Michael Lind: All Publications, Events and Press

Change We Can Afford

Communications — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 08:15:00 -0400

A New America Event
06/24/2008 - 12:15pm

On Tuesday, June 24, 2008 the New America Foundation’s Next Social Contract Initiative hosted a panel discussion with Yale Law School professor Michael Graetz; Maya MacGuineas, President of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and Director of the Fiscal Policy Program at New America; and Michael Lind, Whitehead Senior Fellow at New America. Professor Graetz spoke on his new book, 100 Million Unnecessary Returns: A Simple, Fair, and Competitive Tax Plan for the United States. The panelists offered responses to the book followed by Q&A with the audience. Howard Gleckman, Senior Research Associate at the Urban Institute’s Tax Policy Center moderated the discussion.

In his comments, as in his book, Graetz called for a dramatic reform of the American tax system. He pointed out that, while the nation’s overall rate of taxation is relatively low compared to other OECD nations, our high corporate and income tax levies prevent us from reaping the rewards of our productivity--particularly in an ever-more globalized economy. Graetz proposes a value added tax (VAT) on consumption spending as the primary vehicle for reform. He would eliminate the income tax for households earning under $100,000, lower it to 25% for other households, and provide a payroll tax credit to low income earners. He also recommends lowering the corporate tax rate to 15%. The overall package of reforms would, according to Graetz, make US corporations more competitive while maintaining a progressive tax system and provide the political climate for the government to take responsibility for its budget.

MacGuineas praised Graetz’s proposal and agreed with his recommendations on most fronts. She stated that such a dramatic change was necessary in order to restore stability to the tax code—observing that special interests oppose any suggestion of incremental reform, curtailing of tax expenditures or raising tax rates. MacGuineas went even further, proposing the creation of a progressive consumption tax and the elimination of the income tax for all but the wealthiest individuals.

Lind addressed the political feasibility of a consumption tax. He spoke of the Regan and Bush tax cuts as popular “revolts” against tax policy that occurred because people felt sticker shock at the magnitude of their tax burdens. Lind favors a less transparent system that would be more politically sustainable. The consumption tax, as proposed by Graetz, would charge people only in small increments at the time of consumption making it less likely to trigger sustained opposition. In contrast to MacGuineas and Graetz, Lind said he favored the use of tax credits to make economic policy. He suggested that they allow the government to redistribute across barriers of income, race, or location whereas direct entitlement transfers cause political controversy and popular resentment.

-Tyler Ibbotson-Sindelar, Research Intern for the Next Social Contract Initiative

Michael Lind in the National | 'US Policy Sails into Calmer Waters'

Communications — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:39:00 -0400

New America in the News:

...Washington would “protect” the world’s natural resources, not necessarily for American consumption but to give the US military a franchise for flexing its muscle.

“The power to protect by its nature is the power to threaten,” as the American analyst Michael Lind puts it in his masterful book, The American Way of Strategy.

Thus the US, which relies on the Gulf for less than a third of its oil supplies – the sham of US “dependence” on Middle East oil is a straw man for politicians in need of Saudi-bashing – gladly assumes the exclusive burden of protecting its sea lanes and waterways...LINK

Winning Over the Values Voters

Ron Tang — Mon, 05 May 2008 14:32:00 -0400

In Barack Obama's now famous remarks to rich donors in San Francisco in early April, he attributed the fact that white Democrats in small towns were resisting his candidacy to their anger over their economic misfortune. "They get bitter," Obama said, "and cling to guns or religion... as a way to explain their frustration." Obama seemed to be implying that social conservatism is a toxic byproduct of economic distress -- and it may have hurt him in Pennsylvania last week, where he lost the primary contest to Hillary Clinton.

Yet the notion expressed by Obama is hardly new. Way back in… more

From Fantasy To Fiasco

Ron Tang — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 08:54:00 -0400

Darth Vader makes a better villain than Mr. Magoo. A sinister mastermind is not only more dramatic than a myopic bumbler but more reassuring, because a universe controlled by a malevolent intelligence is at least controlled by intelligence. For this reason, explanations of the Bush administration's disastrous foreign policy in Iraq and the world in terms of Halliburton profits and alleged connections between the House of Bush and the House of Saud satisfy many who recoil from the depressing thought that a great nation could be led into disaster by people who are well intentioned and sincerely deluded.

