. As Mr. Obama recently told Fox News, "I would roll back the Bush tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans back to the level they were under Bill Clinton, when I don't remember rich people feeling oppressed."

This argument seems compelling, but it is misguided. In reality, repealing the tax cuts would raise taxes far above Clinton-era levels. Due to quirks in the tax code, average taxes would be almost 25% higher than during the 1990s.

The culprit is "bracket creep." Income tax brackets have not adjusted for the growth in earnings, which means that if the Bush tax cuts are indeed rolled back,

. . . income-tax revenues by 2018 will rise to 10.8% of the total economy from 8.7% today - an increase of 24%. Compared to the average over the last 50 years, allowing the rates to rise would increase tax revenues by 32%.

The economy is not recessionary yet. Perhaps we can get by on weak growth for a while before the economy finally picks up and avoid actual contractions. But if taxes are raised so dramatically, the economic pinch we have sought to avoid will finally arrive.

I should emphasize another portion of Biggs's editorial: Even if the current tax cuts remain in place, bracket creep will cause taxes to rise. Anti-tax cutters like to deride small-government/free market advocates for championing tax cuts at what the anti-tax cutters believe is a Pavlovian level. If they actually understood anything about bracket creep, however, they'd quit with the derision.

When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

--William Butler Yeats, When You Are Old.

My RedState colleagues and I had a roundtable regarding how John McCain should go about choosing a running mate. You can find the discussion here. Check it out.

Though I very much wish that I could:

President Robert Mugabe's government on Thursday extended its crackdown on Zimbabwe's opposition with the arrest of a newspaper editor and a threat to arrest an opposition leader.

Davison Maruziva, editor of the Standard newspaper was arrested on Thursday on charges of publishing false statements prejudicial to the state and contempt of court. The charges arose from an article written by Arthur Mutambara, leader of the breakaway-wing of the Movement for Democratic Change that was published on April 20. Police said Mr Mutambara faced similar charges. The article was highly critical of President Mugabe, accusing him of intimidation and urging him to step down from the presidency.

Zimbabwe has been in limbo since disputed presidential and parliamentary elections in March. After weeks of delay - and amid claims that the ruling Zanu-PF were attempting to rig the vote - it was announced that the MDC had won the largest number of seats in parliament and that its leader Morgan Tsvangiral had won 47.9 per cent of the vote, with Mr Mugabe trailing on 43.2 per cent.

This had set the scene for a presidential run-off although the MDC has still to decide whether to contest. Reports of intimidation and violence against opposition supporters have lead many to suggest that a fair run-off would not be possible.

Mr Maruziva's arrest followed that of a South African-based Reuters photographer, Howard Burditt who has been in detention since Monday accused of using a satellite phone to transmit pictures. He had still to be charged yesterday.

The nightmare is widespread:

Robert Mugabe's supporters have been conducting a sustained and aggressive campaign of intimidation against up to 1.5m rural farm workers and their relatives to force them into voting for him in a prospective election run-off, according to an authoritative report published on Wednesday.

The report by Zimbabwe's Justice for Agriculture Trust (JAG) catalogues a "co-ordinated and centrally planned push" to remove the country's few remaining white farmers "and bully their workers" as "a backlash" against the defeat of the ruling Zanu-PF and the president in elections in March.

Read it all. If you can stomach it. And reflect on the fact that about a month and a half ago, people had reason to believe that Zimbabwe's nightmare may have been coming to an end.

So much for that hope, it seems.

So let me be the latest to link to this P.J. O'Rourke commencement-speech-you-will-never-actually-hear-given-at-a-college. It's utterly fantastic. I may not agree with all of it, but I agree with lots of it and find the following especially worth quoting:

Here we are living in the world's most prosperous country, surrounded by all the comforts, conveniences and security that money can provide. Yet no American political, intellectual or cultural leader ever says to young people, "Go out and make a bunch of money." Instead, they tell you that money can't buy happiness. Maybe, but money can rent it.

There's nothing the matter with honest moneymaking. Wealth is not a pizza, where if I have too many slices you have to eat the Domino's box. In a free society, with the rule of law and property rights, no one loses when someone else gets rich.

The man's got a point.

Whether or not the Democratic nominating contest drags on until August, people are increasingly acting like it is over. Karl Rove has a good and balanced view of what one might expect in a general election fight between Obama and McCain; I would love to find out what kind of electoral map he is looking at and how it shows that McCain is beating Obama in the Electoral College. [UPDATE: Here they are!]

Also, George Will gets snarky. Hilarity ensues.

