Daily Reading: June 14, 2012

Today's best from around the web. An analysis of Obama's big economy speech is on deck for tonight. 

If you read anything today, read this: 


Ezra Klein puts talk over Obama's messaging strategy in context: 

I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had lately in which some politico or another wants to talk about how the Obama campaign can’t seem to get its “messaging” together. As it happens, I am perhaps the very worst person in the world to have such a conversation with, because I don’t believe marginal changes in messaging have much effect on voters. But let me put aside my role as a pedantic buzzkill for a moment and propose a theory...

No excuse to not read these (short but good): 


Dan Amira notes a small but interesting shift in Obama's rhetoric: Governor Romney is not Mr. Romney. I like it. 


Rebecca Rosen on recent attempts to study how e-mail "gossip" travels in a workplace.


From the sexually repressed conservative files:

Lisa Brown, a Michigan Democratic state representative, yesterday gave an impassioned speech on the floor of the assembly on the question of restricted access to abortion. She concluded her speech by making it a personal one: "Finally, Mr. Speaker, I'm flattered that you're all so interested in my vagina, but 'no' means 'no.'" Today, by way of punishment for using the word vagina on hallowed ground,  Brown wasn't allowed by House Republicans to speak on the floor, for a debate on an employee retirement bill. 

Brad Plumer with a great breakdown of the farm bill. Good, accessible policy reporting is all too hard to come by; thank heaven for Wonkblog.  


Matt Yglesias says we should tax land, not property: 

But I wish more jurisdictions would think harder about property taxes, which I think are overwhelmingly a barbaric relic of a time when governments faced large logistical constraints in their ability to assess and collect taxes. A property tax is essentially a tax on buildings, and since buildings are the most expensive most important and longest-lasting kind of capital goods we have it winds up being about the most anti-growth form of taxation you can imagine. What's more, it's a tax that has only a hazy relationship to ability to pay which invariably inspires jurisdictions to lard their property tax rules down with all kinds of exemptions and complications.

Read these if you've got the time (a bit longer, but good): 


Dean Baker with an outstanding piece on the national debt. I think debt is so counter-intuitive to a lot of voters because household debt is nothing like government debt. Here's Baker: 

Suppose that we have two economies at the same level of per capita income, both growing at the rate of 2.0 percent a year. Let's call them Germany and the United States. For simplicity, we will say that both have zero growth in the labor force so that the growth is all due to productivity growth, meaning that each worker is producing 2.0 percent more for every hour that she works.

After ten years, both economies will be roughly 20 percent richer. Now, suppose that Germany reaches 2022 with zero public debt. It managed to run surpluses and still maintain healthy growth. By contrast, the United States had to run budget deficits to keep its economy moving. By 2022, its ratio of debt to GDP is 200 percent. That's not quite up there with Japan, but substantially larger than anything the United States will see anytime soon under almost any circumstances.

The next question is which country is richer? If you answered Germany, then you get an op-ed column in The Washington Post and an "F" in economics. You were just told that the countries started with economies of the same size and that they grew at the same rate, how could Germany be richer?

Bernstein: Five Myths About Swing States


Cohn on the likely economic effects of Obamacare.