A New Day

 Trump will soon be out of office (in about 24 hours let's hope), so maybe it's time to start blogging again. You may remember that this blog started sometime around the beginning of Obama's first term, when I started commenting about the "Affordable Care Act" and how it might become law: it did, but by a pretty narrow, largely partisan vote.

Today we can look forward to more narrow, largely partisan votes. This is still better than the terrible things that happened (or almost happened) in the last four years.

Paul Krugman today talks about policy based on fact, and how that may be staging a return. You can find a link to his "blog" HERE. A key point he makes to back up his assertion is:

"The change started with a remarkable paper by the labor economists David Card and Alan Krueger, who had the bright idea of surveying fast-food restaurants near the Delaware River before and after New Jersey raised its minimum wage, while Pennsylvania did not. As far as I can tell, they expected to see employment declines in the former relative to the latter. But they didn’t.

This result — no noticeable employment decline after an increase in the minimum wage — has since been replicated many, many times. The evidence is now overwhelming that minimum wage hikes don’t have major negative effects on employment, while they do raise workers’ incomes and reduce poverty. This isn’t a conclusion driven by politics... "

Of course, there have been other examples. One is the under-publicized failure of "Tea Party" economics in Kansas, where the low-tax and low-spending conservative policies of Gov. Sam Brownback created such a disaster  -- especially in public education -- that the Republican legislature overruled his spending veto. I blogged about this a while back: http://thatmansscope.blogspot.com/2017/06/an-important-story-in-kansas.html. 

Any way, I am cautiously optimistic that the new "Biden Era" will see important and positive changes in the economy and health of this country. I also am cautiously optimistic that threats of violence by the right will be put down pretty effectively by police and National Guard. I'm not naive enough to think that these organizations aren't riddled with white nationalists etc., but I think, like the country as a whole, a large-enough majority are loyal to democracy. Of course, as Krugman says, what we want is evidence, so we shall wait and hope.

More after the inauguration.