The Wonk Room would like to congratulate Center for American Progress Senior Fellow James Kvaal, who is joining the White House’s National Economic Council.

James was one of the founding contributors to The Wonk Room and helped establish this blog’s credibility as a forum for rapid response on policy issues. He has been an insightful and prolific blogger, covering everything from education and health care to taxes and the budget.

Read all of his posts here and check out his work in the Wonk Room’s resource library.

James’ advice, insights, and wit will surely be missed. We wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

Our guest blogger is James Kvaal, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

House Republicans claimed yesterday that their alternative economic recovery plan –- a Bush-like package of tax cuts — would create 6.2 million jobs. As Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) said during a press conference:

We have an analysis by the president’s senior economic adviser who also shows that tax cuts actually provide more immediate relief and more jobs than spending, so you get more — a bigger bang for the buck. Well, using the methods and economic models developed by the president’s top adviser — and when those are applied to our Republican plan, it shows the Republican plan could create as many as 6.2 million jobs over the next two years.

House Republicans proceeded to all vote against President Barack Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. But in claiming support from Obama economic advisor Christina Romer, they misapplied her past work and ignored her more recent and relevant work.

The Republican statement cites a 2007 paper by Romer on the economic benefits of tax cuts. But as noted across the blogosphere, Romer’s conclusion was that the economic environment complicates the assessment of policy changes, not that tax cuts are the most effective way to create jobs:

What Romer and Romer’s study (and their earlier work on monetary policy) shows is not that tax cuts are uniquely effective, but rather that failing to consider the reasons for policy changes leads to underestimates of the effects of all types of stimulus.

A more recent paper Romer coauthored concluded that government investment create more jobs than tax cuts. As this table that Romer and Jared Bernstein compiled shows, government spending has a stronger multiplier effect, and is therefore stronger stimulus:

As Reagan advisor Martin Feldstein wrote, “While good tax policy can contribute to ending the recession, the heavy lifting will have to be done by increased government spending.” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com recently explained why: though tax cuts act more quickly, they “do not have the same economic bang for the buck as increased government spending, as households will save some of the tax cuts or use them to repay debt, and purchase imported goods.”

Our guest blogger is James Kvaal, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

America’s prosperity was built partly on its strong schools. For most of the last century, America led the world in educational achievement. Our academic edge drove the United States’ exceptional economic growth and low income inequality, according to Harvard professors Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz.

The rapid increases in schooling were impressive. In only 30 years — between 1910 and 1940 — the number of 18-year-olds with high school diplomas increased from 9 percent to 50 percent. And 30 years later, about half of American students were attending at least some college — leading the world.

But since the 1970s, the U.S. educational system has rested on its laurels, and we are losing ground. Educational achievement among young workers (between the ages of 25 and 34) has slipped to tenth in the world, according to new analysis from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.

In part, that’s because tuition has grown by 439 percent over the past 25 years while family incomes have increased by only 147 percent, according to the Center. More resources are needed to keep tuition low and expand scholarships. The College Board makes a compelling case for financial aid reforms that could help more students earn their college degrees.

But there are broader problems as well. We also need to raise high school graduation rates, which average only about 73 percent by some estimates. Stronger academic preparation is needed, particularly in struggling urban schools. And we need to raise students’ aspirations and help them navigate the complicated college and financial aid systems.

Our guest bloggers are Robert Gordon and James Kvaal, senior fellows at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

In this weekend’s Wall Street Journal, Alan Reynolds accuses us of being lawyers, not economists. We are guilty as charged. But the rest of Reynolds’ rant is wrong.

Reynolds disputes our organization’s estimate that John McCain’s tax plan is worth $3.8 billion to the five largest American oil companies. He claims that we excluded the oil companies’ deductions and credits from our analysis. But we did include deductions. And though we excluded credits — because they are not publicly available — they would have only increased the size of our estimate.

Our estimate is conservative in other ways as well. It used 2007 profits, even though oil companies are breaking all the records this year. It did not count McCain’s big expansion in deductions for business investment. And it did not include oil companies’ foreign profits.

We analyzed 200 companies last spring, and our results have been featured in millions of dollars worth of advertising. None of these companies have disputed our results. In fact, no one did until Reynolds wrote his column three days before the election.

Reynolds gets the big things wrong as well. There is little reason to think corporate taxes put American businesses at a competitive disadvantage. Corporate tax collections are among the lowest in the world because our code is riddled with special interest deductions, credits and exemptions that shield corporate profits from tax. While corporate tax reform is overdue, John McCain’s plan would drive up the deficit, shift the tax burden onto middle-class wages, and harm the economy.

Our guest blogger is James Kvaal, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Gov. Sarah Palin is a strong conservative, but she has an unpredictable streak, sometimes raising taxes or taking on business interests. Calling her a “mother, moose hunter, maverick,” the McCain campaign is trying to use Palin’s record to paint John McCain as a maverick too. But by drawing attention to McCain’s party-line platform, the comparison could backfire.

As mayor, Palin cut property taxes but also raised sales taxes to finance a new recreation center. John McCain once entertained higher tobacco and Social Security taxes, but now promises not to support any tax increases, no matter what.

When she became governor, Palin championed a new windfall profits tax on oil companies, collecting $6 billion last year. She also gave each Alaskan $1200 to help pay for higher energy costs. McCain opposes a bipartisan energy package because it repeals tax subsidies for oil companies and he also opposes a windfall profit tax to fund relief for families.

Palin took on the big oil companies that dominate Alaska’s economy. She rejected her predecessor’s plan for a natural gas pipeline, saying it was too generous to the big oil companies. McCain missed a vote to renegotiate sweetheart oil leases.

Palin has also vetoed hundreds of millions of dollars in spending, including controversial cuts for programs helping teenage mothers. McCain not only claims to be able to eliminate $100 billion in wasteful earmarks, a figure many times higher than the actual amount of earmarks, but on the campaign trail has said he supports particular uses of earmarked money.

John McCain once stood up to industry lobbyists on issues like the patient’s bill of rights, treatment of airline passengers and the sale of the broadcast spectrum. But nowadays he campaigns on corporate tax cuts, the oil industry’s agenda, and the deregulation of health insurance. Whether or not Palin is a maverick, McCain is promising to run his administration like he’s run his campaign: as an orthodox Republican.

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