Will Wilkinson, while criticizing "unreflective anti-gubmint reactions of libertarians to the FLDS imbroglio", still prefers to limit his justification to the specific evils of the FLDS, and to maintain a defense of polygamy in the abstract:

The libertarian point is that the illegality and attendant marginalization of polygamy pushes it into isolated, authoritarian, quasi-state cult compounds where these kinds of crimes are most likely to take place.

But this is one case where the libertarian point is simply wrong. Tyler Cowen hints at the reasons:

Maybe the goals of the perpetrators are rape, abuse, and power-mad intimidation, rather than polygamy per se ("polygamy: merely a means to an end.") In that case polygamy legalization won't limit their ability to set up isolated, authoritarian, quasi-state cult compounds for their nefarious purposes.

Consider the demand pattern resulting from polygamy (i.e., from polygyny). The potential demand for women immediately and irreversibly exceeds any potential supply; thus there is steady pressure to expand the supply by including marginal cases. For example, 15-year-olds.

The definition of "marginal" is not fixed by the Mr. Wilkinson's norms, of course. It changes; in fact, fairly rapidly. Megan McArdle has a long discussion of this, with some striking examples.

C'mon said the activists. That's just silly. I just can't imagine anyone deciding to get pregnant out of wedlock simply because there are welfare benefits available.

Oooops.

Of course, change didn't happen overnight. But the marginal cases did have children out of wedlock, which made it more acceptable for the next marginal case to do so.

Once the 15-year olds are no longer "marginal", demand is focused downward, and downward again.

Meanwhile this intrinsically unfair system of living can only be sustained if the exit is blocked. Thus the other symptoms observed in the FLDS case -- the brainwashing, abuse and too-ready excommunication -- are not pathologies at all: they are the natural and inevitable ramification of a system in which polygamy is permitted.

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail -- but some things really are nails, and polygamy really is an intrinsically abusive institution which merits destruction by Leviathan. If society has any uses at all, this is one of them.

Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are the most protectionist major Presidential candidates to come down the pike in recent memory. I say "recent" because, of course there is one particular President who was in the same league with both Clinton and Obama when it came to promulgating lousy trade policy and making the country suffer for it. I know that Charlie Black works for the McCain campaign and gets paid to throw elbows, but he is right to go where he goes verbally:

The growing shopping list of promises has also served further to sharpen the contrast with John McCain, the Republican nominee, who has staked out a robustly free-trade stance for the general election.

"The last time we had a protectionist president was Herbert Hoover [in office from 1929 to 1933] and look how that worked out," says Charlie Black, a senior adviser to Mr McCain. "We think we can win this debate in a general election."

The ghost of Hoover may be smiling now. The ghosts of Hawley and Smoot most certainly are. The rest of us have every reason to feel grim.

Or not.

Same as the old boss. And my, isn't the following telling?

The remarks appeared to presage Putin's continued hand on Russian power. "It is extremely important for everyone together to continue the course that has already been taken and has justified itself," he said.

Only then did Medvedev, 42, approach the lectern, rest his hand on a copy of the Russian Constitution, and utter the oath of office.

In a brief address afterward, he touched themes he has embraced since Putin selected him as his successor late last year and as he was shepherded through a scripted election.

He emphasized improving living standards, education and medical care, and modernizing Russia's narrow economy, which relies on oil and gas revenues, as well as other forms of natural resource extraction.

"I would like to assure all of the citizens of this country that I will be working to my fullest capacity," he said. "I fully realize how much has yet to be done."

Medvedev, whose public persona is decidedly softer than Putin's, also stressed the importance of civil rights, as he has in several speeches since he became the presumptive president-elect.

Minutes later, Putin accompanied the new president outside to review the passing formations of the ceremonial regiment. When the two men left the dais after the last platoon passed, it was on cue from Putin, not Medvedev, who followed the former president's lead.

It's safe to predict that Putin will continue to dominate policy as much as he is able to dominate political theatrics.

At least not if this story is to be believed. And yes, much of what is found in that story in terms of anti-Obama sentiments is ugly beyond measure. But that ugliness may not serve as much of a deterrent against Clinton staying in.

Time to get cracking:

(Via The Foundry.)

