Chuck Marr

2.5 Trump imposed global tariffs, raising prices on Americans, on purpose.

According to the NYT-Siena poll--widely recognized as the gold standard of published public opinion polls--about 2% of voters say taxes are the thing they worry the most about affording. Something to think about when weighing how to allocate dollars in a legislative agenda.

New pod: HOW AMERICA TURNED INTO ONE BIG FAT CASINO I talked to @mckaycoppins about sports gambling, war betting, and the fast-motion casino-ification of American life Feat. - Behind the sports leagues' remarkable 180: In 2012, NBA commissioner David Stern personally confronted and threatened Chris Christie for trying to legalize sports betting. Fourteen years later, it is not humanly possible to watch or follow the NBA without making contact with gambling content. - @natesilver's Gambling 101: Online betting might be fun, but it's not "fair": There is an inverse relationship between the most popular bets and the smartest bets; 90+% of bettors lose money over time and the best bettors are limited and even kicked off sites. So the only way to really make money doing this long-term is to somehow manage to consistently belong to something like the 98th percentile of gamblers. - Vice vs wisdom: Sports gambling really is fun. It's also a vice with a significant tail-risk of addiction and financial crisis. Wisdom is the ability to identify, communicate, and legislate limits to legal vices—and we are miles from wise policy on gambling today. - The darkest timeline: Prediction markets really are useful ... but the fact that anonymous accounts can make millions of dollars from forecasting specific war outcomes is absurd and incentives are horrendous. Dystopias aren't just bad ideas taken to illogical extremes; they are often reasonable ideas taken to dangerous places. War profiteering on Polymarket is exactly that kind of dystopia. open.spotify.com/episode/0KJxKz…

It is abhorrent that we leave 25 million Americans uninsured — a number set to surge by perhaps 50% due to the expiration of enhanced ACA subsidies and massive Medicaid cuts. Universal, seamless coverage throughout the life course remains an urgent prerogative for the nation.

This was so avoidable -- so risky and stressful for people - and Republicans chose to do things like giver larger tax-free inheritances to the wealthiest heirs in the country. Life is full of choices - this one was bad.

The idea that we can replace the income tax with tariffs is not only essentially impossible, but it would also mean a HUGE tax cut for the rich, and a massive tax hike for the poor. Great piece from @CenterOnBudget: cbpp.org/research/feder…

A must read from @jacsamoby:

It's actually worse than I thought. Catch up growth assumes red states are growing faster on a per capita basis, but they're not. Hanania's charts were not per capita, so basically just measuring population growth. Red states are poorer, but they are also not converging.

The simple answer is catch up growth. You can’t just do growth rate analysis without controlling for initial levels. It was a quick jump from claiming we have enough data to declare a winner to saying, ah well, there hasn’t always been this much divergence…

@StefFeldman So the D will say to the R standing next to them: Your team ran the last election on lowering prices Then you came in and raised prices on purpose with tariffs taxes, and people are angry Cool, I’m with you

I think 2028 Dem presidential candidates WON'T run on reversing Trump's tariffs 👀 There's so little revenue to spend and they will decide other options are more impactful

@George_A_Callas I’ll set the “risking capital in the US economy” aside, though I did almost tear up at the implied sacrifice But what’s unfair is that a waiter is paying no tax on tips while the dishwasher’s paying taxes on wages

What’s really unfair is that someone earning $50k from tips pays lower taxes than someone earning $50k from risking capital in the US economy.

No one really believes it’s right on the merits for Dems to go all in on tax cuts, but some are arguing that it’s politically smart. Yet at the exact same time, Republicans are staring down massive midterm losses after staking their appeal on tax cuts.

@George_A_Callas @mattyglesias Yeah, sure, and if there weren't lots and lots of money at stake then on balance one wouldn't worry about such things - but life's a balance and there's lots of money at stake and to erase taxes on a sizable share of one's lifetime income (of very wealthy people) makes no sense

@ChuckCBPP @mattyglesias What if the unrealized gains are in customer lists, going concern value, and trade secrets instead of publicly traded shares? I find that the most passionate advocates of taxing unrealized gains often have the least understanding of the breadth of assets that constitute wealth.

Anti-billionaire-ism helped paper over an Obama-era mod/prog split about taxing people with low six figure incomes, but it's now tipping back over into the idea that maybe those people need a tax CUT. slowboring.com/p/upscale-libe…

Ordinary Americans' tax rates are already historically low. Democrats should prioritize fortifying and expanding the welfare state over narrowing America's (exceptionally thin) tax base vox.com/politics/48255…

@StefFeldman Yeah, but I’m not sure that’s right though, maybe more of a I want my own new (but not so new) thing Picture debating increasing the standard deduction vs the Trump tariffs Rs did both those things - stronger ground to take on the one people hate

@ChuckCBPP Appreciate your feedback! I instinctually agree with the concern and politics regarding tariffs, though I've been surprised how many frontline candidates don't feel like attacking tariffs helps them w their voters.

A targeted & temp tax cut is a decent response to voters who don't believe Dems have a good answer for short-term affordability problems. Don't like it? Come up w/ something better. Voters aren't satisfied with what we've offered so far. That's my take, cited by @mattyglesias:

@StefFeldman Part 2 is a must-read for all those gearing up On Part 1, I would note what's driving a key piece of today's affordability concerns are Trump's tariffs & the economics (efficiency & equity) & politics (blame) of eliminating them strike me as better than a "middle class tax cut"

Yglesias piece: substack.com/home/post/p-19… My piece: permanentcampaign.substack.com/p/democrats-du…

The recent *political* benefits of tax cuts and tax cut-like things haven’t been overwhelming. Didn’t seem huge during Trump 1. Not seeing it in Trump 2. Biden didn’t get huge political benefit from rebates/CTC. He saved Teamsters pension but didn’t even get endorsement.

99%-ism - the belief that only the top 1% should have to pay higher taxes - is a scourge. Booker and Van Hollen's tax cut plans represent the culmination of a decades-long trend -- one that could make building a robust American welfare state impossible vox.com/politics/48255…

@mattyglesias Set that aside for a minute and consider instead: A wealthy person with millions/billions of unrealized gains (from shares) vs a middle-class person with a house and a 401(k) plan -- and think about how they're gains are ultimately taxed or not Does it make sense?

Separately, the idea of characterizing unrealized gains as "income" has never sat well with me — I don't think anyone is willing to actually apply that logic in a consistent way because it leads to some zany results.

You could even call it “No Tax on Imports.”