In 2012 the Tax Policy Center scored most of the Republican tax plans, but this year they’ve sat on the sidelines. I suppose this is partly because the plans generally don’t have enough detail to be seriously evaluated, and partly because they got tired of wasting time on tax plans that are meant more as affinity statements than as actual financial documents. I mean, what’s the point of a bunch of guys with PhDs playing the role of pro wrestling referee in a tired game of “can you top this?”

For some reason, though, they’ve gone ahead and evaluated Jeb Bush’s tax plan. Their results are the usual ones from the party of fiscal prudence: Bush’s plan would increase the national debt from 78 percent of GDP to 106 percent within ten years; it would increase the federal deficit by about a trillion dollars; and it would benefit the rich far more than the poor. In other words, it’s the same as every other Republican tax plan. A few of the details change a bit from candidate to candidate, as do the specific numbers, but that’s about all

So does this matter? I go back and forth on this. Dylan Matthews says it does because the other campaigns haven’t provided enough detail for TPC to complete an analysis of their plans:

In the worst case, in which TPC never gets the details it needs for Rubio and Trump’s plans (or Ted Cruz’s very different plan), the Bush analysis becomes hugely valuable. It gives us a glimpse of what Rubio and Trump’s TPC scores would look like. It indicates that the plans are likely to be very, very expensive, with benefits concentrated at the top.

I don’t buy this. Everyone who’s not a paid shill for the Republican Party already knows it. The only difference is that reporters now have a well-respected analysis they can use to badger the Bush campaign, but they don’t have one for the others. So Bush will get more heat and the others will benefit from being smart enough not to cooperate with TPC.

Beyond that, does anyone care about these plans anymore? They’ve gotten so ridiculous that it’s hard to believe that even the candidates still take them seriously, let alone anyone else. They’re basically just a highly ritualized way of indicating that candidates subscribe to the approved catechism. The message is “I hate taxes, especially on the wealthy,” and the details are unimportant. As long as your tax cut is sufficiently large, you’re in.

TPC says they’d like to evaluate other tax plans, but I’d suggest they not bother. It’s a kabuki show long past its prime, and they must have better things to spend their time on.

Back in June, there was a legitimate question about whether Donald Trump deserved significant news coverage. Today there isn’t. He’s been leading the polls for the Republican presidential nomination for months, and that makes him news no matter what crazy stuff he says.

There is, however, still a legitimate question about whether TV news networks are actively aiding Trump by giving him more attention than he deserves. Jim Tankersley points us to the 2016 Campaign Television Tracker for data on this point, and their database tells us that Trump has gotten 47 percent of all TV mentions among Republican candidates since he announced in June. Marco Rubio has gotten 6 percent. It’s fair that Trump gets more than Rubio, but rather plainly he shouldn’t be getting that much more.

So who’s responsible for this? The chart on the right shows mentions over the past week. Fox News mentioned Trump 452 times, but the biggest guns by far were CNN and MSNBC, who apparently have serious Trump obsessions. CNN mentioned him 1,375 times and MSNBC mentioned him 1,484 times. Why? Mostly because they just cover politics more extensively. CNN’s mentions of all candidates over the past week were roughly 2x Fox’s, and MSNBC clocked in at nearly 4x.

As for Trumpmania, CNN is by far the biggest offender. Both Fox and MSNBC have given Trump about half of all Republican mentions over the past week. CNN has given him 70 percent. They’ve all but quit covering the other candidates entirely. Needless to say, this has gone beyond mere reporting and is now edging toward outright advocacy. This kind of coverage is obviously a huge benefit for Trump.

Does anyone do this kind of analysis for major print media? I’d be fascinated to know if Trump love is mostly a TV phenomenon, or if it’s a more general media phenomenon.

Here is Sarah Ferris writing in The Hill today:

ObamaCare will force a reduction in American work hours — the equivalent of 2 million jobs over the next decade, Congress’s nonpartisan scorekeeper said Monday.

