If increasing income equality is the goal, it might be wiser to put money into infrastructure than to subsidize manufacturing. Construction also pays good wages, but with lower educational requirements. And America's infrastructure needs are enormous.

Tax increases appear to have a very large sustained and highly significant negative impact on output. Since most of our exogenous tax changes are in fact reductions, the more intuitive way to express this result is that tax cuts have very large and persistent positive output effects

A successful argument for a government manufacturing policy has to go beyond the feeling that it's better to produce 'real things' than services. American consumers value health care and haircuts as much as washing machines and hair dryers.

President Obama has repeatedly urged Congress to let the Bush tax cuts expire for those earning more than $250,000 a year. Increasing rates on top earners is an obvious way to raise revenue from those who can afford it most.

If you think about it, candidate Obama, Sen. Obama, was running on sort of long-run economic issues, like restoring prosperity to the middle class, dealing with the perennial problem of health care in the United States. He talked a lot about the budget deficit, about the need to transition to clean energy.

You care about the deficit because it allows you to do things you need to do to help people who are suffering.

What I desire to point out is that I wish the law was not so, but that being the law, I must follow it.