Tag Archives: New York Times

Would You Rather Pay Fees or Taxes?

A little over a week ago, Matt Yglesias wrote a post on Slate about how to balance the budget while slashing taxes. The solution: call everything a fee.

Well we could solve an awful lot of problems that way. For example, I’d love to see us impose a greenhouse gas emissions fee to internalize the social cost of carbon dioxide. On top of that, I think a small additional fee on the use of gasoline would be justified. And of course road congestion fees on crowded highways. I used to think we should raise the alcoholic beverages tax, but now I think we should eliminate it entirely. Instead, let’s put an “alcohol fee” in place that just happens to be higher than the current tax. Do the same for cigarettes. Legalize marijuana, but subject its sale to a rather hefty fee. It actually turns out that we could replace most taxes on labor and capital with a land occupancy fee, especially if we call it a “land occupancy fee” rather than a “land value tax.”

After reading this post, it made me think of Michael Sandel’s chapter about fines versus fees. Maybe some of the things that Yglesias is talking about in this post should actually be labeled fines and not fees. For instances, if we’re talking about internalizing the social cost of carbon dioxide, isn’t there a moral piece to it? That is, shouldn’t we call this a fine, then? You may disagree, but the nomenclature in this case does matter.

It seems a bit absurd to think that people would be more amenable to paying money for something merely by changing the label from ‘tax’ to ‘fee,’ but labels matter.

While it’s certainly a creative idea to start charging fees and lower taxes, there is an important bit to consider here. Namely, the control of these fees. Have you ever had to pay a fee to get your license renewed? Do you know how much it costs the government to ‘actually’ renew your license? I don’t. But I know that I get charged close to $100 to renew it. Josh Barro solidifies the point:

Politicians tend to regard fees as more palatable than taxes, and more focused too. If a state needs to finance an infrastructure to oversee fishing, why shouldn’t fishermen foot the bill? But groups like the nonpartisan Tax Foundation in Washington worry that governments are now using fees to shore up budget shortfalls rather than cover specific costs incurred by specific users.

“When it comes to paying for bananas, you’ve got the market as a mechanism to make sure you’re paying a fair price,” says Josh Barro, a staff economist at the Tax Foundation. “But when it comes to getting your driver’s license renewed, the government has a monopoly, and you have no idea what it costs the state or what it’s doing with the money.”

The moral of the story: maybe taxes aren’t so bad after all.

How to get your Op-Ed in the New York Times

For as long as I’ve been reading the New York Times, I’ve toyed with the idea of writing an Op-Ed and sending it in. As the Op-Ed’s in the Times that I usually come across are written by people much more well-known than I am, I figured that my chances of getting in were pretty low. As it turns out, this just might not be the case.

A couple of weeks ago, I came across an “Op-Ed” from the Op-Ed and Sunday Review Editor, Trish Hall. In it, she details how to get an Op-Ed in the Times:

We get a flood of submissions, but there’s never too much good writing in the world. There is always room for more. So what makes the cut? That’s what people always ask me, so I’ll try to explain the process. Most pieces we publish are between 400 and 1200 words. They can be longer when they arrive, but not so long that they’re traumatizing. Submissions that are reacting to news of the world are of great value to us, especially if they arrive very quickly. Write in your own voice. If you’re funny, be funny. Don’t write the way you think important people write, or the way you think important pieces should sound. And it’s best to focus very specifically on something; if you write about the general problem of prisons in the United States, the odds are that it will seem too familiar. But if you are a prisoner in California and you have just gone on a hunger strike and you want to tell us about it – now, that we would like to read. We are normal humans (relatively speaking). We like to read conversational English that pulls us along. That means that if an article is written with lots of jargon, we probably won’t like it.

Some of what Trish has said should be comforting to folks who were worried about writing something that was high-brow. She specifically asks that you write in your own voice. So, let’s say that you get something together, submit it to the Times, and it’s accepted. Does your Op-Ed get published just like that? Not exactly:

First, you’ll get a contract giving us the right to publish it and laying out some of your responsibilities. The most important ones have to do with originality and truthfulness. You can’t plagiarize yourself, or someone else, and we won’t run something that has appeared in another publication, either print or digital. We request that you disclose anything that might be seen as a conflict of interest, financial or otherwise: Did you invest in a company that you praise in passing? Did you once work with a public official you mention in flattering or critical terms? Could you or an organization or company you represent benefit from the stance you take in an Op-Ed? We need to know. That doesn’t mean we’ll throw out your article on that basis — in most cases it just means disclosing the relationship to the reader. We also need all of the material that supports the facts in your story. That’s the biggest surprise to some people. Yes, we do fact check. Do we do it perfectly? Of course not. Everyone makes mistakes, and when we do we correct them. But the facts in a piece must be supported and validated. You can have any opinion you would like, but you can’t say that a certain battle began on a certain day if it did not.