The latter proposition… more

The Next American President And South Asia

Ron Tang — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 22:00:00 -0400

Is America’s policy toward South Asia likely to change during the next U.S. administration? Whether the Republican John McCain or the Democratic contender, be that contender Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, wins the White House in November, U.S. policy toward South Asia is more likely to be shaped by the continuation of present trends than by radical new departures.

Unlike Europe, East Asia and the Middle East, South Asia has never been treated as a region of vital interest to the U.S. During the Cold War, Washington’s South Asia policy was shaped by, and subordinated to, its global Cold War strategy.… more

Total Tax Credit

Ron Tang — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 21:00:00 -0400

The Social Security payroll tax hurts working Americans -- and it’s getting worse. Because the tax (a flat levy of 15.3 percent, combining the nominal employer portion with the nominal employee portion) applies to income only up to $97,500 (with a scheduled increase to $102,000 this year), it is inherently, grossly regressive, falling far more heavily on working Americans than on the rich. At the same time, as a result of rising pre-tax wage inequality, the payroll tax system is growing dramatically more regressive. In 1983, 90 percent of wages and salaries were subject to payroll taxation; today, thanks to… more

History’s Hurdle for the Democrats

Ron Tang — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

According to the conventional wisdom, the odds are in favour of the Democrats winning back the White House this year. With the country mired in an unpopular war in Iraq and perhaps in a prolonged recession, voters will treat the November election as a referendum on George W. Bush and punish his party. Some even see the disarray among Republican hawks, social conservatives and economic libertarians as evidence that the reign of the Grand Old Party is over and that a new Democratic majority is dawning.

That is one possibility. But it is worth considering the possibility that US politics has… more

Describing the Elephant

Ron Tang — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

As George W. Bush enters his final year as president, the struggle to succeed him has revealed deep disagreements about the definition of post-Bush conservatism. Two new books by former members of the Bush administration contribute to this debate.

In “Heroic Conservatism,” Michael Gerson, a former Bush speechwriter now at the Council on Foreign Relations, has written both a memoir and a manifesto, though he adds little to what is already known about Bush. According to Gerson, “Christian faith lies close to the surface of Bush’s identity and has genuinely influenced his political thinking.” He is persuasive when he treats Bush’s… more

Why the World Isn't Flat

Communications — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 12:30:00 -0500

A New America Event
02/01/2008 - 12:30pm

On Feb. 1, Whitehead Senior Fellow Michael Lind hosted award-winning Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang, who delivered a talk based on his new book, Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism. A brief summary follows, while an MP3 audio recording of the 71-minute event can be downloaded below and the video can be viewed at right.

Chang’s central theme was that developing countries should look to the history of successful nations, rather than economic theory, to guide their economic policy-making. He began by drawing upon historical examples to challenge the notion that developing countries should adhere to orthodox free-market policies.

Of today’s advanced industrial economies, according to him, only three -- the Netherlands, Hong Kong, and Switzerland -- refrained from erecting trade barriers and subsidizing infant industries during the early stages of their development. All of the others benefited from significant government intervention.

He further noted that the United States, the most successful economy the world has ever seen, did not develop according to free-market principles. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the U.S. comparative advantage lay in agriculture. Thomas Jefferson and many others argued that the United States should remain a nation of farmers and import its industrial goods from Britain. Alexander Hamilton, however, argued that the long-term economic benefits of industrialization would dwarf the short-term inefficiencies associated with market intervention. History has proven him correct.

Furthermore, Chang pointed out that austere free-market polices simply have not worked for developing countries. Economic growth rates in developing countries fell by more than half when those countries moved from the ‘import-substitution’ policies of the 1950s and 1960s to the laissez-faire policies of the 1980s and 1990s.

He then extended his argument to patent laws. Those countries that industrialized during the nineteenth century borrowed one another’s ideas liberally. The result was a tremendous acceleration of innovation.

