The goals of these block grants are laudable: transferring power back to the people and allowing local communities to find workable solutions to a welfare system that is a dismal failure. Yet serious questions remain. How much should go to each state? Should restrictions be attached? What promises should be made for future years?
Is there a way to simultaneously cut the spending and solve the problems of the Medicare program? Many health policy analysts believe the answer is Medical Savings Accounts.
Opponents of moving responsibility for school lunches to the states believe in centralized, big-government solutions. But they are going against the trend to devolve power to states, localities and the private sector, from which the most innovative solutions come.
From the harshness of tax policy debates in recent years, one might suppose that the tax burden had been shifted from the rich to the poor. In fact, major tax cuts in the 1980s did just the opposite. They shifted an increasing share of tax payments to the wealthiest taxpayers.
Congress can't balance the budget unless spiraling Medicaid costs are reined in, and an increasing number of people are convinced that the problems can't be solved in Washington. But can state governments succeed where the federal government has failed? Many are already trying by experimenting in new and innovative ways.
Six proposed tax cuts in the Contract With America are designed specifically to increase economic growth. Republicans claim that these tax reductions will lead to more jobs, higher wages and a higher living standard for all. Democratic critics claim that these tax changes are a giveaway to the rich that will have to be funded by higher tax burdens for everyone else.
Source: Health Affairs With the demise of efforts for large-scale health care reform, policymakers have turned their attention to incremental reforms. Two reforms of particular interest are the use of …