Over the past century, government spending grew to an average of 45 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) among developed countries. Today, total government spending in the United States and other developed countries far exceeds the level at which it increases national income. This study examines the effects of government spending on certain noneconomic measures of social progress.
We have analyzed a distinct new health care delivery and financing system for the Medicare aged population (excluding institutional and Medicaid individuals). The new alternative, referred to as the Medicare Defined Contribution Alternative (MDCA), allows an individual the choice between Medicare as it currently exists and a defined contribution from Medicare that must be used to purchase a plan that includes at least catastrophic insurance.
Critics complain that prescription drugs have contributed to a massive increase in health care spending in the United States. Some critics contend that drug prices are too high and propose lowering them through price controls. Many complaints about price, and the laws those complaints spawn, are based on a misunderstanding of how the prescription drug market works.
Serious crime in the United States continued to fall in 1998. Whether measured as a rate (number of crimes per capita) or in absolute terms, every category of violent crime and burglary decreased from 1997.
Consumers, industry and business have reaped enormous benefits from increased competition and innovation following the deregulation of major industries in the United States and other countries. Commercial and residential customers spend more than $200 billion a year for electricity. Of that amount $20 billion to $50 billion is unnecessary spending caused by regulatory inefficiencies.
This study uses a simulation model to evaluate a number of proposals to reform the Social Security system. Our analysis is sufficiently broad to allow us to form some general conclusions about the process of Social Security reform.
Congress has passed a 10-year $792 billion tax cut bill that President Clinton has criticized as "gargantuan" and has vowed to veto. Put in perspective, however, the tax cut is small, and is justified. It is, in short, a very modest effort to give something back to those who are mainly responsible for the surplus: the taxpayers.
Things used to be made to order and made to fit. But they were labor-intensive and expensive. Mass production came along and made things more affordable, but at a cost – the cost of sameness, the cost of one-size-fits-all. Technology is beginning to let us have it both ways. And just as mass production was the hallmark of yesterday's Industrial Age, mass customization promises to dominate the modern stage of America's economic evolution-the Information Age.
Economists often use cost-benefit analysis to determine whether government action should be taken and, if so, what action will produce the best results at the least cost. This study compares the worldwide benefits of U.S. reduction of CO2 emissions with the worldwide costs.
The lawsuits against gun manufacturers are not just bad public policy, they are also dubious as matters of law. The courts have recognized that firearms are no different from many other potentially dangerous products and have consistently held that legislatures should decide whether guns should be legal and widely available.
Although public attention is focused on how to solve the problem of Social Security, the future financial problems of Medicare are twice as great.
Chile, the first nation in the Western Hemisphere to establish a social security system, was the first nation in the world to privatize its system. Since Chile instituted a privatized system in 1981, seven other Latin American countries have adopted the Chilean model to some degree.
The exploding cost of Social Security threatens to become the greatest financial crisis in American history. The unfunded liability of the system is twice as large as our national debt and exceeds the combined cost of all the wars fought in our nation's history. More than a financial crisis, the current Social Security system is fast becoming a human tragedy that will force us to choose between economic opportunity for our children and retirement security for our parents.
Serious crime in the United States soared to alarming heights beginning in the 1960s, but began leveling off in the 1980s and has declined by one-third during the 1990s. Every category of violent crime has decreased since 1993. Last year, serious crime reported to the police was only 5 percent above the rates for 1970, and in many cities across the country, it matched the crime rates of the 1960s.
The U.S. Supreme Court's 1966 decision in Miranda v. Arizona created a series of procedural requirements that law enforcement officials must follow before questioning suspects in custody. Miranda has, as its critics charge, "handcuffed the cops." It is time to consider removing these shackles and regulating police interrogation in less costly ways.
The U.S. Social Security system is broke. It does not have the assets to pay promised benefits. Unless the system is fundamentally changed, solvency will require either massive tax increases for future workers or draconian cuts in benefits for future retirees.
Why have MSAs been slow to catch on? How can their use be increased? Lawmakers imposed a number of restrictions that limit who can purchase MSAs and thwart the ability of MSAs to work properly.
Not only would Americans have a higher standard of living if the tax rate had been at 21 percent of GDP, but based on public spending and indicators of social progress, it appears that the marginal benefit of taxation in the United States has been far less than the marginal cost.
Various misconceptions about the relationship between environmental pollution and human disease, particularly cancer, drive regulatory policy. In this paper, we highlight 10 such misconceptions and briefly present the scientific evidence that undermines each.
This study proposes the Tax Credits Program for School Choice, offering tax credits to taxpayers who pay tuition for children to attend nongovernment schools.
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.
At least 170 million people – and perhaps as many as 360 million – have been murdered by their own governments in this century. This is more than four times the 42 million deaths from civil and international wars.
After soaring to alarming heights beginning in the 1960s, serious crime in the United States began leveling off in the 1980s and has declined for the past three years. Every category of violent crime has decreased since 1993.
This study is the result of a two-year undertaking by the Institute for Children to gather accurate data on three of the most pressing questions in child welfare: (1) How many children are in foster care? (2) How many of these children are legally free to be adopted? (3) How well are the states doing at finding adoptive homes for children?
This paper presents a commonsense approach to public policy toward the environment. Instead of focusing on what decisions should be made, it focuses on how they should be made and by whom. Specifically, the paper proposes a methodology for making decisions based on a covenant between citizens and their government. The covenant is an agreement about principles that will be used in making public policy decisions and about filters that will be relied on to determine the appropriate context for those decisions.