In contrast, he argued that today’s international patent laws are designed not to promote innovation, but rather to protect powerful corporate interests in wealthy countries. According to him, “the balance between the rights of patentees and the rest of society has tilted too much to one side.” With few exceptions, the presence of competition and the motivation to attain profit are enough to promote innovation. -- Event summary by Ben Katcher

Ha-Joon Chang has been described by one economist as "the most exciting thinker our profession has turned out in the past fifteen years." He teaches at Cambridge University, where he received his Master's degree and doctorate. A consultant for the Wold Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the UN and other international organizations, he was awarded the Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought in 2005. His book Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective (2002), which received the Myrdal Prize, was acclaimed by the eminent MIT economist Charles Kindleberger as "a provocative critique of mainstream economists' sermons directed to developing countries."

This event was co-sponsored by the New America Foundation and the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).

America Still Works

Ron Tang — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Anyone who reads the serious press about the condition of the US might be excused for believing that the country is headed towards a series of deep crises. This impression is exacerbated by economic slowdown and by the presidential primaries, in which candidates announce bold plans to rescue the country from disaster. But even in more normal times there are three ubiquitous myths about America that make the country seem weaker and more chaotic than it really is. The first myth, which is mainly a conservative one, is that racial and ethnic rivalries are tearing America apart. The second myth,… more

Michael Lind in Financial Times | Back to 'the economy, stupid'

Communications — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 17:18:00 -0500

New America in the News:
Back to 'the economy, stupid' How a slowdown will influence America's presidential contest (Financial Times)

..."The widespread notion that a downturn or a recession gives a clear advantage to the Democratic presidential challenger is not always supported by the facts," says Michael Lind, a political historian at the New America Foundation in Washington. "The past offers just as much evidence that we could get a Republican president with a Democratic Congress in November as a Democratic control of both." ...

Michael Lind in Serbianna News | 'Enigma Behind U.S. Kosovo Policy'

Communications — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 10:34:00 -0500

New America in the News:
Enigma Behind U.S. Kosovo Policy (Serbianna News)
In 1996, two New Republic editorial staff writers Jacob Heilbrunn and Michael Lind argued that the American commitment to the Islamic connection is so strong that the U.S. design is to make the Islamic world part of a new American empire and that the American support of Bosnian Muslims is part of the implementation of this plan. ...

America’s Changing Social Contract

adminn — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 09:00:00 -0500

A New America Event
12/03/2007 - 9:00am

Despite the sustained economic growth of recent years, Americans are increasingly concerned with economic security. Even before economists began reporting signs of recession, skyrocketing health care costs, faltering pensions, and burgeoning inequality frayed the fabric of the American social contract. America's social contract is an evolving, complex web of legal and informal relationships between households, employers, government, and civil society that extends beyond particular federal programs. Now is the time to strike a new bargain between these sectors, rethinking the rights and responsibilities of each. Breathing new life into the American social contract is needed to keep pace with our 21st century economy and build the conditions for sustained growth and healthy families.

On Dec. 3, the New America Foundation convened 200 guests at the Mayflower Hotel to explore the intellectual framework of the next social contract. Andy Stern, President of the SEIU, and Carl Camden, CEO of Kelly Services, began the conversation by outlining the promise and the challenges that this coming social contract will encounter. Speaking from the divergent sectors of labor, business and the growing contingent workforce, both leaders issued bold calls for reform and reflected on the turbulent economic challenges that the America social contract faces. Mr. Stern addressed the rights and responsibilities of workers and employers, particularly the important realms of pensions and health care. Mr. Camden offered the perspective of the millions of American temporary and freelance workers and comment on the promise and innovation of flexible, citizen-based benefits.

In response to these opening remarks was a panel discussion to further hash out the rights and responsibilities of employers. Michael Calabrese, Joe Minarik, Donna Klein, and Thomas Kochan addressed the particular responsibilities such as child care and workplace flexibility, the importance of wages and benefits providing for basic economic security, and their potential burden on the global economic competitiveness of American firms.

Next, Brian Gallagher and Diana Aviv offered their perspective on the role of civil society, in a discussion moderated by Michael Lipsky. They focused on the key issues of shared responsibility, wealth, and philanthropy in the social contract. It is important for the social contract to provide certain goods outside of the purview of government, and panel clarified the role of civil society in performing this task.