That’s an unfortunate choice of words, especially since three paragraphs later Ferris herself says it’s not true: “The CBO is not predicting that employers will fire millions of workers or reduce hours because of the law, but that the law changes incentives over the years for the workers themselves both in part-time and full-time positions.”

Obamacare isn’t forcing anyone to do anything. According to the CBO it has three general effects:

• It includes some tax increases, which modestly reduce incentives to earn more income.
• It allows more people to buy health insurance even if they aren’t employed, which modestly reduces incentives to work.
• Its benefits decline as income goes up, which reduces incentives to work (in some cases) or to work more (in other cases).

CBO’s specific estimates of reduced work incentives may be wrong—they strike me as a bit high— but their general conclusion is both correct and well-known. Tax increases do reduce incentives to work. Decoupling insurance from employment does reduce the number of people who work solely because they need the insurance. And means-tested benefits do create the equivalent of high marginal tax rates as income increases, which reduces the incentive to work more.

There’s nothing new here. Obamacare does change work incentives in certain ways, though the effect is small: about 1-2 percent of the workforce by 2025. But it doesn’t force anything. There are no “broken promises” or “catastrophic failures” to rant about. Just some small marginal effects that shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s been paying attention.

At the LA Times today, Erin Griffith comments on the latest tech bubble:

Each day there’s a new report casting gloom on Silicon Valley’s herd of magical billion-dollar “unicorn” start-ups: missed targets at Zenefits, share markdowns at Snapchat, a cash crunch at Jet, an executive exodus at Rent the Runway. Dropbox faces doubts about its revenue potential. Theranos is losing business deals. And don’t forget WeWork’s highly risky real estate deals, and unrealized revenue projections at Lyft. Flipboard failed to find a buyer. Square priced its IPO underwater. Zirtual and Homejoy — not unicorns, but highly valued and highly funded all the same — abruptly shut down.

Each new report is shocking because we receive little information on the health of these private companies — we know only what they choose to share. Usually those are impressive-sounding figures like “400% revenue growth” (from what base? $1?) or a robust “revenue run rate,” a decidedly non-GAAP measurement. Worse are the totally meaningless, hard-to-contextualize stats: Start-up X has reached 5 billion “impressions” per month! (But what about profits? Does this revolutionary business model actually work? No comment.)

Needless to say, those of us who were alive 20 years ago are familiar with this. Even the terminology hasn’t changed much. Back then it was run-rates and impressions and record revenues and “decidedly non-GAAP measurements” too. You’d think we might have learned something from that. I mean, say what you will about our 17th century ancestors, but at least they didn’t have a second tulip bubble in 1657.

That’s not fair, of course. This is more like the railroad mania of the 19th century: genuinely useful technology that got out of hand and produced plenty of fraud and speculation to go along with a transportation revolution that changed the world. Still, you’d think we would have learned something from that, too.

Of course, you’d think we would have learned something from the invasion of Iraq, but apparently not. You’d think we would have learned something from the financial meltdown, but apparently not. We humans just don’t learn much, do we?

Do any of the Republican candidates have a plan for defeating ISIS?  As near as I can tell, most of them have offered up variations on this:

• Bomb ISIS, just like Obama, but better.
• Use Iraqi ground troops, just like Obama, but better.
• Put together a coalition of local allies, just like Obama, but better.

Am I missing anything? Aside from being more bellicose (the sand will glow, we’ll bomb the shit out of them, etc.), all of the candidates are saying that Obama’s strategy is basically sound, but they’d tweak it a bit here and there. They’d stop worrying about civilian deaths so they could drop more bombs. They’d somehow train Iraqi forces better than the Army is doing right now. And they’d put together a real coalition, though it’s never really clear what they mean by that or how they’d accomplish it.

Anything else?

