Michael Barone has a new column out on recent poll data:

Evidence comes from pollster Scott Rasmussen. He asked likely voters -- his usual sample, which tilts more Republican than all adults -- whether increased government spending is good or bad for the economy.

The results were unambiguous. Good for the country? Twenty-eight percent. Bad for the country? Fifty-two percent....

Further evidence comes from a poll conducted by Magellan Data and Mapping Strategies in the always key state of Ohio, where unemployment is well above the national average and job growth has been minimal for a decade.

Registered voters were asked to choose responses to Ohio state government's $8 billion budget deficit. Only 16 percent favored increasing taxes, while 27 percent wanted to cut government services and a whopping 50 percent favored reducing the compensation packages of government workers.

Arthur Laffer has a piece in the Wall Street Journal that begins by citing John F. Kennedy on how cutting taxes can increase government revenues, mentions the Kerry yacht tax episode, and also reports that "Howard Metzenbaum, the former Ohio senator and liberal supporter of the death tax, chose to change his official residence to Florida just before he died because Florida does not have an estate tax while Ohio does."

The New York Sun has an editorial:

The approach to Mr. Isenberg, moreover, was made not by Mr. Rangel, though the two talked on September 19, 2006, in the presence of the president of City College, Gregory Williams. The meeting had been arranged by a paragon of political probity, Robert Morgenthau, the district attorney of New York County, whose grandfather had gone to City College.

The commitment by Mr. Isenberg to make a contribution to the Rangel Center was made in a meeting between Mr. Isenberg and Mr. Williams, at which Mr. Rangel was not even present. The meeting took place on November 9, 2006, before Mr. Rangel acceded to the chairmanship of Ways and Means, and at a time when Nabors had no matters pending before the committee.

The New York Times marks the centennial of the Boy Scouts of America with a truly egregious article and photo that run under the headline "Boy Scouts Seek a Way to Rebuild Ranks."

The best indication of the vast cultural gulf separating people involved in Boy Scouts from people who report and edit the Times probably was in the photo cutline that ran with the story. "Boy Scouts said their pledge at the recent National Scout Jamboree in Fort A.P. Hill, Va. The organization is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year." As any Boy Scout would know, there is no Boy Scout "pledge." There's a Scout Law, and a Scout Oath (or Promise).

It goes in that vein. The Times sneers at the Scouts' size: "In the last decade alone, membership has dropped by more than 16 percent, to 2.8 million." No mention of what has happened to the Times's circulation or advertising over that period, or of the fact that, at 2.8 million, there are still a lot more Boy Scouts than New York Times subscribers.

A lot of my friends on the right are delighting in the spectacle of Rep. Charles Rangel and Rep. Maxine Waters both heading for trials before the House Ethics Committee, but I have to say I find the whole thing misguided. And it's not just that I have a soft spot for Mr. Rangel going back ten years, to the 2000 interview with Businessweek (cited in this New York Sun editorial), in which Mr. Rangel was asked if he would support a cut in the capital gains tax. "I have no problem reducing the tax burden for people who take risks," he replied at the time. Jude Wanniski reported in 1997 that on the capital gains tax, "Charlie has been telling me for years that he favors indexation," that is, the idea that the capital gains tax should apply to only real, after-inflation gains.

"America is not a nation of risk-embracing pioneers," David Brooks writes. How does he think most of our ancestors got here? Maybe they came because the risks here were lower than the risks they faced wherever they left, but still, it seems a pretty categorical denial of at least a reasonable important aspect of the American character.

The Alliance for Savings and Investment has released a copy of its letter to President Obama about tax rates on dividends and capital gains:

If Congress fails to act by December 31, 2010, the maximum capital gains tax rate would increase by as much as 33 percent. For dividends, the increase is even more dramatic, with tax rates for many individuals increasing by nearly 164 percent. These increases do not reflect the recently passed 3.8 percent Medicare health insurance tax that will apply to certain investors in 2013, raising their tax rate on dividend income to 43.4 percent, the highest level in decades.