During a lunchtime conversation, Michael Lind offered a global view of the social contract and how it evolves over time. Mr. Lind articulated the logic of one of the next social contract’s bedrock principles: that the grand bargain between citizens be citizen-based.

Mark Schmitt led a panel on the role of government, including Jacob Hacker, Karen Kornbluh, William Galston, and Reihan Salam. They discussed the government’s role in providing economic security to citizens, the increasing risk and uncertainty that Americans families face, and how confronting these challenges with the language of the social contract can transform our politics.

Finally, David Gray, along with a panel of Jane Waldfogel, Phil Longman, Kelleen Kaye, and Christine Kim discussed the role of the family in the social contract. Changes in the workforce and demography create challenges for government and business to help families balance work and life. Together, the panelists discussed what the status of the two-parent family is in America, what challenges young adult parents face, and where family formation and choices in child rearing intersect with policy.

The event agenda can be found below. Video of the first half of this all-day event is available at right; the afternoon sessions can be viewed by clicking here. An MP3 audio recording of the complete event can be played below, or downloaded via this link.

The Next Social Contract Initiative aims to reinvent American social policy for the twenty-first century. Through a program of research and public education, the initiative will explore the origins of our modern social contract, articulate the guiding principles for constructing a new contract, and advance a set of promising policy reforms. To learn more about this initiative, please click here.

The Centre-Ground's Shift to the Left

adminn — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 22:42:00 -0500

Whether a Democrat or a Republican is inaugurated in January 2009, the centre of political gravity in the US is well to the left of where it was a decade ago. President George W. Bush's own contribution to the shift has been negligible. It is the result of long-term, tectonic shifts in political and economic ideology that are affecting all developed countries.

In hindsight, despite the re-election of a conservative president, 2004 was the hinge between eras. The definitions of right, left and centre changed dramatically between 1932 and 2004, which can be broken into two periods.

In the first, 1932-1968, the… more

Dangerous History

Articles — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 11:59:00 -0400

Robert Kagan is one of a small group of neoconservative authors who are read because of their influence on the Bush administration. The son of Donald Kagan, a Yale classics scholar and prominent older neoconservative, Robert is the brother of Frederick Kagan, who is credited as one of the architects of Bush’s "surge" in Iraq. Robert has penned various manifestos in favour of unilateral US world domination with William Kristol, editor of Rupert Murdoch’s Weekly Standard and son of Irving Kristol, "godfather of neoconservatism." Like George W Bush, the son of a president, neoconservatives preach democracy while practicing nepotism.

In… more

The Imperial Fallacy

Articles — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 07:09:00 -0400

"The Age of Imperialism is ended," Sumner Welles, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s under secretary of state, declared in 1942. Welles would have been shocked to learn that six decades later a number of American foreign policy thinkers would matter-of-factly describe the United States as an empire. "The fact of American empire is hardly debated these days," Thomas Donnelly, a neoconservative foreign policy analyst, wrote in Foreign Affairs in 2002. Donald Rumsfeld’s Defense Department asked selected historians what lessons Americans could learn from empires of the past. Marxists, to be sure, had always described the United States as an empire, and for… more

One Currency for Bosnia

Communications — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 07:15:00 -0400

A New America Event
12/31/1969 - 7:00pm

**THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.**

What is the role of the central bank and sound monetary policy in the process of nation-building? How should the international community respond to the economic challenges of failed states? Is it possible to rebuild the economies of societies devastated by war? Please join the New America Foundation for a fascinating discussion with one of the world’s leading authorities on monetary policy, Dr. Warren Coats.

Dr. Coats is an advisor to the central banks of Afghanistan, Iraq, Kazakhstan and Libya. A former assistant professor and assistant chairman of the University of Virginia’s Department of Economics, Dr. Coats, during his long career with the International Monetary Fund, led technical assistance missions to the central banks of many countries including Bangladesh, Bulgaria, China, Czech Republic, Egypt, Hungary, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Nigeria, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey, and the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In his new book One Currency for Bosnia: Creating the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dr. Coats tells the fascinating story of the establishment of the most successful state institution in that war-torn country, from his insider’s perspective as someone who helped to make the history that he describes.

Copies of One Currency for Bosnia will be available for purchase at the end of the event.