His Grace! impossible! what dead!
Of old age too, and in his bed!
And could that mighty warrior fall?
And so inglorious, after all!
Well, since he's gone, no matter how,
The last loud trump must wake him now:
And, trust me, as the noise grows stronger,
He'd wish to sleep a little longer.
And could he be indeed so old
As by the newspapers we're told?
Threescore, I think, is pretty high;
'Twas time in conscience he should die.
This world he cumbered long enough;
He burnt his candle to the snuff;
And that's the reason, some folks think,
He left behind so great a s---k.
Behold his funeral appears,
Nor widow's sighs, nor orphan's tears,
Wont at such times each heart to pierce,
Attend the progress of his hearse.
But what of that, his friends may say,
He had those honors in his day.
True to his profit and his pride,
He made them weep before he died.
   Come hither, all ye empty things,
Ye bubbles raised by breath of kings;
Who float upon the tide of state,
Come hither, and behold your fate.
Let pride be taught by this rebuke,
How very mean a thing's a Duke;
From all his ill-got honors flung,
Turned to that dirt from whence he sprung.

--Jonathan Swift, A Satirical Elegy on the Death of a Late Famous General.

So Obama has won North Carolina big and may very well win Indiana (it's very close as I write this and the networks have refused to call it for anyone the last I checked the television). A whole host of commentators are declaring the race over Obama has been all-but-anointed as the nominee.

Which he likely will be. But Hillary Clinton will fight on if her speech this evening was any indication and given the demographic patterns that have emerged during this fight for the Democratic Presidential nomination, the Clinton people probably have good grounds for believing that they will do well in the upcoming contests in West Virginia and Kentucky. Meanwhile, they will point out to superdelegates what E.J. Dionne and Ramesh Ponnuru observe concerning Obama's ability--or lack thereof--to draw votes from all parts of the political spectrum. And as pointed out by Michael Barone (link via Brother Erick), coming into tonight, Clinton has actually gotten more popular votes than has Obama. I haven't done the math to see whether that is still the case and it may not be, given Obama's huge win in North Carolina. But the point is that when it comes to the popular vote, Clinton is hanging in there and she may well use the popular vote to push for the argument that come general election time, she will be more electable than will Obama.

Is it possible that Hillary Clinton will drop out after this evening--especially if Indiana goes Obama's way? Sure. But I'm not betting on it. People named "Clinton" don't give up claims to power that easily.

It is generally agreed by those who are actually in the know when it comes to the specifics of trade policy and how free trade genuinely benefits America that both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are moving Heaven and Earth to pander to protectionists for votes. But as Daniel Ikenson points out, in the runup to tonight's primaries in Indiana and North Carolina, both pandering to free traders is the smart thing to do:

According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, Indiana's producers shipped $26 billion worth of goods to foreign customers in 2007 -- 14 percent more than the year before, and 80 percent more than in 2001. In fact, since 2001, the state's exports have grown at a rate one-third faster than U.S. exports overall. In North Carolina, producers shipped $23 billion worth of goods to foreign customers in 2007 -- 10 percent more than the year before, and 59 percent more than five years ago.

In 2007, exports accounted for 20 percent of U.S. manufacturers' total sales revenues -- the highest percentage in modern history. And nowhere in America is manufacturing more important to the economy than in Indiana, where the sector accounts for over 30 percent of the state's gross domestic product. Manufacturing is also more important to North Carolina's economy than it is to most other states, accounting for 22 percent of the state's gross domestic product, ranking it fifth among states in that measure.

In China, Canada, and Mexico -- the primary villains in the candidates' anti-trade narratives -- Indiana's producers are building relationships that are yielding extraordinary returns. Exports from Indiana to China increased by a whopping 36 percent between 2006 and 2007 -- twice the rate of total U.S. export growth to China, and nearly four times Indiana's exports to China in 2001.

Likewise, Indiana's exports to Canada and Mexico have grown 9 percent from 2006 and 67 percent from 2001, eclipsing overall U.S. export growth to the NAFTA countries in both periods. North Carolina's exports to NAFTA have grown 46 percent over the past five years -- to $7.4 billion.

There is a lot more good news (which we wouldn't have around if protectionists had their way) when you click on the link. And lo and behold, it would seem that Ikenson's advice was taken:

Weeks after slamming the North American Free Trade Agreement in Ohio, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have retooled their messages for Indiana and North Carolina, states that have made gains from free trade amid losses elsewhere.

[. . .]

In the steel-producing region of northwest Indiana, the Democratic presidential candidates blamed China for the erosion of manufacturing jobs. But other parts of the state have witnessed an uptick in foreign investment and have positioned themselves as hubs for major distribution centers.

"We may not be able to bring back all the jobs we've lost because of trade, but we can create tomorrow's jobs in this country," Sen. Obama said last week at a high school in Indianapolis. At a steel factory in Munster, Ind., he told the crowd, "We're going to have to trade."

