United States negotiators seem intent on signing a treaty this December in Kyoto, Japan, that would drastically curtail energy use in an effort to restrict emissions of greenhouse gases. These gases, including carbon dioxide and methane, trap solar radiation in the atmosphere and warm the earth, making it habitable. If the Clinton administration signs the treaty and the Senate approves it, American consumers will suffer.
Timothy Wirth, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs, informed a 1996 United Nations conference on climate change in Geneva that the Clinton administration is committed to imposing limits on greenhouse gas emissions as a way to minimize the effects of global warming. Unfortunately, the administration and its supporters do not think it is necessary to impose the same restrictions on developing countries.
For more than 30 years, state legislatures have passed laws driving the cost of health insurance higher. Known as mandated health insurance benefit laws, they force insurers, employers and managed care companies to cover – or at least offer – specific providers or procedures not usually included in basic health care plans.
Do the nation's current clean air standards need to be made more stringent to save the lives of asthmatic children? President Clinton and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) say yes. But many mayors, governors and members of Congress of both parties say more evidence is needed before standards are tightened.
Violent crimes committed by adults are declining, primarily because state and local governments are increasing punishment for these offenses. By contrast, the number of violent crimes committed by teenagers has doubled over the last decade, and the FBI predicts another doubling in the next 10 years.
One of the most important factors in evaluating tax legislation is the distributional impact of the tax changes. The Treasury Department produces tables showing the effects of tax cuts and tax increases on people with different incomes. However, Treasury's distribution tables bear no relationship to reality, and fail to convey to policymakers any sense of how people are actually affected by proposed tax changes.
As part of the recent budget agreement, President Clinton and Congressional leaders agreed to spend $16 billion over the next five years on health insurance for children. Now the question facing Congress is: What's the best way to spend the money?
A casual glance at the nation's highways shows that much has changed in the last 25 years. The changes include fewer large family cars on the road, a dramatic increase in the number of light trucks and sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and the introduction of minivans. If federal regulators have their way, minivans and SUVs will go the way of the station wagon. In the process, American lives, especially those of children, will be put at risk and gas will be wasted.
Senators Orrin Hatch and Ted Kennedy have joined forces to establish a new government program to finance children's health insurance. They propose to fund the program by increasing federal cigarette taxes from 24 cents to 67 cents per pack – an increase of 43 cents. The Hatch-Kennedy tax promises to raise $30 billion over five years, with $20 billion to go for children's insurance and $10 billion for deficit reduction.
Rather than legislating in haste and ignorance and repenting at leisure, our government should maintain rational policies, based on science and adaptable to future discoveries.
There is a bipartisan consensus in Washington that youth crime, particularly violent youth crime, is a real problem that threatens to grow over the next decade. This consensus makes it highly likely that President Clinton will sign some version of a new federal juvenile crime bill this year – unusual only because Congress traditionally has passed crime legislation in even-numbered (read: election) years. Congress expects to do at the federal level what many states have already done: toughen the treatment of young criminals, who have regarded the juvenile justice system as a joke for at least the last decade.
More than half a million American children are in government-run foster care today. The federal government dictates — and funds — much of foster care policy, but states carry it out. Originally intended to provide safe, temporary homes for abused children, the $12 billion foster care system frequently keeps children in care for years — long after they are legally free to be adopted.
Last year Congress made tax-free Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs) available to 750,000 American workers and their families. Under a provision of the Kassebaum-Kennedy health insurance reform bill, small employers (50 or fewer employees) and the self-employed can purchase less expensive high-deductible health insurance policies and make tax-free deposits to an MSA. They can use their MSA money to pay small and routine health care expenses, reserving insurance to pay large, catastrophic expenses. Money that remains in the account at year's end earns tax-free interest.
Most people follow the conventional wisdom: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Washington follows its own wisdom: If it ain't broke, break it.
America has nearly 10 million children without health insurance, and many in the policy community propose a broad new entitlement program to insure them. But few have asked the important questions we must answer in order to design an effective policy response. For example, how many uninsured children are there? What are their demographics? How long do they remain uninsured? And is a new health insurance program the most cost-effective way to assure they get health care?
Congress can easily make health insurance either less expensive – or more expensive.
Three major health care crises are developing: a funding crisis, an insurance crisis and a quality crisis. All three require fundamental changes in federal policy. And all three will become more severe if action is delayed.
Some of the proposed changes to Medicare would be of little help. Others would cause more problems than they would solve. Either way, Congress and the president seem willing to approve minor changes that will only postpone the trust fund's imminent bankruptcy.
Giving people more economic freedom has been implicit in many Republican and Democratic proposals, yet neither party has turned it into an agenda for the 105th Congress. Both should.
While the estate and gift tax is insignificant in terms of federal revenue, it is quite significant economically. It wastes resources. It discourages work, saving and investment. And it does virtually nothing to redistribute wealth (as some who favor it would like). In short, the estate and gift tax is a failure. It should be abolished.
Critics say the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 goes too far, cutting too much from welfare spending and harming poor children and legal immigrants. Are the criticisms accurate? Let's take a closer look.
The federal government currently subsidizes the employer-provided health insurance of middle- and upper-income workers by about $100 billion a year. By contrast, low-income workers often do not have employer-provided health coverage, and thus get neither the insurance nor the tax break. If they buy insurance on their own, they pay with aftertax dollars.
Proponents of government intervention want a Medicare program or a resurrection of the failed Clinton health care plan for children. And they are already starting their campaign.
Recently enacted welfare reform legislation reverses 61 years of U.S. welfare policy, ending a recipient's entitlement to a welfare check. It's a good start, and one on which the 105th Congress and the state legislatures can build a better future for millions of people trapped in the old welfare system.
Most people realize that the Social Security Trust Funds are trust funds in name only and consist of nothing more than IOUs the government owes to itself. However, employees of three Texas counties that opted out of the Social Security program more than a decade ago are earning an average 6.5 percent interest, compounded daily, on their vested personal retirement accounts.