32 thoughts on “Election: In Image Maps.”

1. I’m seeing a rather distressing pattern of North Blue, South Red (with just a couple of red exceptions). I hope this changes as the vote count progresses.

2. It would be nice to see colors more interlaced, wouldn’t it? I suspect we are going to see all those big empty states in the middle go red. The west coast will go blue.

3. Lucia,

   Nice to post for the first time. I’m a long time reader who discovered your blog from CA and Matt Brigg’s blog and enjoy your posts a great deal– they help me keep my stats work in grad school fresh. Well, sort of fresh. 🙂

   Anyway, the bifurcation you mention is actually something that I see not improving any time soon. Back in the early aughties, I saw an interesting study done by a prof at my undergrad (UCLA) that showed how voting behavior in the Congress has increasingly gone along party lines (moreso than the early to mid-20th century.) I remember thinking then that this would also lead to increased bifurcation in the EVs, as people move increasingly to follow policy.

   I haven’t done any quantitative work on this, to be honest, but my experience academically leads me to believe that we shouldn’t expect “mixing” in the EV distribution this year or in 2012.

4. Hi Ari–
   I’m glued to the news, just like after all presidential elections. We should see a few coast state results come in. After that, it’s probably worth going to bed. I don’t think we’ll know who won Indiana until dawn or later.

5. Things went about as I expected on the national front. I’ll read the local elections tomorrow.

6. Lucia,

   I’m sick and have work tomorrow, but I can’t go to bed. This sort of sucks.

   At this point, I’m wondering what the final senate count will be. I tend to be of the opinion that too many people ignore the Congress, which is still the true policy making body in US domestic politics. Granted, I also think that federalism means that even if the Dems do manage a 60 seat supermajority, that it won’t really matter. History tells us that party unity in the US will be just as bad for Obama as it was for Clinton. A good paper on this was done by John Carey at Washington University at St. Louis.

   http://cas.uchicago.edu/workshops/cpolit/papers/carey2002.pdf

   Well, I have some trouble with his methodology, but it’s pretty good nonetheless. 😉

7. Stayed up all night, well tried to, armed with hotdogs, hamburgers, Bud but no brownies ( 4 more days, 4 more days !) but then fell asleep and only woke up at 4am UK time with everybody clapping.

   What a night. Golly I am tired now, how both candidates did what they did for so long is beyong me, I’m exhausted after one night. My first 100 days in office would consist of sleeping!

   Regards

   Andy

8. My wake up radio gave me the “news” .
   So it confirms Obama who has been elected by the medias long before the vote took place anyway.
   The journalists in Europe were distressingly shallow , perhaps even more so than usual . And they are usually already pretty dumb .

   The main “important” information was condensed in 4 words that were conjugated in a bazillion of ways over and over .
   Obama is “young” and “black” what leads for some not nearer specified reasons all Americans to “celebrate” and the world (most importantly Kenya that has been invaded by European reporters) to “rejoice” .

   Well trying to make some sense of the above I came to the following conclusions :

   1)
   McCain lost because he was “old” and “white” .

   2)
   As there are around 12 % of “blacks” in the US and this proportion is decreasing because the proportion of other minorities (especially the hispanical) is increasing and considering that a President often does 2 mandates , a “black” president will be statistically elected about 1 time every 60 years or so . So the next after Obama may come somewhere at the end of 21st century .
   I don’t see anything thrilling in the fact that a possible event eventually happens even if the probability is low .

   3)
   It is apparently important that the americans “celebrate” .
   In the numerous interviews with seemingly inebriated people randomly chosen among the american population according to the reporters (in reality the selection was restricted to Obama voters and staff present at parties where the journalists were , with special focus on Harlem and Chicago) they intend to “celebrate” during the whole Obama’s mandate .
   Strangely none of the interviewed people talked about the economical crisis , major energy problem , unemployment , Iran crisis but all were dithyrambically describing how “young” , “radious” and “black” Obama was .
   The overall picture transmitted was one of Americans who were gloomy , stupid and sinister during the last some 30 years while they changed this night to intelligent people who understood that “celebration” was the reason of life . Congratulations !

   4)
   I discovered that Kenya and along it the whole world (so me included) “rejoices” because Obama’s grandmother is living in Kenya .
   I admit that I ignored this paramount fact .
   I admit that I still ignore where had been living the grandmother of Van Buren or of any other US president for that matter .
   I vaguely understood from interviews in Kenya and Ivory Coast (perhaps some other relative is living in Ivory Coast) that the reason why the whole world should “rejoice” was because Africa took its revenge on America .
   Made me more go “WTH ?” than “rejoice” . Whatever .