Nice to see that Clinton and Obama are part-time free traders, at least. But the problem is that they can just as easily be called part-time protectionists as well. And full-time free traders are needed to implement prosperity-inducing policies. I have no idea whether the free trade or protectionist versions of Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton would inhabit the Oval Office and make decisions when it comes to trade policy. I do know, however, that John McCain has an impeccable trade record and that I have heard much too much protectionist talk from Clinton and Obama--not to mention a whole host of others in the Democratic Party--to be comfortable entrusting trade policy to them.

"Don't worry too much about Hillary Clinton getting things completely and utterly wrong on the gas tax since economists are the only ones who are really obsessed about this issue."

I had no idea, of course, that we were supposed to excuse a policy error of tremendous proportions merely because if we failed to do so, we would be paying undue attention to the pet peeves of economists. Alarm bells should go off when a lousy gas tax policy is forwarded by a major Presidential candidate and when said Presidential candidate also says that she won't listen to the economics community and its consensus opinion that said Presidential candidate's gas tax policy is almost cataclysmically wrong.

Then again, perhaps Krugman just feels the need to get back into Senator Clinton's graces. She thinks he is The Enemy now:

She peddled her sham gas-tax holiday and repeated her attempt to blame Indiana's job losses on outsourcing and Nafta. Stephanopoulos asked her to name a single economist who thinks a tax-holiday plan would work, and the daughter of Wellesley and Yale took the chance to shove the geeks into their lockers: "I'm not going to put my lot in with economists."

When Stephanopoulos pointed out that Paul Krugman, a Times columnist, has raised doubts about the plan, Clinton lumped Krugman in with the Bush administration and said she wasn't going to listen to the people responsible for the last seven years.

Insert your own joke here.

Through me the way is to the city dolent;
Through me the way is to eternal dole;
Through me the way among the people lost.

Justice incited my sublime Creator;
Created me divine Omnipotence,
The highest Wisdom and the primal Love.

Before me there were no created things,
Only eterne, and I eternal last.
All hope abandon, ye who enter in!

These words in somber color I beheld
Written upon the summit of a gate;
Whence I: Their sense is, Master, hard to me!

And he to me, as one experienced:
Here all suspicion needs must be abandoned,
All cowardice must needs be here extinct.

We to the place have come, where I have told thee
Thou shalt behold the people dolorous  
Who have foregone the good of intellect.  

And after he had laid his hand on mine  
With joyful mien, whence I was comforted,  
He led me in among the secret things.  

There sighs, complaints, and ululations loud  
Resounded through the air without a star,  
Whence I, at the beginning, wept thereat.  

Languages diverse, horrible dialects,  
Accents of anger, words of agony,  
And voices high and hoarse, with sound of hands,  

Made up a tumult that goes whirling on  
Forever in that air forever black,  
Even as the sand doth, when the whirlwind breathes.  

And I, who had my head with horror bound,  
Said: Master, what is this which now I hear?  
What folk is this, which seems by pain so vanquished?  

And he to me: This miserable mode  
Maintain the melancholy souls of those  
Who lived withouten infamy or praise.  

Commingled are they with that caitiff choir  
Of Angels, who have not rebellious been,  
Nor faithful were to God, but were for self.  

The heavens expelled them, not to be less fair;  
Nor them the nethermore abyss receives,  
For glory none the damned would have from them.  

And I: O Master, what so grievous is  
To these, that maketh them lament so sore?  
He answered: I will tell thee very briefly.  

These have no longer any hope of death;  
And this blind life of theirs is so debased,  
They envious are of every other fate.  

No fame of them the world permits to be;  
Misericord and Justice both disdain them.  
Let us not speak of them, but look, and pass.  

And I, who looked again, beheld a banner,  
Which, whirling round, ran on so rapidly,  
That of all pause it seemed to me indignant;  

And after it there came so long a train  
Of people, that I ne'er would have believed  
That ever Death so many had undone.  

When some among them I had recognized.  
I looked, and I beheld the shade of him  
Who made through cowardice the great refusal.  

Forthwith I comprehended, and was certain,  
That this the sect was of the caitiff wretches  
Hateful to God and to his enemies.  

These miscreants, who never were alive,
Were naked, and were stung exceedingly  
By gadflies and by hornets that were there.  

These did their faces irrigate with blood,  
Which, with their tears commingled, at their feet  
By the disgusting worms was gathered up.  

And when to gazing farther I betook me.  
People I saw on a great river's bank;  
Whence said I: Master, now vouchsafe to me,  

That I may know who these are, and what law  
Makes them appear so ready to pass over,  
As I discern athwart the dusky light.  

And he to me: These things shall all be known  
To thee, as soon as we our footsteps stay  
Upon the dismal shore of Acheron.  

