Pigou in Pictures

A reader alerts me to a Pigovian cartoon. Here is another. Readers are encouraged to posts similar links in the comments section.

Update: A commenter suggests a great one.

The Dems on Trade

In today's Boston Globe, Robert Kuttner reports (approvingly) that the Rubin-Summers wing of the Democratic Party is losing ground:

In the Senate, five of the six Democrats who picked up Republican-held Senate seats have joined a new populist caucus, insisting on fairer trade rules. Tuesday and Wednesday, business oriented Democrats invited three Clinton veterans, Gene Sperling, Robert Rubin, and Larry Summers, to House Ways and Means Committee hearings to defend the old trade agenda, which has produced chronic trade deficits and hollowed out American industry. These worthies called for a "new consensus" -- more deals to ease off-shoring production, sweetened by a little more public money to help workers displaced by trade. Most Democrats weren't buying it.

Furman signs up

Jason Furman testifies for the Senate Budget Committee on the long-term fiscal gap and, in the process, becomes a member of the Pigou Club:

A third promising strategy for tax reform is to rely more on taxes that correct distortions and improve the functioning of markets. For example, as N. Gregory Mankiw has argued, "A tax on carbon is the best way to deal with global warming." There are legitimate concerns that such a tax, by itself, would be regressive and disproportionately affect low- and moderate-income families. These concerns, however, could and should be addressed by combining a carbon tax with other tax cuts that compensate low- and moderate-income families. Or, alternatively, a carbon tax reform could be combined with tax cuts in such a manner that it was both revenue neutral and distribution neutral, although in this case it would not have the benefit of reducing the long-run deficit and thus would not reduce the need for other revenue increases or benefit cuts.