You may have heard about the survey that found twice as many young people believing in UFOs as believing they will ever be able to collect Social Security. The survey result would have been more amusing if there were not so much substance to those fears about the future of Social Security.
When today's 20-year-olds reach retirement age, their government retirement benefits may consume as much as two out of every three dollars earned by the people still working.
A marriage tax penalty results when a married couple pays more taxes by filing jointly than they would pay if each spouse could file as a single.
With the President poised to sell America an expanded Medicare plan without a clear vision of how to maintain the current system or solve Social Security's anticipated $10 trillion long-term gap.
For the past 10 years, carbon dioxide (CO2) has gotten a bad rap. Despite the fact that 95 percent of the CO2 emitted each year is produced by nature, environmentalists started referring to CO2 as a pollutant in 1988 after some scientists claimed that the 30 percent rise in atmospheric CO2 over the last 150 years was attributable to humans and was causing global warming.
For the most part, the tradition of employer-provided health insurance began burgeoning during World War II. Because of government wage and price controls, employers couldn't hire vital workers away from other companies with more money. But they could compete using health insurance and other fringe benefits, which weren't covered by the controls. And they did.
"The Paycheck Fairness Act is the second-best solution to the problem of unions abusing workers' paychecks."
President Clinton wants to raise the Child and Dependent Tax Credit for most families with adjusted gross incomes of $60,000 or less. Currently, families earning $10,000 or less can get a credit equal to 30 percent of their child-care expenses. That is, for every dollar they spend on child care, they get a 30-cent tax rebate from the government.
National Center for Policy Analysis' Senior Fellow Morgan Reynolds will testify before a House subcommittee Wednesday on the Paycheck Fairness Act.
The Clinton administration took a big step toward unilaterally disarming the U.S. military last December in Kyoto, Japan. To state the matter more precisely, if the Senate should approve the greenhouse gas treaty agreed to in Japan, the U.S. military will have to dramatically reduce its training and limit its missions. The military will still be able to carry out missions that defend U.S. interests – but only if the United Nations approves of the missions.
Once upon a time, in the political campaigns of the 1980s, the idea of requiring welfare recipients to work for their benefits was considered radical. Liberals and moderates (and most conservatives) thought it shocking, for the economic and social devastation that is a result of the welfare state was not yet apparent to everyone.
The 1997 budget agreement includes a provision giving the states $24 billion over five years to provide health insurance to uninsured children from low-income families – basically those in families with incomes below 200 percent of the poverty level, not eligible for Medicaid, not enrolled in a health plan or covered by health insurance.
The number of people without health insurance continues to grow. The most recent U.S. Census Bureau estimate places the number at 41.4 million people, or 17.7 percent of the nonelderly population – up from 35.7 million, or 16.6 percent in 1990.
Not long ago, American health care was easily the best in the world. Today, we face a quality crisis. Almost 60 million Americans are now members of health maintenance organizations (HMOs), and an estimated 160 million are enrolled in some kind of managed care. Yet polls show that many of these people have no confidence that their health plan will make decisions in their best interest as patients.
With Medicare teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, President Clinton is proposing to add more beneficiaries and more costs. Specifically, all Americans ages 62 to 64 (the Medicare eligibility age is 65) would be able to join Medicare in exchange for a monthly premium between $300 and $400. Those ages 55 to 61 who have involuntarily lost their jobs would have the same option. And employers would face a new mandate: retirees over age 55 who were promised and then denied postretirement health insurance would have the right to buy into their previous employer's health plan. Are these proposals a good idea?
You're on the verge of bankruptcy so you apply for more credit cards, take on more debt, spend more money.
In a White House ceremony yesterday, President Clinton proposed a $21.7 billion child care initiative.
President Clinton yesterday announced a plan to allow early retirees and laid-off workers as young as 55 to buy into the already overburdened Medicare system.
As voters go to the polls on August 9 to vote on a property tax reduction, it will be a good time to reflect on how we pay for the public schools and why we do it that way.
With Medicare teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, President Clinton is proposing to add more beneficiaries and more costs. Under the president's new proposal, all Americans ages 62 to 64 (the Medicare eligibility age is 65) would be able to join Medicare in exchange for a monthly premium of $300.
The reality of modern medicine is the traditional doctor-patient relationship has been all but destroyed. Whereas doctors once functioned as agents of their patients, today they are more likely to function as agents of third-party payer bureaucracies.
Outside New York City and Hollywood, it's hard to find a liberal these days. In fact, it's hard to find anyone who will admit to ever having been a liberal.
While the private sector seems to have gotten health care costs under control, the same is not true of Medicare – the federal program that pays medical bills for the elderly.
Each generation of retirees depends on the government to provide Social Security and health care benefits by taxing the next generation. But in America, as in most other developed countries, the number of taxpaying workers for every retiree is falling and is expected to continue falling. This implies that the tax burden for workers will continue to rise indefinitely into the future. As a result, our pay-as-you-go approach to elderly entitlements is on a collision course with reality.