Don't Be VAT Stupid

President Obama's Debt Commission and the Bipartisan Policy Center's Debt Reduction Task Force have both floated their ideas for reducing our nation's runaway national debt. These ideas are a long way from becoming law, but they are generating, as intended, much discussion about the merits of each idea, says Herman Cain of the Daily Caller.

The worst idea is a proposed national sales tax, which…

Higher Taxes Won't Reduce the Deficit

The draft recommendations of the president's commission on deficit reduction call for closing popular tax deductions, higher gas taxes and other revenue raisers to drive tax collections up to 21 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) from the historical norm of about 18.5 percent. Another plan, proposed last week by commission member and former Congressional Budget Office director Alice Rivlin, would impose a 6.5 percent…

Reforming Medical Malpractice Liability through Contract

There is near-universal agreement that the current medical malpractice system does not achieve its aims. In theory, that system is supposed to encourage providers to deliver high-quality care by transferring to negligent providers a large portion of the costs that their negligence imposes on patients. In practice, however, the medical malpractice system achieves that goal rather imperfectly, says Michael…

Economic Issues

November 24, 2010

"I'm 63 and I'm Tired"

by Robert D. Hall

I'm 63. Except for one semester in college when jobs were scarce and a six-month period when I was between jobs, but job-hunting every day, I've worked hard since I was 18. Despite some health challenges, I still put in 50-hour weeks, and haven't called in sick in seven or eight years. I make a good salary, but I didn't inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get…

Postal Service Announces $8.5 Billion Loss

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has announced a net loss of $8.5 billion for fiscal 2010. Since 2006, the USPS has lost $20 billion, and the organization is close to maxing out its $15 billion line of credit with the U.S. Treasury. Although the USPS has achieved some cost savings, they haven't been enough to overcome a large drop in revenue due to the recession and the greater use of electronic alternatives by the…

Federal Spending & Budget Issues

November 16, 2010

The Politics of Budget Cutting

Cutting borrowing and spending is inevitable if America is to avoid a Greece-like implosion. But as the blood sport begins, we should remember the strange politics that govern the process, says Victor Davis Hanson, a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution.

First, no one ever reduces government in good times, when we would be far better able to limit spending, and the…

Instant Reform: Measure the Hidden Tax of Regulation

If Congress doesn't grapple with the regulatory state, this economy can't regain footing, says Clyde Wayne Crews, vice president for policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

The lowest-hanging fruit is for Congress to immediately make regulatory trends as transparent as possible by requiring that summary regulatory data be published in the annual…

How to Shut Down Fannie and Freddie

Although Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac played a central role in causing the recent economic crisis, they are absent from the reform plans of Congress and the Obama administration, says Emil W. Henry, the CEO of Henry, Tiger, LLC, and an assistant secretary of the Treasury from 2005 to 2007.

The Treasury doesn't need Congress or an academic assessment in order to tackle the most…

How to Shut Down Fannie and Freddie

Although Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac played a central role in causing the recent economic crisis, they are absent from the reform plans of Congress and the Obama administration, says Emil W. Henry, the CEO of Henry, Tiger, LLC, and an assistant secretary of the Treasury from 2005 to 2007.

The Treasury doesn't need Congress or an academic assessment in order to tackle the most…

Job-Killing Environmentalists

President Barack Obama seems more concerned with appeasing environmental extremists in his administration than he is with the lost jobs of Americans, says Jon Basil Utley, associate publisher of the American Conservative.

Below are three areas where the environmental extremists hope to wreak havoc on the American economy:

Carbon…

Texas Considers Medicaid Withdrawal

Some Republican lawmakers in Texas are proposing an unprecedented solution to the state's estimated $25 billion budget shortfall: dropping out of the federal Medicaid program, says the New York Times.

• The Heritage Foundation estimates Texas could save $60 billion from 2013 to 2019 by opting out of Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), dropping…

Please watch Glenn Beck this week. He is exposing the hidden agenda of the the progressives and is naming names, all with footnotes & documentation that he wants us to research and determine the validity of his claims. Glenn is also warning about possible violence especially as he exposes what he has uncovered.

With the new 'quantitative easing' (monetarizing) of the debt we are entering unchartered territory and it increasingly looks like massive inflation is on the…

Does ObamaCare Reduce Health Care Spending?

Former Congressional Budget Office and Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag recently claimed that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 is an essential element to keeping future health care costs down. However, Orszag's claim amounts to little more than wishful thinking, says Veronique de Rugy, a Reason magazine columnist and an economist at the Mercatus…

Election Gives States Momentum to Defeat ObamaCare

While the new Congress works toward repeal, states have to choose whether to enable or obstruct ObamaCare, which will further pummel states' fiscal situations, says John R. Graham, director of health care studies at the Pacific Research Institute and senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis.

• If ObamaCare takes full effect in 2014, 16 million…

A Primer on the Constitutionality of Health Reform

The legal battles over ObamaCare present the fundamental questions of where government gets its powers and what the constitutional limits to those powers are, say Ilya Shaprio, a senior fellow in constitutional studies, and Trevor Burrus, a legal associate, at the Cato Institute.

The strongest constitutional criticism of the legislation is that the individual…

Obama Tells Left-Wing MoveOn: I Will Fight GOP

Obama Spends Billions, Only Adds to College Costs

The Obama administration has doled out a record amount of college loans this year to help students cope with the affordability crisis in college tuition. Meanwhile, college tuition has become yet more unaffordable, says James A. Bacon, author of Boomergeddon.

• Uncle Sam handed out $28.2 billion in Pell grants to students in the 2009-2010 school year,…