Here is what leading authorities are saying about One Currency for Bosnia:

Robert Mundell, 1999 Nobel Prize in Economics
Warren Coats's well-told account of the establisment of a currency board in war-torn Bosnia and Herzegovina is fascinating and insightful reading.

Carl Bildt, Former High Representative of the UN in Bosnia, Former Prime Minister of Sweden, Current Foreign Minister of Sweden
The democratization process in Bosnia was one of the most exciting periods of my life, and in the lives of all the courageous people who were involved. The history deserves to be told over and over again...Now, Dr. Coats has taken the trouble to recall his own fascinating experience with the establishment of the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina. His account is an invaluable contribution to the never ending story of the Balkans.

Serge Robert, First Governor of the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina
This excellent book written by Warren Coats about the creation of the new Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina is well worth reading. The author meticulously relates various aspects of history, monetary policy, and human behavior in a clear, lively, humorous, and enthralling style. The book reports how, after a grueling war, some men--still impregnated with rancor and distrust--bridled their own resentment, and worked together to build a monetary institution vital to their common future. Warren, with a great IMF team, played a major role in encouraging mutual understanding and co-operation. Today, on the eve of its tenth anniversary, the Central Bank has proved to be a real success. Warren Coats's book will be an appropriate gift to makr such an event.

The U.S. Foreign-Policy Future: A Progressive-Realist Union?

Articles — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 05:42:00 -0400

During the George W Bush years, two great currents of thinking about United States foreign policy -- progressive and realist -- have shared a critique of a third -- neo-conservative. Both liberal internationalists and proponents of hard-nosed Realpolitik have rejected a US foreign policy that aims to achieve indefinite US global hegemony -- but from quite different perspectives. Indeed, most realists have been as contemptuous of the liberal-internationalist alternative as of neo-conservatism.

Recently, some thoughtful observers of foreign policy have proposed that progressives and realists move beyond a shared critique of neo-conservatism in the direction of a commonly-held philosophy. Robert… more

U.S. Tactics at Odds with Contradictory Iraq Strategy

Articles — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 13:20:00 -0400

The long-awaited report by David Petraeus to the US Congress on the war in Iraq has provoked a debate about tactics rather than what is needed: a debate about strategy. The tactics are those of the US troop surge (a weasel word for escalation). Observers agree that the surge has had some effect in reducing violence in parts of Iraq, temporarily if not permanently. But this success, if it is a success, ignores the larger question of US strategy.

The US did not invade Iraq to provide it with a police force. The goal is not reducing Iraqi violence as an… more

Sacramento Bee Editorial Features Michael Lind's Tax Credit Ideas

Communications — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 05:43:00 -0400

New America in the News:

Here's an interesting factoid to ponder on Labor Day. The vast majority of working Americans pay a greater share of their federal taxes as payroll taxes, not income taxes. In fact, 86 percent of wage earners pay more in payroll taxes than income taxes, according to the Tax Policy Center.

Why should this matter?

First, the payroll tax, which pays for Social Security and Medicare, is regressive -- that is, lower- and middle-income workers pay a higher share of their income in this tax than do high-income workers. It is a flat 15.3 percent tax (split between worker and employer -- though economists say the employer's share ultimately is shifted to workers in the form of lower wages). It does not apply to wages above $97,500....

Second, as Michael Lind notes in "Share the Credit" in the September issue of American Prospect magazine, many workers cannot take advantage of many tax benefits -- from the home mortgage interest deduction to various child care and savings credits. They just don't pay enough in income taxes to benefit from these tax credits. The system is set up so that workers claim these tax credits against income taxes, not payroll taxes.

Lind thinks that should change, too. His idea is to make all Americans who pay payroll taxes eligible for every existing income tax credit.This idea has been around for some time on the child tax credit. Lind asks a good question: Why limit it to just that one tax credit?

Of course, the federal government would have to make up for lost revenue. But that could have good effects, too, making the tax system more fair and less complicated....

Details aside, Lind's point is a valid one: American workers who pay payroll taxes should not be discriminated against in favor of Americans who pay income tax. Both Republicans and Democrats should be able to agree on that. How about that for a post-Labor Day agenda in Congress and going into the 2008 presidential election?

For the complete editorial, please visit The Sacremento Bee's web site.