Hey, What’d I Miss? OTE Summary, 6/18 – 6/24

Jun 25, 2012 at 11:46 am

(A new addition to OTE, summing up the posts of the past week.  h/t: GL)

• I waded deep into the weeds of the sequestration debate, considering the impact of the automatic spending cuts slated to begin in January of next year.
• I examined shortcomings in the IRS whistle-blower program that leave hundreds of billions of much-needed revenue on the table. A few days later, I offered a bit of good news: the Bloomberg piece on the whistleblowing program got some well-deserved attention – from the IRS!
• I discussed a structural problem with the Federal Reserve’s forecasting that produces a common pattern – for years now, economic forecasters have continuously predicted recovery, gotten bad news, and pushed their recovery prediction out a few quarters.
• I highlighted a trap that almost every major recent tax reform effort falls into: reform that lowers rates without first locking in higher revenues will likely fail to raise those revenues. (This tax reform trap is detailed by my CBPP colleagues in a recent paper.)

Bonus: I went off the cellular map during a short trip to Canada – If I want to use the smart phone in another country, I have to tell my Verizon puppet masters a week in advance.

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