It’s really great to see that even the Op-Ed’s are fact-checked. I’ve never worked at a newspaper, so I don’t know if this is standard practice. Either way, it does makes sense that if something’s going to be printed in your publication (The New York Times, no less) that you’d want to make sure it was truthful.

I hope after reading this post, the veil of mystique has been raised on how to get your opinion published in the New York Times. More than that, if you were holding back, I hope you’ll now consider writing an opinion and submitting it.

Massive Miscalculation by GOP Chairman Reince Priebus: No Debates with CNN or NBC

Earlier today, I saw a series of tweets from the GOP Chairman, Reince Priebus:

At first blush, it seems like nothing more than some kind of a stunt to draw attention to the matter. It’s also a great way for the Chairman to do some interviews and bad-mouth CNN/NBC. As I thought about it a bit more, it seems like this can’t end well for the Chairman:

It wouldn’t surprise anyone that there are more Democrats who watch MSNBC and more Republicans who watch Fox News, but what about the people who watch CNN? Well, as it happens, this is home to the political Independents of the electorate. According to TiVo data (actually quite sophisticated):

CNN, which has branded itself as the cable news network without a partisan skew, has apparently made the sale among independent voters. The network’s biggest skew was among independents, 17 percent above the national average with that group.

So, the majority of Independents that watch TV get their news from CNN. Let’s play out this scenario for the GOP. Assume that CNN/NBC decide not to pull their “Hillary Programming,” then the GOP has two options:

1. They’re forced into reneging on their initial stance of no primary debates for CNN/NBC.

2. Or, Like they said, having no debates with those networks. I suppose there might be some unforeseen third option, but at this point, this is what it looks like.

If they pull they’re debates with CNN/NBC, they’ll be losing out on the largest concentration of Independents. For a party that’s currently not in power that wants to be in power, in what will be an “up for grabs” election with President Barack Obama joining the list of Presidents who’ve served two terms, it seems ludicrous that they’d want to remove “free media” of their candidates to Independents.

So, this would force them into reneging on their stance of not having any debates with CNN/NBC, right? Except that this may make them look weak with their base of voters, which usually wouldn’t matter. However, “Republicans like elected officials who stick to their positions.” From my vantage point, this ultimatum has backed the GOP into a corner for which there is no escape.

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Revisiting that third option… it may just be that no one cares about any of this when the 2014 midterms roll around or the 2016 general election.

Political Implications of the SCOTUS Decision on the Voting Rights Act

More than a week ago, the Supreme Court of the United States rendered a decision on a case that had implications for the Voting Rights Act (VRA). The Court ruled that the formula from Section 4 of the VRA was unconstitutional. The decision has certainly enraged liberals and the political left as is clear in Justice Ginsburg‘s dissent:

[T]he Court’s opinion can hardly be described as an exemplar of restrained and moderate decision making. Quite the opposite. Hubris is a fit word for today’s demolition of the VRA.

Because of this outrage, I’ve seen some people argue that this decision was good for liberals/democrats because it will ignite those potentially disenfranchised people to vote. From Ross Douthat:

Well, to begin with, voter identification laws do not belong to the same moral or legal universe as Jim Crow. Their public purpose, as a curb to fraud, is potentially legitimate rather than nakedly discriminatory, and their effects are relatively limited. As Roberts’s majority opinion noted, the voter registration gap between whites and blacks in George Wallace’s segregationist Alabama was 50 percentage points.

… But voter ID laws don’t take effect in a vacuum: as they’re debated, passed and contested in court, they shape voter preferences and influence voter enthusiasm in ways that might well outstrip their direct influence on turnout. They inspire registration drives and education efforts; they help activists fund-raise and organize; they raise the specter of past injustices; they reinforce a narrative that their architects are indifferent or hostile to minorities.

W.W. from The Economist finds Douthat’s analysis “quite plausible.” Both articles referenced the same information I talked about yesterday: the missing white voter.

