Given that we want economic growth, we have two choices. Americans must either import funds for investment from other countries or increase their saving rate. Expanded opportunities to make deposits to Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) are a proven way of encouraging more savings.
The partisan battle over the Republicans' "Contract With America" has obscured the fact that at least six of the contracts proposals would, if enacted, stimulate economic growth.
The 1986 Tax Reform Act increased the maximum tax rate on capital gains income from 20 percent to 28 percent. This 40 percent tax hike has reduced government revenues, discouraged entrepreneurship and caused many investors to hold on to assets they would prefer to sell.
The Freedom and Fairness Restoration Act would scrap virtually all current deductions, credits, exclusions and exemptions, as well as the five current tax brackets. In their place, it would establish a single 17 percent tax rate on a much broader tax base.
The government of California would pay for most health care through higher taxes, requiring the state's entire health care system to be remade by state government and micromanaged by a new, all-powerful state health commissioner.
By 1997, every major economic indicator will be worse than it would have been had Bill Clinton done nothing. Unemployment will be higher, inflation will be higher and real economic growth will be lower.
Medical Savings Accounts are being attacked on the left, on the right and by special interests. The most vocal criticism comes from large insurance companies who fear a huge loss of premium income if MSA deposits are tax free. Most of the criticisms are bogus.
Medical Savings Accounts are being attacked on the left, on the right and by special interests. The most vocal criticism comes from large insurance companies who fear a huge loss of premium income if MSA deposits are tax free. Most of the criticisms are bogus.
The Michel-Lott plan builds on key reform ideas developed by the National Center for Policy Analysis. However, some benefits of the reforms would be diluted by unnecessary insurance regulations that should be dropped from the proposal.
A group of moderate Republicans and Democrats in the Senate has proposed a so-called mainstream health care plan.
Unlike the Clinton plan and the versions of that plan sponsored by the House Democratic leadership, the House compromise bill promised to solve problems by empowering individuals and leaving markets free to solve problems. Unfortunately, it fails to deliver on that promise.
The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) has endorsed the two latest versions of the Clinton health care plan: bills by Senator George Mitchell (D-ME) and Representative Richard Gephardt (D-MO). In doing so, AARP has betrayed its members.
One reason why there is so much uncertainty about the real cost of health reform proposals before Congress is that in most bills the costs are hidden.
Senator Kennedy and others argue that Hawaii's more centralized control of the health care system has led to a better distribution of physicians and more effective utilization of resources, hospital beds and technology. However, there is evidence to dispute this.
The high taxes the Mitchell bill would impose – both directly and indirectly (through cost shifting) – would lower investment, worker productivity and employee wages.
The Clinton plan and its Gephardt and Mitchell reincarnations attempt to solve a minor problem (eliminating uncompensated care for the uninsured) by making a major problem (uncompensated care under government programs) even worse.
Higher cigarette taxes do help fund health care reform, but they will take most of the money from the families that can least afford it.
President Clinton has blamed the defeat of the crime bill on obstructionist Republicans and the National Rifle Association, and the Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives is threatening to force another vote. If they do so, the bill deserves to be defeated a second time.
It's in our self-interest, says Hillary Rodham Clinton, to force uninsured "freeloaders" and their employers to buy health insurance whether they want to or not. Is that argument correct?
Is death sentencing really racially discriminatory? Those who claim there is a pattern of discrimination are ignoring a host of studies that show otherwise.
Does it make sense to give the government control over everyone's health insurance in order to increase the insured population by a couple of percentage points?