   Good luck Americans . Somehow I feel that you’ll need it .

9. TomV-
   On the celebration: My sister and her husband gave so much money to the Obama campaign their house is labeled with a big donkey on Huffington’s site. I asked if she would be going to the big bash in the city. She said no way, she hates crowds and would be going to sleep. It is typical for the winners to have a big party and for the press to celebrate. This time, there is a bigger story line for the press. So, yes, we hear more.

   Obama is smart. I’m a fiscal conservative, so I’m not a big supporter of his. But he is smart. What will happens? Who knows? He has little legislative experience. He has little executive experiences. Still… who knows?

10. This is strange .

    I can’t understand why (some) people qualify Obama as “smart” .
    Or are the US standards for smartness in politicians unusually low ?
    During my 3 weeks trip in US that I mentionned elsewhere , there were only 2 choices to do in the hotel room in the evening . Either watch ads sometimes interrupted by a program or watch Obama .
    I expected Obama being marginally more interesting than ads so I watched Obama .
    And 3 weeks of this guy border on overdose of vacuity abuse 🙂

    What came out among the ummmmms , were things like “Yes we can .” (what exactly ?) , “Change is necessary” (Is it ? ) , “I change more than McCain does” (yes and I have a bigger one) , “Bush is evil and McCain is his prophet .” (Wow !) , “Palin is a stupid woman” (He didn’t actually said exactly that but that was the meaning) .
    On the more important things I couldn’t make out if he was for or against coal energy (apparently both) or if he wanted to slaughter by taxes the 250K+ or the 65k + or any other house number in between (he’ll make up his mind later) .

    I was absolutely supefied by his attack against the US constitution . Actually America had to wait 200 years so that some Mr Obama finds out that it had been fatally flawed all this time . Wow !

    I wouldn’t like it to come over negatively but when I compare Obama to most German , French or Scandinavian politicians that I know best , Obama looks pretty … umm … non smart .

    Now McCain has not invented the gun powder either but from what I understood as he was neither “young” nor “black” , he had no chance to begin with anyway .

    You know there was a French socialist president Mitterrand 20 years ago .

    He was perhaps 5x smarter and more cultivated than Obama but on the electoral level he applied the same tactics .
    He told people a number of trivialities :
    – that things had to change
    – that the past was evil and the future will be bright
    – that large corporations were evil and he would bring them to heel
    – that he will take from the rich and give to the poor
    – that people would be happy with him because he was the change . Goto 1

    To that he added in writing some more substantial and partially contradictory things about taxes , constitution revisions , justice , power balances etc that nobody read and nobobody cared about .
    He was elected and there was much rejoicing . It has been sung and written that France and Europe were entering a new era , that we were living a historical event etc etc .

    2 years later and after 3 devaluations , France stood on the brink of a deep economical crisis , millions were in the streets because he tried to cut state support to private schools , the whole government had to be thrown out , big part of his friends were tried for corruption and malfeasance but as he couldn’t be fired , the French elected with vengeance a Parliament that was so right wing dominated that it was necessary to go 100 years back to find an equivalent . His party , dominant then , has never really recovered from this period and this man .

    I may be mistaken but the Americans have just elected such a President right now and if I am not mistaken the same causes will generate the same consequences .
    If they do , such a mistake won’t happen a second time so it will at least be a lesson even if the price will appear à posteriori not worth the lesson .

11. TomV–
    I think Obama is smart. However, I disagree with the assessment that he is a great speaker over all. He gives good prepared speeches, but I’m not impressed by his presentation during interviews either. Evidently, I’m in the minority in that opinion though.

    That said, I know LOADS of smart people who don’t give good interviews. I’m not entirely convinced smooth talk and intelligence go together. I think Obama is smart. In some ways, he has exercised his intelligence and decided to stick to platitudes. So, yes, I think you are describing what Obama sounds like on camera.

    I think going down the road to socialism is a mistake. That’s why I don’t support Obama. But, that doesn’t mean he isn’t smart. He is an intelligent man.

    FWIW, I don’t think Palin is stupid. I think as Alaska governor, she focused on Alaska. I doubt she ever really thought much about the national or international scene before being selected to run for VP. That choice showed. But it doesn’t mean she’s actually stupid. Is she a genius? I don’t know, but I doubt it. But she is smart enough to have run a campaign and have become Governor of Alaska. She got up to speed a bit campaigning in the national arena– a challenging task, made even more so by the absolute need not to undercut the Presidential candidate.