I don’t know that I necessarily agree with this assessment.

In Wisconsin a couple of years ago, citizens were pretty excited about recalling Governor Scott Walker. Some folks were really upset by Gov. Walker’s actions on collective bargaining. Democrats, Gov. Walker is a Republican, thought that they could seize this opportunity to recall the Governor. There were over 1 million signatures to recall the Governor. It seemed like there was lots of momentum and people engaged in the recall. However, during the recall election of 2012, Gov. Walker won more of the vote than he did in the gubernatorial election of 2010.

There’s another example from this past election: The Affordable Care Act. Otherwise, known as “ObamaCare.” In March 2012, when the Supreme Court heard the arguments for the case, Karl Rove wrote in the Wall Street Journal:

This week’s historic Supreme Court hearings on President Obama’s health-care overhaul will have huge political ramifications.

Then, in June, when the decision was rendered, there was this from The Weekly Standard:

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision upholding the constitutionality of Obamacare, the principal choice now facing Americans on November 6 will be whether to keep Obamacare or to repeal it.

Republicans and conservatives thought that ObamaCare was going to give them the chance they needed to have a Republican elected President. It’s safe to say that it didn’t turn out the way they wanted. Not only did Republicans not elect a Republican President, but they also lost seats in the Senate (when they anticipated winning more seats).

Neither of these examples perfectly map onto the VRA decision, but it seems to me that there’s a bit of an overreaction in assuming that this decision is going to be a lightning rod for Democrats. I’d say that it’s “too early to tell” how this will affect the upcoming 2014 and 2016 elections. For now, the one of the only things that can be said about the political implications of the VRA: We’ll see…

More Civilized Conversations, Less Screaming Over Each Other

A few days ago, I happened to catch a segment from All In With Chris Hayes. He had on one of the people I follow on Twitter, Tim Carney. Part of the reason that this is noteworthy is because Carney is of a different ideological perspective from Hayes. Carney writes for the Washington Examiner, which, in 2008, supported McCain for President and in 2012, supported Mitt Romney. And Chris Hayes, a host on MSNBC, probably voted for Obama in the last two elections.

Anyhow, the segment comes after Hayes previews the show and introduces the topic: the ‘missing white voter.’ This particular usage of the phrase comes from a series of articles (I’m not the only one who likes to write series!) in Real Clear Politics by Sean Trende where he makes the argument that Republicans needn’t get onboard with immigration reform in order to win future elections — they just need to appeal to those white voters who didn’t vote in the last election.

After the introduction from Hayes, Carney begins making his points. One of things I thought was worth noting was how Carney talked about Rubio. From what I’ve seen/read, many conservatives think that Rubio will have a good shot at being elected President in 2016. So, when Carney seemed to make points against Rubio, I was a bit surprised. On the whole, I really enjoyed the brief back-and-forth between Hayes and Carney — they’re both smart commentators. Most importantly though, I liked that it didn’t appear that the two of them were getting caught up in the ideological talking points. It seemed like they were really talking about the substance of what Hayes introduced in the segment. I wish that cable news was more like that segment and less like a game of one-upmanship to see who can scream the loudest to convince the viewers that, ‘they must be right because they were more angry.’

Note: If the interview (or this discussion) intrigued you, I highly recommend checking out the article from Tom Edsall on the New York Times’ Opinionator. He has a really good summary of the idea that Republicans should just focus on white voters.

The Question No One’s Asking in the Debate about Privacy and Terrorism

Unless you’ve been living under a rock (or don’t read/watch/consume the news), you’ve probably heard about Edward Snowden and his decision to leak classified documents about a US government agency, the NSA, to the public. I thought I’d raise an issue that I haven’t seen raised or written, yet. In fact, I’m a little surprised that I haven’t seen it raised. There have been plenty of Op-Eds (Brooks, Friedman, Shafer, Cohen, etc.) and columns (Simon, etc.) from many of the common people who write Op-Eds and columns about national security, but no one seems to be taking a step back and re-examining the question.

Most of what I’ve seen has the illusion of taking the step back and saying something to the effect of, ‘remember 9/11? That’s why we need programs like these to spy on those would seek to do us harm. It’s because of terrorism that we need these types of programs.’ Did you catch it? Did you see the underlying question that this line of reasoning assumes away?

