George Goes to Camp
George and his favorite Econ 101 kids are at Camp David this weekend high fiving each other over the robust American economy.
White House spokesman Dana Perino announced that topics on the agenda include the budget, tax policy, the macroeconomic picture and the “E” word - entitlement programs.
Economics is a bit tricky for me, so let’s take these one at a time.
Budget.
Minimum wage in our land of iPods and cell phones is $5.15 an hour. Put in 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, and that’s $10,700 a year. If you’re a single parent with one child, that’s $2,130 below the Poverty Guidelines set by the Department of Health and Human Services. If you have the audacity to be a single parent with two children, you’re $5,390 short.
Tax policy.
George already harpooned the federal estate tax in 2001. A slow phase-out and temporary repeal. Nice. The estate tax rates continue to fall and and the amount of wealth exempt from the tax increases. Translation. Billions of dollars sucked out of the federal budget and put back into the pockets of the wealthiest 2% of our fellow citizens.
And showing that they’re no strangers to common sense, George’s boys and girls in the House voted last month (H.R. 5970) to link a hike in the minimum wage to a decrease in the estate tax. My, we’re big boys and girls now, aren’t we?
Macroeconomic picture.
I had to look that one up. My trusty dictionary.com defines macroeconomic as “the study of the overall aspects and workings of a national economy, such as income, output, and the interrelationship among diverse economic sectors.” George and the Econ 101 kids need more than a weekend at camp for that one.
Finally, that nasty “E” word.
Those darn entitlement programs do need some revising. Let’s start with George’s estate tax cut.