    If she decides to run in 2012, we’ll learn more. Otherwise, we don’t even need to figure out if she’s smart. 🙂

12. Being smart is over rated as a criterion for holding office. It’s much more important to know what you want to do and why and to know what you don’t know and who to ask for advice. Some of our worst Presidents, see for example Woodrow Wilson, were those who thought they knew all they needed to know. Then there’s the built in bias in the media, all conservatives, with a very few exceptions like W.F Buckley, are stupid and all liberals are smart. Al Gore and John Kerry are smart and George W. Bush is stupid. Yet somehow, Kerry and Bush both had C averages as undergraduates while Al Gore flunked out of Divinity School. Apparently he did learn something about preaching though.

13. Ari,

    If you are interested in keeping up on your statistics and seeing some interesting papers on statistical analyses of various political phenomena, check out Andrew Gelman’s blog (http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/blog/). He is a statistician in the political science department at Columbia U. Many of the papers are difficult for the layman to read, but many are accessible to anyone with a modicum of intelligence and attention. But note, the statistics is quite different from that of climatology which is dominated by time series procedures.

    In the same vein is Social Science Statistics Blog at http://www.iq.harvard.edu/blog/sss/ where graduate students and professors discuss statistics, usually in the context of social science issues.

14. Martin,

    Thanks, I’ll check it out. I did a lot of ANOVA in grad school, but I could probably do well by spending more time reading papers that will challenge me.

    Everyone else,

    My take on Obama’s success from a purely “poli sci perspective:”

    In political science, there are two major factors that affect the US presidential elections: per capita disposable income, and what is called “incumbent fatigue.” The former is easy enough to figure out, but the latter? Basically, the longer a party is in power and the longer it maintains its role as the incumbent regime (especially the presidency), the more of a penalty the incumbent party’s candidate will suffer (the electorate is fickle and punishes incumbency). This is, of course largely outweighed by the per capita disposable income and “first-termer” effects. Presidents who seek re-election after a first term almost always seek a second term and benefit from being able to argue that they are the “experienced candidate.” However, since we have a two term limit restriction in effect, we can’t say whether people would seek to punish third or fourth term candidates– FDR notwithstanding.

    But Ari, then how do those dastardly congresspeople (congresshumans?) stay in office for so long, if incumbent fatigue is an issue? Simple: delivering pork. US legislators are generally AWFUL at broad national policies (mostly because of federal government’s nature), but they are great with pork (again, federal government.) Surveys of the Congress regularly find that people loathe Congress… but love their local legislator.

    Anyway, this time around, we had a “perfect storm” for the GOP: many legislators were incumbents who also faced serious income declines in their districts. The truth is, the GOP faced an uphill battle whether or not it had done a good job (I’ll leave that up to everyone else to decide on their own.)

    My personal take as a young urban voter: Obama spoke to me as a voter. Damn me, pillory me, say what you will, but it’s true. Furthermore, as someone who actually follows THOMAS.gov (I’m sick like that), I have found his voting record to be, well, moderate at most. He has been willing to support nuclear power funding where the bill offered it, and he has generally been pragmatic as a senator. Does that mean that I don’t have my doubts? Of course not. But my experience, both as a sort of political scientist, and as a young voter, is that history has shown us that the so-called black sheep can surprise us all.

    Also, he has been known to pal around with Joseph Stiglitz, whom I admire a great deal. I suppose that says something about my economic beliefs.

15. Tom V:
    “I can’t understand why (some) people qualify Obama as “smart” .”

    The news media has told them so thousands of times, so it must be true.

    “Or are the US standards for smartness in politicians unusually low ?”

    Extremely low. The best minds that America has want nothing to do with being President. It’s four or eight years of constant abuse by the media and one interest group or another. An intelligent individual can make far more money in the private sector and he won’t have gray hair on leaving office, as most of our presidents seem to do.

    In this country people also seem to make a direct correlation between speaking ability and intelligence. So if you can whip out a series of uplifting grand abstractions without tripping over your own tongue, then people consider you to be intelligent. Most never “reality check” what has been said.