Then with mine eyes ashamed and downward cast,  
Fearing my words might irksome be to him,
From speech refrained I till we reached the river.  

And lo! towards us coming in a boat  
An old man, hoary with the hair of eld,  
Crying: Woe unto you, ye souls depraved  

Hope nevermore to look upon the heavens;  
I come to lead you to the other shore,  
To the eternal shades in heat and frost.  

And thou, that yonder standest, living soul,  
Withdraw thee from these people, who are dead--
But when he saw that I did not withdraw,  

He said: By other ways, by other ports  
Thou to the shore shalt come, not here, for, passage;  
A lighter vessel needs must carry thee.  

And unto him the Guide: Vex thee not, Charon;  
It is so willed there where is power to do  
That which is willed; and farther question not.

Thereat were quieted the fleecy cheeks  
Of him the ferryman of the livid fen,  
Who round about his eyes had wheels of flame.  

But all those souls who weary were and naked  
Their color changed and gnashed their teeth together,  
As soon as they had heard those cruel words.  

God they blasphemed and their progenitors,  
The human race, the place, the time, the seed  
Of their engendering and of their birth!  

Thereafter all together they drew back,  
Bitterly weeping, to the accursed shore,  
Which waiteth every man who fears not God.  

Charon the demon, with the eyes of glede,  
Beckoning to them, collects them all together,  
Beats with his oar whoever lags behind.  

As in the autumn-time the leaves fall off,
First one and then another, till the branch  
Unto the earth surrenders all its spoils;  

In similar wise the evil seed of Adam  
Throw themselves from that margin one by one,  
At signals, as a bird unto its lure.  

So they depart across the dusky wave,  
And ere upon the other side they land,  
Again on this side a new troop assembles.  

My son, the courteous Master said to me,  
All those who perish in the wrath of God  
Here meet together out of every land;  

And ready are they to pass o'er the river,  
Because celestial Justice spurs them on,  
So that their fear is turned into desire.  

This way there never passes a good soul;  
And hence if Charon doth complain of thee
Well mayst thou know now what his speech imports.  

This being finished, all the dusk champaign  
Trembled so violently, that of that terror  
The recollection bathes me still with sweat.  

The land of tears gave forth a blast of wind,  
And fulminated a vermilion light,  
Which overmastered in me every sense,  

And as a man whom sleep hath seized I fell.

--Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto III (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow).

On the Mugabe government's grudging admission that Robert Mugabe was outpolled in last month's presidential election:

After a month of incubation, any results from the electoral commission or the government have to be regarded with scepticism, analysts caution. Diplomats note that, conveniently for the regime, Mr Tsvangirai's figure was at the lowest end of a projection by independent monitors; Mr Mugabe's was at the highest end of his projected figure. The MDC has rejected the leaked figures as fraudulent, insisting its leader won an outright victory and suggesting the leak was designed to prepare the ground for a run-off.

But it is still striking that the presidential figures leaked by government concede that for the first time in his 28 years in power, Mr Mugabe suffered an electoral defeat.

"Probably they did want to do a bit of rigging but then found it harder than they hoped," said one regional diplomat. "The motives for having a recount and delaying the release were wholly impure but the result is clearly less corrupted than they would have wanted."

Remarkably, this constitutes tremendous progress in Zimbabwe.

Thank Heavens for this blog post, which makes an exceedingly valuable observation concerning Andrew Sullivan's surprise recommendation that Barack Obama choose Hillary Clinton as his running mate:

I had thought that Mr Sullivan's affinity for Mr Obama was based on the candidate's promise of a break with the Clintonian politics of the past. But Mr Sullivan seems all too willing to sacrifice that principle on the altar of victory. He's happy to have Mrs Clinton engage in "the dirty pugilism of the campaign", as long as it benefits Mr Obama.

Mr Sullivan argues that picking Mrs Clinton doesn't necessarily mean Mr Obama is "capitulating to old politics". Rather, it could demonstrate "his capacity to reach out and engage and co-opt his rivals and opponents." Perhaps, but it could also demonstrate his willingness to do almost anything to win. Then the question must be asked, who has co-opted who?

Over to you, Andrew.

In the event that we see a price hike in sugar and sugar-based products, I offer you an object of ire.

Mark Rep. Peterson well, electorally speaking. Both he and those who support his position owe you an explanation for their stance on sugar price supports. And if that explanation isn't good enough--and one suspects that it won't be--you can make sure that Rep. Peterson and his supporters will be collecting their paychecks from a source other than the United States Treasury come January 2009.