As an alternative to the current pay-as-you-go Social Security system, many reform plans would allow individuals to invest a portion of their payroll tax dollars in private investment accounts. Critics claim the costs of administering such accounts would be as high as 20 percent. Is this criticism valid?
Suppose you're just turning 65 and you want to make sure that you have prescription drug coverage in addition to Medicare. You have four possibilities…
Urban sprawl has sparked a national debate over land-use policy. At least 19 states have established either state growth-management laws or task forces to protect farmland and open space. Dozens of cities and counties have adopted urban growth boundaries to contain development in existing areas and prevent the spread of urbanization to outlying and rural areas. The Clinton administration has proposed to make urban sprawl a federal issue.
In his State of the Union address, President Clinton proposed that "we commit 60 percent of the budget surplus for the next 15 years to Social Security, investing a small portion in the private sector just as any private or state government pension would do."
Charter schools are public schools that operate with a great deal of autonomy, free from many of the regulations of traditional public schools. One difference is that teachers in charter schools generally have less job security – by design. They have no tenure, work under year-to-year contracts and risk dismissal if they fail to contribute to student achievement as judged by the school. In return, however, they usually have more teaching flexibility, less paperwork and participate more fully in decision making. If Arizona's charter school experience is typical, they also often earn more than their public school counterparts.
The tax burden is measured in different ways, but by almost every measure, federal taxes are at an unprecedentedly high level, Congress can solve that problem by moving quickly to reduce the tax burden by cutting income tax rates at least 10 percent this year.
During the 1980s more than 50 countries including the United States and the United Kingdom sharply reduced their highest tax rates, particularly on capital. However, in the early 1990s most of the largest economies reversed course and began raising rates on income and payroll taxes or both. By the fall of 1991 an observant columnist for the Financial Times noted that, "In the early 1990s, the name of the game is raising taxes. The nostrums of the supply-siders look as dead as the celebrated dodo."
The Clinton administration has committed to signing- but the Senate has yet to ratify – the Kyoto Treaty, which would impose legally binding, internationally enforceable limits on the production of greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide (CO2). Supporters of the treaty believe that human-caused gases are causing environmentally disastrous global warming and that only immediate government action can avert catastrophe.
The United States Forest Service (USFS) is under fire from both fiscal conservatives and liberal environmentalists – two groups not often on the same side of issues. Fiscal conservatives decry the agency's spendthrift ways and money-losing programs. Environmentalists claim that its logging, mining and grazing programs damage the natural world. Both groups are correct.
One of the most important of all economic indicators is the money supply. Most economists believe that it plays a major role in the level of interest rates, inflation and real growth in the economy. The Federal Reserve controls the money supply through various policy instruments.
While the issue of using tax-funded vouchers to provide school choice is being debated and contested in the courts, an increasing number of privately funded voucher programs across the nation are making it possible for children from low-income families to attend private elementary and secondary schools.
The underground economy also known as the second economy, parallel economy, unofficial economy, informal economy or just the black market is a phenomenon known throughout the world. It exists wherever governments excessively tax or unreasonably regulate economic activity. Although the underground economy also includes criminal activity, such as drug dealing, the overwhelming bulk of it consists of the provision of ordinary goods and services that in other times and other places would be perfectly legal and legitimate.
Declaring that "The Endangered Species Act works," Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt has announced that within the next two years the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) will remove (delist) 33 species from the endangered species list. His claim comes as the ESA is being considered for renewal – the law authorizing it having lapsed in 1992. These 33 delistings will mean that a total of 60 species have been removed from the endangered species list.
Most environmentalists, some scientists, President Clinton and Vice President Gore have blamed global warming and all manner of natural catastrophes – hurricanes, floods and even El Niño – on rising levels of greenhouse gases, due primarily to fossil fuel use. On this theory, since most of the increased emissions come from energy use, we must use less energy to reduce the likelihood of environmental apocalypse. However, many scientists are skeptical of the theory that humans are causing global warming.
In 1996 Congress created a demonstration project permitting small employers and the self-employed to establish up to 750,000 tax-free Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs). However, as a result of opposition in Congress, lawmakers imposed a number of restrictions that limit who can purchase MSAs and thwart the ability of MSAs to work properly.
Auto Choice, a proposed structural reform of the country's fraud-ridden $150 billion per year auto tort system, is quietly gaining broad bipartisan endorsement. Its supporters already include Democratic Sens. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York and Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas).
Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Charles Rossotti recently estimated that the federal government is losing $195 billion per year in revenue due to the failure of people to report income and pay taxes on it.
Many legislators who vote for sweeping government programs without a second thought about their constitutionality suddenly grow concerned when the issue is school vouchers. The moment a dollar of public funds crosses the threshold of a religious school, they contend, it violates "separation of church and state."
Although tax law generously subsidizes the employer payment of third-party health insurance premiums, it provides virtually no tax relief to those who pay medical bills directly. Thus the tax law encourages people to turn over all of their health care dollars to a third party. The results have not all been positive.
In its haste to enact one of the largest tax increases in U.S. history, Congress has done precious little analysis of the social and economic impact of the proposed tobacco bill.
There are two ways to think about the minimum wage. The first – but misleading – is how much workers are going to get paid. The second – and correct – is how much people must be able to earn if they are going to get or keep a job. So the minimum wage, which is sometimes characterized as a "hand up, not a handout" is neither – it is a hurdle that trips up the least skilled.
A National Public Radio story on William Delashmit, 72, recently highlighted the problem of Medicare private contracting. Delashmit suffers from Cogan's dystrophy, an abnormality of the cornea that has caused him to lose sight in his right eye. There is a 95 percent chance laser surgery could restore his sight. Unfortunately, Dr. William Stark of Johns Hopkins University, Delashmit's physician, may not be able to help him.
Social Security privatization is the single most important political reform sweeping the globe today. Following Chile's highly successful move to private pensions in 1981, Argentina, Peru and Colombia privatized their social security systems in the early 1990s. Mexico privatized in 1997.
President Clinton has vetoed a federally funded voucher bill that would have given about 2,000 scholar ships of up to $3,200 each to children from low-income families in the District of Columbia's troubled public school system.
While a debate rages over whether parents should be able to use tax money – or tax credits – to choose between public and private schools for their children, the movement to provide school choice to children from low-income families through privately funded vouchers is mushrooming.