I was wondering over the past few days, particularly with the recent media attention devoted to General Wesley Clark's appearance on Face the Nation and its several day aftermath in the news media, how long it should take people to make up their minds about how to cast their ballots in an election like this year's primaries or general election.  The relevance Clark's interview is that I think it is a good example of a political celebrity saying something that is not well considered (to put it charitably), easy to sensationalize in an excerpt, and of almost no consequence in helping voters decide which candidate to support.

You're playing golf.  You're on the 4th hole.  It's a par 4 and you do it in 3.  (I know this is hard to believe; just work with me.)

You got a birdie on that 4th hole so, according to golf vernacular, you're "minus 1" or 1 below par.  But you actually have 3 more strokes than you had at the end of the previous hole, so you're actually "plus 3."

So which is it, minus 1 or plus 3?

I was asked the equivalent of that question yesterday during a presentation I was making on the 2008 election.  But even though I was the last speaker before the morning session ended and everyone in the room was about to head out with a box lunch for the first tee, the question was about gasoline prices rather than golf.

The question was why were Americans so angry about the price of gasoline when we were paying so much less than most of the rest of the world.

Between now and the November elections, we will likely hear Senator McCain describe his preferences for Supreme Court nominees who will not "legislate from the bench."  I think the liberal wing of the court--including Justice Kennedy writing for the 5-4 majority--gave him a clear example of legislating from the bench in today's Kennedy v. Louisiana decision.  From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON — The death penalty is unconstitutional as a punishment for the rape of a child, a sharply divided Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.

Gene Steuerle holds forth on the very undemocratic impact of our generation's promises to ourselves on the tax burden of the next:

At its core, democracy is about equal rights to vote—and have your representatives vote—on the nation's current priorities. But many recent laws attempt to deny us—and, even more so, our children—the opportunity to determine those priorities.

The reason is simple, but its effects are profound. Never before in U.S. history have so many promises been made to so many people for so many years into the future. Every additional promise, no matter what its merit, only attempts to tie that fiscal straightjacket tighter around future voters.

If our tax laws merely stay the same from 2006 to 2010, for instance, government revenues would rise by several hundred billion dollars. But guess what? Most of those revenue increases are already committed, mainly to the growing costs of our current health and retirement programs.

When people ask me who I want to win the presidency on November 4th, I say, "I just want the government to function again."  On Capitol Hill, I worked for Republicans and Democrats.  I learned that government functioned best when Republican and Democrats worked together, traveled together, ate together, and compromised together.  The earned income tax credit I formulated and helped enact in 1975 was a Republican idea passed by Democrats.  Bill Clinton pushed welfare reform into existence, and George W. Bush expanded Medicare to cover prescription drugs.  There's a pattern here.

The Washington Post had an interesting article yesterday by Lori Montgomery that asks the right question: given the real budget outlook, the AMT and expiring tax cut trains coming down the track, and the cost of what's being proposed, should anyone take what the presidential candidates are saying seriously?

CG&G's own Pete Davis has been on top of this issue for some time (see here, and here).  Our own Andrew Samwick has been writing about it even longer.  And I'll have a piece this Tuesday on what to expect budgetwise from whoever gets elected.

But in the meantime, the Post story is definitely worth a few minutes of your time.

I've been traveling much of the past two weeks for work. Nine cities, seven states, and close to 30 presentations about the election and the economy.

What I'm about to say is based purely on anecdotal information. It is not meant to be statistically significant or a good sample. And my audiences were anything but a good cross section of the general population.

But my conclusion is as straight forward as possible: Americans, or at least those I spoke to and with, are very very angry.

Their anger initially seemed to be directed at specific things. Understandably, gasoline prices always seemed to be the first thing mentioned, for example. In fact, the economy in general was a constant source of anger. No one I spoke with over the past few days seems to be looking at the current economic situation as positive. Costs are going up, jobs are going down, inflation is rising, housing is unsettled, investment opportunities are limited, etc.

People are really angry at George Bush.

This week, the Rockefeller Center at Dartmouth (where my day job is to be the director) has been hosting a conference, "Going to Extremes: The Fate of the Political Center in American Politics." The papers can be found here. The discussion has been excellent--lots of interesting ideas for an economist to pick up from a group of thoughtful political scientists.

Toward the end of the conference, a discussant brought out a contrast between a centrist's identification with his party and with his constituency.  What does the centrist do if the party's position disagrees with his constituents' preferences?  The answer, spoken from the party leadership to the representative, used to be, "Vote with your constituency, because we want you back."  Now, I'm not so sure.

Senator Obama's announcement last week that Jason Furman would join his economic team as economic policy director set off the unfortunate spate of criticism from the Left that he's not Left enough on labor issues.  I figured the last thing Jason needed was a defense from an occasional right-of-center policy opponent.  (The most thoughtful one is here, with links to others from those with left-of-center credentials.)

The most hysterical commentary I've read comes, surprise, from Naomi Klein in The Nation, where Furman's appointment is taken as further evidence that Obama is "thoroughly embedded in the mind-set known as the Chicago School."

Today, the Urban Institute Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center published a detailed analysis and comparison of the tax policies of Senators McCain and Obama.  It represents the most detailed and analytically sound study of their tax policies we are likely to see before the election.

It concludes that compared to current policy, Senator McCain would cut taxes by $628 b. over the next 10 years and that Senator Obama would raise them by $734 b. over the same period.  Most of Senator McCains cuts go to middle and high income individuals, while most of Senator Obama's cuts would go to low and middle income individuals.  Both would raise revenue by broadening the corporate tax base, and Senator McCain would cut the top corporate tax rate from 35% to 25%.  Senator Obama would also raise the capital gains and dividends taxes and eliminate certain foreign tax benefits for individuals and corporations.