In Case You Missed It…

This week on Off the Charts, we focused on the economy, the federal budget and taxes, state budgets, and health policy.

• On the economy, Chad Stone pointed out that while the January jobs report is encouraging, a large jobs deficit remains, and he discussed the jobs report with Jared Bernstein.

  Chad also showed that the economy faces a long road back to full health. We excerpted Jared’s congressional testimony on strengthening the middle class and featured a video of Jared answering questions from readers of his blog, On the Economy.

• On the federal budget and taxes, Robert Greenstein explained that Mitt Romney’s budget proposals would lead to massive cuts in safety-net programs.

  Jared Bernstein and Chye-Ching Huang discussed why policymakers should eliminate the preferential tax treatment of capital gains.

• On state budgets, Nick Johnson pointed out that local governments are slowing the recovery through job cuts, and Michael Leachman noted that 20 states must begin repaying federal loans they took out to help pay for unemployment benefits.

  Jon Shure explained why the Tax Foundation’s annual ranking of states’ business climate is misleading, and Michael Mazerov lauded states’ efforts to force online retailers and other remote sellers to collect sales taxes.

• On health policy, Matt Broaddus showed that the tax breaks that Georgia enacted to expand health coverage through the use of Health Savings Accounts have failed to do so.

In other news, we released Chad Stone’s statement on the January employment report, Jared Bernstein’s testimony on strengthening the middle class, and a report on the failure of Georgia’s effort to expand health coverage through tax breaks.