    If there is an intelligent individual in the Obama campaign it is David Axelrod, his campaign manager. The fact that he kept Obama on message, pointed him constantly to the center (at least for the duration of the election), and didn’t let him get caught up in explaining how his grand desires were going to be realized, had a lot to do with Obama’s win. Of course a few chilling items came out about Obama from interviews he gave before he began his run, but the media was mostly complicit in keeping that from the public or in minimizing it’s effect. There have been many hints that Obama is well out of his element for this job, but having elected him, the public is going to have to wait to fully understand what they have elected. In the mean time, Medvedev and Putin are undoubtedy celebrating the opportunities that have opened up for them.

16. Obama would be a great news reader (we call them anchor men, but the Brits are much more honest about this so I’ll use their term). The whole thing reminds me of the movie The Candidate with Robert Redford and Peter Boyle.

17. It is amusing to hear from US people that Obama is a “socialist” ( not in this blog). From the european perspective both parties are conservative. Democrats a bit more to the center than Republicans. I suppose it is because you have no prominent communist party speakers to understand what real socialism advocates.

    I think the US system has large inertia, and it will be hard for any president to change many things. We have to wait and see.

    I think Obama is rated intelligent because he went to Harvard. Or am I wrong on this and that this is the top of the pecking order?

    It would be good for you all if the medical system changed. I have heard too many stories of middle class people bankrupted because of illness, and it is ironic that the country that has the best medicine science in the world cannot deliver it to its people. I suppose that would be one socialist change.

18. In some ways, he has exercised his intelligence and decided to stick to platitudes. So, yes, I think you are describing what Obama sounds like on camera.

    That’s exactly what I meant !
    I do not think that Obama is exceptionnaly “smart” understood as “intelligent” (like what one would mean saying that Feynman or Kant were “smart”) .
    But I indeed do think that he is “smart” , even if not exceptionnaly so , understood as “cunning” (like what one would mean saying that Hafez el Asad , Mao or Talleyrand were “smart”) .

    Same kind of smartness as Mitterrand whom I have already mentionned and that has lead him to be not only elected President but celebrated as a “historical hero” , “opening a new era .” etc etc .
    Not for very long .
    I have always thought that one of the biggest weaknesses of Americans was their low knowledge (or interest ?) of history .
    Many things that are considered in US new , unique , unprecedented have actually already happened , been experienced elsewhere .
    Sometimes a very longtime ago .
    Amusingly it was Marx who said “Those who don’t know history are condemned to relive it” without suspecting that it is thanks to the knowledge of history that Marxism would disappear .
    That’s why Obama’s campaign made me immediately think of Mitterrand’ campaign and if you tried to find a fit you’d find a significant correlation .

    Of course , like the hundreds of millions of US voters , the observation device I used was a TV camera (or a newspaper reporter) .
    So my description of the observed Obama can only stick to what I actually observed .
    In that case the most reasonable assumption (at least a consistent one) is that the observed data is real and describes the system .
    A certainly unreasonable assumption would be that the huge data set sampled during several months is biased in some unknown and unfalsifiable way so that a theory (what Obama is thought to REALLY be) is consistent with the data even if the data tell a completely different story .
    .
    We are not so far from the AGW after all 🙂

19. Tom–
    When speaking of politicians, the use of “smart” does not mean Einstein/Feyman/Ben Franklin or even Heddy Lamar smart.

    “He’s smart” is used more in the ” top of his highschool class smart”. I think Obama is smart in this way. He taught law at University of Chicago, students there thought he was smart. He can’t be stupid.

    There are lots of politicians, most aren’t geniuses. (Most people aren’t geniuses.) In any case, raw intelligence is only one trait in a constellation of good traits one needs in a legislator or executive. So…. we’ll see.

    I agree with you that some of Obama’s promises sound like Mitterand. But, as with all newly elected presidents and their corresponding Congresses, we’ll see what happens. I’ve lived in France. I like the French. But we aren’t the French, so things may work out differently. 🙂

20. There are certainly fine language points :
    like the German couple Intelligent/Schlau or the French intelligent/malin .
    That is what I meant by making the difference between smart and cunning what is rather near to the above couples .
    Obama is “schlau” and “malin” what allows him to ignore many things yet be intelligent enough so that only few people notice .
    So we agree , Obama is not stupid but in Europe he would hardly be called intelligent based on what he really says .
    On a tangent : for several reasons I have been living for some 10 years in an environment of lawyers from many countries . I am extremely affirmative – the best of the class lawyers are very cunning , have a good memory , socialize well albeit superficially and have an excellent ability to say what they don’t think in a convincing manner . I wouldn’t certainly call them smart or intelligent in the sense above . Actually the “best of the class” lawyers are generally rather unpleasant egomaniacs .
    Useless to say that no lawyer belongs to the circle of my friends 🙂
    .
    To avoid misunderstandings .
    I have not much to do with the French even if I know their history , economy and politics and speak their language like 6 other languages .
    My origins are not French and there are many things I dislike about French and France .
    I mentionned Mitterrand (but I could have also mentionned Blair) because both cases are practically isomorphe to the Obama case .
    Sure Americans are not French only some are . They are not Chinese , German or English either , only some are .

