Alan Detmeister

[Alan Detmeister @ADetmeister]

@ChristianHeiens Christian,

If you really are worried about then it is not too hard to start pushing for electing out representatives using some variant of proportional representation.

[Alan Detmeister @ADetmeister]

Such a system would have no gerrymandering, no wasted votes, increased choice, and power in the legislature would more closely match the views of the population.

[Alan Detmeister @ADetmeister]

Lots of talk these days about gerrymandering. My question is why we still use geographic voting districts. Geographic districts made sense when travel took weeks and communication days. They don’t make sense travel takes less than a day and communication is real time.

[Alan Detmeister @ADetmeister]

Representatives would then have a voting power in Congress (or other legislative body) equal to the number votes they received in the most recent general election.

[Alan Detmeister @ADetmeister]

@FlyIngenuity @joelcardwellX Either way the hard part is getting the reforms passed. The two-party political complex doesn’t want reform and people are distrustful of trying something new.

[Alan Detmeister @ADetmeister]

@FlyIngenuity @joelcardwellX Many countries use proportional representation by party. But I’d prefer more of a proxy representation where each voter could choose their own representative, and legislators would wield votes based on the number of proxies they receive.

[Alan Detmeister @ADetmeister]

@LeighWolf If @elonmusk really cared about improving US democracy and governance, he’d focus on changing the election system rather than creating a third party. It’s more boring work, with a large likelihood of failure, but with greater potential for more significant and lasting reforms.

[Alan Detmeister @ADetmeister]

@EricaGroshen @GoldRoyalty1 I did get a pen for the presentation I did a couple of years ago at FESAC and the time spent on it. Well, actually I just took the pen without asking. I don’t think anyone will mind. Not a bad pen for a plastic pen.

[Alan Detmeister @ADetmeister]

@elonmusk The baseline increase shouldn’t be real $ (CPI, I assume), but instead should be nominal GDP, so that accounts for population (and output) growth as well as inflation.

[Jessica Riedl 🧀 🇺🇦 @JessicaBRiedl]

“Why aren’t you cheering Trump & DOGE? I thought you wanted spending and deficit cuts!"

Because I’ve been doing this for 25 years and can’t be tricked by gimmicky nonsense. Trump’s first term added $8 trillion in enacted spending hikes and tax cuts to the deficit - half of which was unrelated to the pandemic. This time around, Trump has proposed roughly $8 trillion more in tax cuts and spending hikes over the decade. And right now, a GOP Congress is preparing to abandon most reconciliation cuts and instead add $325 billion this year in new spending. We’re headed towards $4 trillion deficits within a decade.

So, no, I don’t get excited when DOGE cancels $1 billion in govt contracts. Or saves $3 billion in federal workforce reductions out of a $7,000 billion budget. Not when Trump and Congress are also preparing to add $800 billion more annually in proposed new tax cuts and spending.

And no, the huge savings are not coming. Even (unrealistically) eliminating 20% of the federal workforce would save $60 billion, and overhauling federal systems to sharply reduce payment errors may save perhaps $80 billion (and is probably unlikely too). For all of DOGE’s bluster, administrative and executive reforms would at best save 1-2% of federal spending and offset only a small fraction of Trump’s red ink agenda.

That leaves trying to unilaterally impound spending such as USAID—which is wildly illegal—or actually going to Congress to pare back spending the constitutional way. But Trump has already taken Social Security, Medicare, defense, veterans, border (and interest) off the table, which is 2/3 of all spending and is driving deficits. And the GOP Congress seems ready to give up on cutting the remaining one-third of spending. Want to cut spending and the deficit? How about they stop passing budget-busting bills. Don’t brag about your coupon-clipping frugality at the same time you are buying a $250,000 Ferrari. I’m not going to cheer Trump and DOGE for adding “only” $750 billion to deficits instead of $800 billion. We’re still going backwards.

I’ve spent decades studying the federal budget. I know that $7 trillion(!) behemoth inside and out – where the money really goes, and where the savings opportunities lie. So I can also detect bullshitters who talk tough about trillion-dollar spending cuts without doing their homework. It’s the ones who claim most spending goes to undefined “waste,” federal salaries, immigrants, foreigners, Ukraine, or non-working welfare recipients. It’s the ones who claim we can easily balance the budget or cut $1 trillion without specifying exactly what line-items to cut. Or that we can return to 2019 spending levels for each program, which means a 20% inflationary cut, defaulting on the federal debt, and kicking off every senior who has since retired into Social Security and Medicare. It’s all hot air and empty bluster. Tough talk without following through on anything substantive. Just wait until you see the final deficit numbers in October.

And this is why GOP movements to cut spending always fail. They make absurdly ambitious promises without doing their homework, understanding where the money goes, and specifying real plans to fix it. You can’t significantly cut the deficit just by cutting waste, firing bureaucrats, and defunding immigrants and foreigners. There are no easy short cuts. You have to stop cutting taxes and then address Social Security, Medicare, defense, and a lot of other popular programs. Wake me when the GOP goes there.

So, no, I will not get excited about a couple billion in DOGE savings on one hand while Trump pushes Congress to add $8 trillion over the decade in tax cuts and spending with the other hand. I’m not that gullible.

[Alan Detmeister @ADetmeister]

@fcastofthemonth Omair, now you know it isn’t true that NO forecaster has brought this in. I may not have as negative forecast of CPI medical as you do, but some of us have accounted for the swing.

[Alan Detmeister @ADetmeister]

@jasonfurman "Last September, rents spiked by 1.9 percent month-over-month.... In contrast, from 2017 to 2019, rents fell by an average of 0.3 percent in September, right in line with this month’s decline." https://t.co/VjHwUWmQNN

[Alan Detmeister @ADetmeister]

@jasonfurman My wording wasn't clear: The 12-month change in CPI OER/rents likely won't peak for another 6 months or so before a slowing starts. They will be elevated for longer. However, market rent increases have now slowed to a pre-pandemic pace and could slow further.

[Alan Detmeister @ADetmeister]

@jasonfurman @paulkrugman The Atlanta Fed wage growth reflects the median growth in wages, not growth in the median wage. This is an important difference. High wage growth by low paid workers will get much more weight in the Atlanta Fed way of doing things than in the BLS average hourly earnings.

[Alan Detmeister @ADetmeister]

@jasonfurman @RiccardoTrezzi Thanks very much for linking. Will give it a look.

[Alan Detmeister @ADetmeister]

@RiccardoTrezzi @jasonfurman Largely agree, but even using a quits rate or vacancy rate only seems to explain a small part of the inflation.