Devin Nunes represents the conservative 22nd district of California. It’s an inland district near Fresno that’s about 60 percent Republican and voted decisively for both John McCain and Mitt Romney. As you can see from the chart on the right, Nunes used to be a pretty reliable conservative, earning high scorecard ratings from both ACU and FreedomWorks. But over the past few years, as the tea party has taken charge of the GOP, he’s drifted away from the true conservative cause. Why? Ryan Lizza tells us part of the story:

Nunes, who is the chairman of the House Committee on Intelligence, told me that the biggest change he’s seen since he arrived in Congress, in 2002, is the rise of online media outlets and for-profit groups that spread what he views as bad, sometimes false information, which House members then feel obliged to address.

….“I used to spend ninety per cent of my constituent response time on people who call, e-mail, or send a letter, such as, ‘I really like this bill, H.R. 123,’ and they really believe in it because they heard about it through one of the groups that they belong to, but their view was based on actual legislation,” Nunes said.

“Ten per cent were about ‘Chemtrails from airplanes are poisoning me’ to every other conspiracy theory that’s out there. And that has essentially flipped on its head.” The overwhelming majority of his constituent mail is now about the far-out ideas, and only a small portion is “based on something that is mostly true.” He added, “It’s dramatically changed politics and politicians, and what they’re doing.”

This is the electorate that Donald Trump appeals to—and it’s why he’s dangerous regardless of whether he wins the Republican nomination. He says that thousands of Muslims in Jersey City celebrated on 9/11, and this gets repeated endlessly by right-wing media and conservative fundraising groups who are always on the lookout for something new to scare people with. Then these people start deluging their representatives with demands that they do something about all the Muslim celebrations on 9/11. Rinse and repeat weekly.

Nunes is no lefty. But he’d like to actually pass conservative legislation instead of wasting his time fending off nutballs. That makes life pretty tough for a Republican these days. They may be in the majority, but until they do something about their out-to-lunch faction they’re not going to get much done.

Here is a test for you. Which of these polls of the Iowa caucuses do you believe?

The Pollster average of recent polls still shows Trump with a big lead over Cruz in Iowa. The latest Monmouth poll shows Cruz with a big lead. Is Monmouth an outlier? Or an indication of a recent big surge by Cruz that hasn’t shown up in the averages yet? Place your bets.

Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement that he will use 99 percent of his wealth for charitable purposes has generated a surprising amount of acrimony. I don’t really get why. Anyone who looks into it for more than a few seconds understands that the financial structure he set up doesn’t benefit him personally, so there’s no point griping about that. Nor does it make a lot of sense to make Zuckerberg into a poster boy for income inequality. There are lots of better examples. Josh Barro identifies the only real concern about Zuckerberg’s plan:

The bigger issue is the promise: to use nearly all his wealth “to further the mission of advancing human potential and promoting equality.”….[This] is, to a large degree, subjective. Most political donors believe their favored candidates benefit not just themselves but the public, and essentially all start-up founders in Silicon Valley believes their companies will serve to advance human potential. Even donations that fit within the legal framework of charity can be duds: Mr. Zuckerberg’s $100 million gift to the Newark Public Schools seems to have done little to benefit Newark students.

Well, yeah. There’s no way to force Zuckerberg or anyone else to give their money away. There’s no way to force them to give it away on projects you approve of. There’s no way to guarantee that all their donations will work out well. That’s life, and Zuckerberg is no better or worse than any other billionaire on these scores. Still, the mere fact of announcing that he plans to give away 99 percent of his wealth is praiseworthy, isn’t it? He’s putting himself under pressure to follow through and setting an example for others at the same time. What’s not to like?

As for the fact that he wants to oversee what the money is spent on instead of, say, giving it all to the Red Cross—well, I’d do the same thing. Wouldn’t you?

This chart gets filed under things that leave me scratching my head. It’s from a survey published in the latest EBRI newsletter, and it shows how much people value certain kinds of job benefits. Health coverage is #1, unsurprisingly. But the perceived importance of retirement benefits has plummeted over the past couple of decades. This applies to both traditional pensions and 401(k) plans. Retirement benefits are still considered “very important” or “extremely important” by three-quarters of those surveyed, but fewer than half rank retirement benefits as one of the two most important benefits. That compares to nearly 90 percent who did so in 1999.