    But afaik they are still human and behave like human 🙂
    History is showing us that in certain circumstances (preferably crisis and/or stress and/or emotion) it is ALWAYS the same buttons one needs to push to obtain the same behaviour .
    Nationality is irrelevant and in that sense Americans can’t be distinguished from French or whatever nation one chooses .
    As I observed that Obama was pressing EXACTLY those buttons , I concluded that the Americans would react in the same way and that the result will be broadly the same .
    Sofar I was right about the first part (Obama got elected) .
    Now as I also observe that Obama’s personality and behaviour is very similar to the cases I mentionned , I come to conclude that the second part (choice of friends/advicers and action) will also be similar .
    That’s why I don’t consider being in a total uncertainty about what the system (Obama and his Congress) will or will not do .
    History , like PCA , is showing me highly likely and highly unlikely scenarios .
    And from that follows necessarily that the consequences will be also similar .
    .
    I might still be wrong even if I don’t see exactly for what reason .
    Perhaps just luck .
    Actually I would like to be wrong because you don’t want to know what happened under the years of Mitterrand (or any other isomorphe politician and there were many in the history) .

21. TomV–
    I know nice lawyer; I know not so nice lawyers.

    Obama …. Chicago… Illinois. Rest assured I am seeing the same data you are. I don’t know what will happen. But, American’s aren’t French. You may think it’s a truism but there are national characters, and they vary. The organization of our system of government is rather unusual. Federalism gives us some inertia many other systems lack.

    Still, with regard to Obama, we’ll see.

22. The big question is whether Obama will be able to provide adult supervision to Congress or whether the old bulls that head the major committees will just run right over him. Dubya couldn’t or didn’t even try. Clinton and Carter were equally hapless. The test will come when Congress passes a major bill overloaded with pork. If Obama vetoes it and gets overridden or if he only threatens a veto but signs anyway, hang on to your wallet. A President can only manage Congress by going over their heads by appealing to the general public and getting them to make lots of angry phone calls and send pointed letters (not emails, many Congresspeople don’t even have their staff read them).

    Today’s WSJ had an article about attitudes of independent voters in swing states. If the Democrats in Congress reads this election as justifying a major leftward shift, they are seriously misreading the results. This was all about punishing Republicans for tarnishing their brand.

23. DeWitt– Is Obama against even against pork?

    I don’t worry too much about how Congress “reads” this election. Left leaning congressional reps will certainly try to introduce as much left leaning legislation as they hope they can get passed. Since I’m socially liberal, and fiscally conservative, I hope the go hog wild on… Oh. I think I promised not to discuss certain things here.

    I’m afraid under the current circumstances, it may be fiscal left that will act most promptly. That’s not my preference…but who knows?

24. Re: #6337,

    Yeah, right. If Hedley Lamarr was so smart, why was it so difficult for him to get rid of the people of Rock Ridge? 😉

25. Mike N,

    Because the people of Rock Ridge had the power of MAIN STREET, eh!

    As for the “is intelligence a pre-req for being a great executive?”

    Yes and no. It takes a certain intelligence, to be sure. None of the presidents since FDR have been outright stupid. Ike was obviously an intelligent leader, and understood strategy well, for example. Carter wasn’t stupid (no matter what the boos and hisses I sense right now suggest), but he wasn’t an effective leader. Bush II is, in my mind, clearly not stupid.

    There, I said it. The crazy liberal urban youth said it. Bush ain’t dumb.

    He just, I believe, surrounded himself with too much groupthink and too little of a range of ideas. His cabinet was not, shall we say… ideologically diverse?

    My take on presidents is that the choice of those who surround the president are as important as the president himself. The strength of the cabinet is in many ways the strength of the office. The ability to synthesize what the cabinet offers is also, of course, of great importance.

    Ultimately, I will probably be most impressed with Obama if he makes strong, diverse choices for his cabinet. I’ll also be interested in his kitchen cabinet, as it might be a fascinating bunch.

