Although the issue is seldom discussed, the federal government currently owns more than $1.6 trillion of liquid assets. Free market economists have a general presumption that private owners, relying on the profit-and-loss test, allocate resources to their most valuable uses. Especially given the current budget crisis, now is an excellent
It’s all debt limit, all the time, it seems. Everyone’s talking about what may or may not happen when the U.S. government finally butts up against its legal borrowing limit on August 2. That’s the date that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says the feds will max out the credit lines
The new US health reform law creates incentives for state and federal politicians and bureaucrats to exert direct control over the premiums of health plans. However, because health plans largely pass through costs from medical providers, artificially limiting increases in premiums cannot actually result in lower health costs. Instead, it
Despite the official end of the recession in June 2009, the labour market remains stagnant. Employment has fallen by nearly 7 million jobs since the recession began. Unemployment remains above 9 per cent. This is the weakest recovery of the post-World War II era. Current policies have not stimulated business
Almost all discussions about Medicare reform ignore one key factor: Medicare utilisation is roughly 50 per cent higher than private health insurance utilisation, even after adjusting for age and medical conditions, say Merrill Matthews, a resident scholar at the Institute for Policy Innovation, and Mark Litow, a retired health care
Housing affordability suffers under smart growth policies. Principal smart growth policies include urban containment (such as growth boundaries and restrictions on physically developable land), large-lot zoning in urban fringe and rural areas, state aid contingent on local growth zones, house building moratoria or limits, high development fees and exactions, and