These tax increases would have a stifling effect on our nation's economic recovery.

Thomas Sowell has a new column out: "One of the ideas that has proved to be almost impervious to evidence is the idea that wise and far-sighted people need to take control and plan economic and social policies so that there will be a rational and just order, rather than chaos resulting from things being allowed to take their own course."

He goes on, "How was it even possible that transferring decisions from elites with more education, intellect, data and power to ordinary people could lead consistently to demonstrably better results?"

Alan Blinder, who is a professor of economics at Princeton and a former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, is a co-author of the Blinder-Zandi paper discussed in the earlier posts here and here. I wrote to him, "Do you have any financial or consulting relationship with Moody's or with Economy.com? Did they pay you for your work on that paper? I realize you have no obligation to answer this question but I am curious. I don't think your views on this question would be affected by any payment, of course, but the paper seems a bit oddly formatted relative to a typical academic paper, and I am trying to understand it. I suppose it would help Moody's to have someone of your stature ratify their model."

He wrote back, "None whatsoever. But it was formatted by Moody's desktop publishing system--at their expense."

Over at the Washington Post, E.J. Dionne Jr. praises British "Conservative" Prime Minister David Cameron for proposing an increase in the value-added tax to 20% from 17.5%. Mr. Dionne also wants to raise taxes on those Americans making more than $250,000, claiming that "the simple truth" is that they "are undertaxed compared with everyone else."

Thanks to a reader-participant-watchdog-community member-content co-creator, we've now obtained the link to the actual paper by economists Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi that was the subject of that weird New York Times article yesterday. It doesn't appear to be in a peer-reviewed economic journal at all, but it's rather a publication that basically touts the Moody's analytics model. Highlights:

The non-profit libertarian public interest law firm the Institute for Justice has just published detailed reports on five entrepreneurs who overcame government-imposed obstacles to success. The reports are up on a new section of the IJ Web site under the headline The Power Of One Entrepreneur, and they are worth a look for anyone interested in how to help get the economy growing. The IJ says the work is aimed to "humanize the issue of economic liberty." The entrepreneurs include Tennessee funeral-home owner Kim Powers Bridges, Dallas computer repairman Thane Hayhurst, Seattle-area bagel baker Dennis Ballen, New York City commuter van owner Hector Ricketts, and Mississippi hair-braider Melony Armstrong.

Bianca Jagger's rent-stabilized Park Avenue apartment was the subject of a memorable New York Sun editorial back in October 2007, to which she responded with a letter to the editor. The Wall Street Journal's Greater New York Section keeps the Sun spirit alive with a news article bringing the case up to date by reporting, "A New York state judge has ruled that Bianca Jagger must pay $708,600 in back rent and other fees to the landlords of a Park Avenue building after she lost her fight to keep the rent-regulated apartment."

A Daniel Henninger column in today's Wall Street Journal gives voice to the idea that the politicians in Washington don't really represent the taxpayers:

If voters ultimately feel more secure with a Barack Obama and the like designing a national itinerary for some 300 million people in 50 states, then certainly one should vote for letting taxes rise now on one class of Americans and imposing a VAT next year on everyone. They need a whole lot of money, so give it to them to the horizon. We work, they decide.

The alternative vision is that to compete for the next 50 years, the U.S. is going to need a tax structure that keeps more of the nation's decisions about using its wealth in the hands—and minds—of millions of intelligent citizens, from any economic class. They work, they decide.

Matt Bai has a column in the New York Times linking together ObamaCare's Independent Payment Advisory Board for Medicare, which Obama budget director Peter Orszag called the "single-biggest yielding of power to an independent entity since the creation of the Federal Reserve," and the 18-member debt commission aimed at helping to balance the budget.

Mr. Bai writes, "Taken together, all of these proposals would seem to represent a clear exertion of executive power over the legislative branch from an administration that was supposed to have been more deferential to Congressional prerogatives."