Antitrust Review has Blawg Review #149 up and steaming, including “what is undoubtedly the greatest four paragraphs to ever appear in a newspaper.” This review is chock full of great posts — more than can be absorbed in one sitting.
We enjoyed the Drug and Device Law Blog’s (lengthy) review the FDA’s “new draft guidelines that slightly relaxed some aspects of the Agency’s prohibitions concerning promotion of off-label uses by manufacturers of FDA-regulated products.”
Don’t miss David Giacalone’s review of Leap Day at f/k/a or the question of penalties for unlawful cancellation of health insurance policies.
The Most Commented Post Award goes to Above The Law’s what could happen to a highly-paid NY lawyer if Congress eliminates the social security tax cap, a guest post by Ted Frank, a resident fellow at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute. (Note: the post ties the question to whether Barack Obama is elected even though there wasn’t any evidence that Obama is even in favor of eliminating the cap so it’s really just a “what if” that applies to any candidate or party.)
A little dishonest to say “there wasn’t any evidence that Obama is even in favor of eliminating the cap” when the page you link to includes an economic analysis of the benefits of eliminating the cap, and Obama has said several times he supports a tax policy that would result in the elimination of the cap. In any event, the spreadsheet contains an option for changing the assumptions to reflect different possible Obama treatments of the social security cap consistent with his several other inconsistent vague proposals, and all of them result in substantial tax increases.
To clarify, the barackobama.com website states: “Obama supports increasing the maximum amount of earnings covered by Social Security.”
Noteworthy, the amount of income subject to social security tax has increased every year since 1994 (data available) under both democratic and republican administrations and will increase again in 2008 by $5500.
Likewise, John McCain has said he would consider increasing the maximum amount of earnings covered by Social Security. Hillary Clinton has publicly avoided taking a specific stand on the issue but has said she would be willing to consider an idea that John Edwards had been promoting — raising Social Security taxes on high-income earners.
No candidate has said they would eliminate the cap.
We stand by our words.