I’m really not sure what to make of this. Is it because Americans have given up on retirement plans they think are too cheap to make much difference? Do lots of Americans not plan to retire, for either good or bad reasons? Do they think Social Security will be sufficient? None of these explanations makes much sense. But what does?

I decided to watch President Obama’s Oval Office address on Fox News so that I could understand just how bad he sucked tonight. And sure enough, he sucked! His speech was a complete failure, ladies and gentlemen. There was nothing new. He showed no emotion. He refused to say “radical Islam.” He did nothing to assuage the fears of the American people. It took him four days to say anything about the San Bernardino shootings. And what was with the lectern, anyway?

Conservatives sure get bothered by some weird things. I mean, what’s the deal with their endless obsession about “radical Islam,” anyway? Hillary Clinton keeps getting asked why she doesn’t like the phrase, but shouldn’t the real question be why conservatives are so intent on everyone using it? How come no one ever asks them about this? Over at The Corner, Ian Tuttle insists the problem is that “The liberal mind…cannot take seriously the claim of religion as an animating force in human lives,” which is a singularly strange assertion to make. Then he ends up with this: “Until we identify the religious conviction at the heart of Islamic terrorism, we’ll continue to wage an ultimately futile war.” That doesn’t make much sense to me. I think everyone understands perfectly well the religious motivations that make up a big part of the stew of beliefs that inspire Islamic terrorists. Literally everyone. But why obsess about it in public? George Bush didn’t, and for good reason: he wanted all the non-terrorist Muslims in the world to be on our side. Why is this so hard to understand?

Then there’s the whole business about why Obama waited four whole days to give a speech about the San Bernardino shootings. Is four days really that intolerable a period these days? In the same vein, it’s common to rail about the fact that Obama has been fighting ISIS for 16 months and still hasn’t destroyed them. I can’t tell if this is just a handy talking point or a genuine concern. If it’s genuine, what did everyone expect? George Bush spent eight years fighting the Taliban and still had to hand over the war to his successor. I don’t think the war against ISIS will take that long, but it was never going to take less than a few years. Hell, it’s going to take a few years just to get Iraqi troops into decent shape—something conservatives should appreciate since each and every one of them insists that Iraq will have to provide most of the ground troops to take out ISIS.

Next up are the constant complaints that Obama doesn’t engage in a suitable display of emotion. I’ll admit this is a matter of taste. I find Obama’s manner refreshing. Others may find it too low key. That’s fine. But it’s become a major talking point rather than just a matter of personal preference. I swear, I think Obama could announce that he’d ordered a nuclear attack on Tehran and conservatives wouldn’t be happy unless he did a fist pump at the end.

As for the fears of the American people, I’m a little curious about that. Conservatives seem to think that most of us are in a state of panic over the San Bernardino attack. Are we? There’s no question that attacks like this are unsettling, and I’m perfectly well aware that my own lack of fear is atypical. There’s some polling evidence that Americans think a terrorist attack is more likely in the wake of Paris, which is perfectly reasonable. But are more people personally fearful of being killed by terrorists? Gallup hasn’t shown much change in this over the years, even after 9/11, so I guess I’m skeptical that the latest attacks will produce more than a short blip. But I could be wrong.

Anyway, my conservative friends will be unsurprised that I think Obama’s approach to terrorism and ISIS is basically fine. Sure, maybe we could loosen up a bit on the rules of engagement. Maybe we should be more aggressive about the oil infrastructure. You can argue about these things. But it’s basically small beer, and most of the Republican candidates don’t really have anything more to suggest. They all seem to think that pounding the table and saying “radical Islam” a lot will have a big effect. I doubt that. Unless they’re willing to send in a whole lot of US ground troops, they really aren’t proposing to do a whole lot more than Obama is already doing.