Before I spell out exactly the point I’m trying to make, I think another analogy may help. Have you ever been sick? Of course you have, what a silly question. Upon being sick, ill, or injured, you’ve probably had to visit a doctor. When at the doctor, you were probably asked about your symptoms. After a few minutes, the doctor likely gave you a prescription or recommendation for something that would help you take care of your symptoms. As the symptoms were the thing that was bothering you, taking care of them probably seemed like a good idea to you, too.

Unfortunately, treating the symptoms won’t solve the problem of you being sick. It’ll just make the symptoms go away, but leave the underlying issue! Maybe you got sick because you were too stressed out about a big project and so that compromised your immune system, thereby making you more susceptible to being sick. And because your immune system was compromised, not washing your hands after playing with your kids at the local park meant that those germs that remained on the swing from one of the other kids was able to take up residence in your body. So, giving you medicine to make your symptoms go away might be helpful, but it weakens your immune system slightly (as it’s not able to develop antibodies on its own to take care of what’s affecting your system) and you still have that big project to finish.

What’s the tie-in? Terrorism is a symptom. It’s not the cause. The kind of terrorism that’s trying to be prevented isn’t the kind of terrorism that happens on a whim. It’s thought out, it’s well planned, it’s premeditated. Actions like that come with a reason. There’s an underlying cause to that terrorism. What is it that the US has done to provoke “terrorism?” That’s not a facetious or rhetorical question, but I think that’s the missing question from this debate. That’s the question that needs to be debated in Op-Eds and in columns.

Every Child is Gifted: Why Nurturing is so Important

I came across an op-ed in the NYT from September arguing that, in America, there is too much focus on raising the floor (of education) and not enough focus on raising the ceiling. Meaning, there’s more focus on bringing up the “weaker” kids and not much focus on the “stronger” kids. I was fortunate enough to be born and raised in the Greater Toronto Area, so during my formative years, I was in school in Ontario (Canadian education, from what I remember, is known for being better than American education).

The op-ed goes on to describe how it is for those young students who are really smart, but because they go to public school, are prevented from getting the kind of education that will challenge/inspire them. Again, I didn’t do my K-12 education the US, so all I’ve got to go on is what I’ve heard/read. I do remember seeing Waiting for Superman and that painted a rather dire picture for some States).

The op-ed’s main thesis is that there needs to be a focus on these high-potential kids. Because their parents didn’t have the funds to afford private education doesn’t mean they should be prevented from getting a solid education.

I think that’s an argument that most people would agree with — to some extent. I’d like to make a different point, though.

It might seem a bit clichéd to say that, “every child is gifted,” but this is something that I truly believe. How? We are all gifted in a different way. Some folks may be more talented in kinesthetic activities and some may be more talented in musical activities. I certainly think that we all have the capacity to develop these talents, but I also think that some folks are born with a predisposition to certain talents. (I don’t know that I agree with it fully, but Gardner’s multiple intelligences is a good starter for what I’m talking about.)

So, if we’ve got all of these predispositions to talents, how come they don’t necessarily show up? Well, I would argue that it’s nurturing. Parenting is a monumental responsibility. Caring for and nurturing a little being is one of the noblest things one can do. I won’t go too deep into parenting philosophy in this post, but suffice to say, I think a great deal of responsibility falls on the parents to nurture those talents within their kids (major caveat: like there are predispositions to talents, I don’t doubt that there are also predispositions to “non”-talents that might make nurturing a bit more difficult). I’m not here to criticize how some people parent, but I do want to emphasize that all children are talented. It may just take a little extra effort to ferret out those talents, if the child had not been nurtured in a way that allows the child to be comfortable/confident in those talents.

“Write Your Own Wiki Page” is the new “Write Your Obituary”

This past week in one of my classes there was a dynamic guest speaker who spoke about life and business. He talked about many of the things he’s done and that he’s still looking to make his mark on history. He framed ‘career’ into ‘quarters.’ There’s the “first quarter, second quarter, third quarter, and the fourth quarter.” In the first quarter, you are sort of getting your feet wet. In the second quarter, you start to take charge and take on more responsibility. I’m sure you get the metaphor by now.

As I was thinking about my life and the its “quarters,” I was remembered of the exercise that people are often asked to do when they’re making long-term goals: “write your own obituary.” The purpose of an exercise like this is to help you focus on those things that you would like to accomplish in life. When one reflects on the things one wants to be remembered for, there’s a good chance that one’s priorities might need to be rearranged (in order to meet those goals).