26. Mike N–
    It was the “L” and “E” in his name, and the fact that he looked like this
    
    and not like this

    

    If he’d looked like Hedy, he would have lured all the men to a cliff and gotten them to fall over!

27. Ari

    My take on presidents is that the choice of those who surround the president are as important as the president himself. The strength of the cabinet is in many ways the strength of the office. The ability to synthesize what the cabinet offers is also, of course, of great importance

    I agree completely. No one is smart enough to do this job unless they surround themselves with good advisers. It’s also important avoid turning the Cabinet into an echo chamber, which I think Bush II did. Good advisers must combine raw intelligence, education, and a willingness to consider alternate views or paths. The third element was missing from Bush II’s cabinet; in consequence, big mistakes were made.

    Of course, there will always be mistakes, but one hopes to avoid huge blunders.

28. Oh– I should add: Clinton was smart.

    Despite that, it’s clear his, shall we say, proclivities, resulted in disarray.

    The result of the disarray was that he was unable to advance his agenda in his second term. In the US, sex scandals do that. So, even if we set aside moralizing, it is important for a president to be circumspect in that regard. (Of course, a term won’t be derailed if the behavior remains concealed. But concealing that sort of thing has become more difficult in the era of cable, web, youtube, blogs etc. Certainly, it’s difficult to conceal carrying on in the Oval Office.)

29. lucia,

    Is Obama against even against pork?

    Considering all his spending proposals, he needs every dime that’s available and then some. The more pork, the less to spend on other things.

    Social liberal and fiscal conservative is almost the definition of a libertarian. Note the small l. The Libertarian Party is, well, I won’t go there.

    Bush II’s initial cabinet choices were, to put it somewhat politely, unfortunate. Two of the most important cabinet posts, Treasury and AG, were pretty much disasters. Rahm Emmanuel could prove to be a very good choice for COS. He ran the Democratic Congressional Campaign committee, so he should know where all the important bodies are buried and have some leverage, especially with those he helped get elected in 2006 and 2008. My major caveat is that the COS also controls access to the President and could easily isolate Obama from a wider range of policy alternatives. Interesting times.

30. DeWitt– Yes, the bit about the “big L” libertarian party. Erhmm….

    Yes, fiscal conservative and social liberal is almost libertarian. But, it’s not necessarily. For instance, I think it’s just fine that the government runs sewage treatment plants, or funds universities and schools. I don’t mind a certain level of regulation. Where would be be without child labor laws? Some environmental protection laws are essential. After all, we don’t want people pouring benzene into the ground. I don’t think absolutely everything belongs in the private sphere.

    But generally speaking, I think it’s better for government to be smaller rather than larger. I definitely think as much as possible, the government should stay out of people’s lives. There is an unfortunate tendency for governments to bloat in a variety of ways. Compared to the average American, I prefer less government. But, with regard to being a fiscal conservative: Certainly, we shouldn’t fund programs we aren’t absolutely positively willing to pay for. It’s obvious that politicians collectively would like to fund more programs and figure out where the money comes from later.

31. I’m not a doctrinaire libertarian myself. The EPA, for example, was necessary. I think a carbon tax could be useful and even improve economic efficiency provided it replaced other taxes, say the corporate income tax. My worry about Obama is that he seems to think the economy is a zero sum game as far as the effects of income redistribution, or at least doesn’t care that it isn’t. The thing about non-zero sum games is that not only can everybody win something if things go well, but if you screw things up, everyone can also lose. The rest of the world seems to be going towards flatter and lower marginal personal income tax rates and low to zero corporate income tax rates. Obama apparently wants to move in the opposite direction at every income level. Phased out tax credits, for example, increase marginal rates, sometimes to very high levels. High marginal rates discourage economic activity. I don’t think that’s really something we want to be doing right now.

32. DeWitt–
    I also don’t think higher marginal tax rates are wise. Yes, it looks like we are going that way. It is also unfortunate that high marginal tax rates combined with complicated tax rules inevitably lead to very high income people finding ways to avoid paying taxes. Tax accountants will specialize in figuring out how to provide executives of business owners with untaxable fringe benefits that replace the need for people to spend their own taxable income on things like cars, meals out etc.

    The end result is great unevenness in tax liability depending on choices motivated purely by tax laws. This isn’t necessarily so bad if motivating choices was the intention of tax laws, but often it’s not. It’s just sort of loop holes identified by tax specialists.

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