As I thought more about the idea of ‘writing my obituary,’ I thought: “I haven’t read very many obituaries in the NYT, but I certainly have read a number of Wiki pages of people who’ve died!” And thats’ when it hit me — “Writing Your Own Wiki Page” is probably ‘this’ generation’s version of write your own obituary.

Letting that sink in for a bit was kind of strange: Who am I to have a Wiki Page. Well, I better get cracking on ‘changing the world,’ if I want to have a Wiki page about me. More than that self-talk was the idea of future generations. I said that writing your own Wiki page could be thought of as this generation’s version of write your own obituary. So… what will the next generation’s version of write your own Wiki page be?

Solutions for Racism: How Race Affects Voting

A couple of days ago, I saw a that linked to a from a few years ago. It was a TEDTalk from someone who I (and many others) hold in high regard: . Silver runs the blog for the New York Times. He gained popularity in 2008 after he every US Senate race and just about all the electoral votes. He has a very sophisticated model that takes into account an assortment polls, along with economic data. He’s just come out with a that I can’t wait to read. If you’re interested in statistics, prediction, or forecasting, I highly recommend it!

Anyways — today, I wanted to share the TEDTalk that I just watched. As the title of this post suggests, Silver is talking about how race affected voting in the 2008 election. Somewhat surprisingly, he also raises some possible solutions to these problems. I hope you’ll take 10 minutes and watch!

You Need To Seek Out Ideas and Opinions That Are Different From Your Beliefs

[Editor’s Note: This post’s title was changed on September 16th from “if you’re a conservative, tell me which liberals you read: if you’re a liberal, tell me which conservatives you read.”]

I was born and raised in Canada and really didn’t start paying attention to politics until I moved to the US, so most of my understanding of politics comes through the lens of American politics. Watching the Democrats and the Republicans fight (bicker?) year after year starts to get intolerable. As , many American agree with this sentiment.

Part of this is a result of our to seek out opinions that confirm our own previously held beliefs. That is, if one is more liberal, they are probably more inclined to watch MSNBC and/or read the New York Times. Similarly, if one is more conservative, they are probably more inclined to watch FOX News and/or read the Wall Street Journal. There’s no “good” or “bad” here, though I would .

So, if we know that we have a tendency to seek out opinions that confirm our previously held beliefs, it would behoove us to intentionally seek out opinions that we know are counter to our own! That sounds a lot easier than it actually is — especially in today’s world of RSS, Twitter, Facebook, and personalized news.

Not to pick on Facebook, but the friends you have on Facebook, more than likely, share your political affiliation. It’s just natural for us to befriend those and even if you have a few friends from the “other side,” the news that they share on Facebook will most likely: a) get drowned out by all your other friends’ sharing news; or b) won’t be elevated to the top of your newsfeed because you tended not to click on the links provided by these friends.

While I don’t think there’s anything “wrong” with it, I do think that there’s something that we should be doing about it. If you’re a conservative, there are a critical mass of people out there who think that your opinion on issues of the day are wrong. If you’re a liberal, there are a critical mass of people out there who think that your opinion on issues of the day are wrong. What are you doing to try to understand why they think your opinion is wrong?

And yes, there are things that you can do.

Lifehacker proposed to do this:

  • Get random reading content delivered to your inbox
“The easiest, no hassle way to get a random selection of news is to have it delivered right to your inbox.”
  • Automatically get different points of view for articles you read
“When you’re browsing the news it’s easy to stick with the sites you know. Sometimes that means you’re missing an entirely different point of view.”
  • Randomize your start page
“Your browser’s home page is a great place to dump interesting and random content for your accidental and automatic discovery. Obviously you don’t want to do this on your work computer in case you get distracted, but it’s a good way to discover new things when you have the time.”

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Head on over to the for more details and specific suggestions (for your start page). There’s one more suggestion I want to make (as it’s something that I do): Twitter. Instead of just following/reading news from people/accounts that I know are similar to my previously held beliefs, I have sought out those accounts that often discuss the issues from a perspective that is not native to me. This way, I’m able to read about the news from an entirely different perspective and from one that I may not have considered were it not for someone giving words to it.

So, I ask: if you’re a conservative, tell me who are the liberals that you read — if you’re a liberal, tell me who are the conservatives that you read.