Category: Testimony

Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, please accept my comments for the record regarding the March 12 hearing on the effects of climate change legislation on low and moderateincome families. I am Dr. Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy research organization dedicated to developing and promoting private alternatives to government regulation and control, solving problems by relying on the strength of the competitive, entrepreneurial private sector.

When I moved to Texas in 1991, someone gave me a little book of Texas wisdom titled, "Don't Squat with Your Spurs On." Among its nuggets of wisdom was this one: "No matter who says what, if it don't make sense, don't believe it." What's been going on with mark-to-market accounting doesn't make sense to me.

This Committee knows better than most that small business employees are much less likely to have access to employer-sponsored health coverage than the employees of larger firms. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation…

The market for medical care does not work like other markets. Providers typically do not disclose prices prior to treatment because they do not compete for patients based on price. Payments are usually not made by patients themselves but by third parties – employers, insurance companies or government.

Although the ANPR seeks to assess the effectiveness of the Clean Air Act (CAA) as a vehicle to regulate and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, we believe it suffers from several defects. We recognize that the EPA is precluded by law from considering the costs of its actions when deciding whether to issue an endangerment finding and subsequently regulate a pollutant.

Texas has prospered in recent years. The state's population and economy have grown at a steady pace, and estimates are that this growth will continue. However, as I argued in a recent study published by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, continued economic growth, and the prosperity it brings and spreads, relies upon continued growth in available power.

Devon Herrick – State Children's Health Insurance Program Expansion: Robin Hood in Reverse – Testimony for Submission to the House Energy and Commerce Committee Health Subcommittee

Due to technological improvements and EPA's present standards, Ozone levels are declining and they will continue to do so.  Indeed, in the last few years only 19 percent of the nation's metropolitan areas violate EPA's current ozone standard, down from 40 percent just a few years ago.

Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, thank you for this opportunity to submit testimony on methods to achieve a fair and equitable tax system. My testimony draws heavily from research conducted by scholars at the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), particularly from NCPA Brief Analysis numbers 537, 571, and 588 – all of which can be found at the ncpathinktank.org website.

The most significant economic and social change in the past half-century has been the movement of women into the labor market.  Since the 1950s, the labor participation rate of women ages 25 to 55 years has increased more than 75 percent.  Today, more than 60 percent of mothers with children under the age of six are working.

Madam Chair, Senators, my name is Bob McTeer.  I'm representing the National Center for Policy Analysis, which is a nonpartisan, free-market think tank headquartered in Dallas.  Before coming to NCPA, I was Chancellor of the Texas A&M University System for two years, and before that I was President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas for 14 years.

Concerning mankind's contribution to climate change and in keeping with obligations towards the welfare of our citizens: what, in your view, should policymakers consider when addressing climate change?

The most important problems faced by middle-income working families today are not problems that arise from the nature of our economic system.  Instead they are problems caused by outdated public policies. 

Health care is on a course to crowd out every other government program – from education and roads and bridges to Social Security and national defense.  And for the economy as a whole, health care is on a course to crowd.

There is an overwhelming bias today in the media regarding the issue of global warming.

Government at all levels in the United States currently spends about 7.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on health care, mainly on Medicare and Medicaid.  Yet Christian Hagist and Laurence J. Kotlikoff have shown that if benefits expand at the rate of the past 30 years and if the population ages the way demographers predict, government health care spending will equal one-third of national income by mid-century, when today's college students reach the retirement age.

The new Texas integrated eligibility and enrollment system is a good program, based on sound policy, and should continue its course to improve the ways over three million Texans apply for and receive social services. 

There are serious questions about the "hockey stick" and the reliability of the conclusions that many have used to propose environmental policies to control global temperature.

Ideal reform in this country would allow unlimited contributions to HSAs and permit such accounts to wrap around third-party insurance – paying for any expense the insurance plan does not pay.

Will consumers some day be able to shop for health care the way they shop for groceries? As farfetched as that idea may seem, some believe it will become a reality.

Over the past 20 years more than 30 countries, spread across Latin America, Eastern, Central and Western Europe, Australia and Hong Kong, have added funded privately managed plans to their mandatory social security systems.

In the United States, we have made promises to senior citizens that far exceed what we can pay for at current tax rates. As a result, future retirees will have to rely more on private savings than previous generations. For this reason, we need programs that encourage private sector saving.

Over the past 20 years more than 30 countries, spread across Latin America, Eastern and Western Europe, Australia and Hong Kong, have adopted social security systems that include funded privately managed plans, usually based on personal accounts. Contributions to the accounts range from 2.5% to 12.5% of wages and they are projected to supply between 30% and 80% of total benefits.

The Small Business Administration estimates that only about 47 percent of small businesses (with less than 50 employees) offer health plans as contrasted with about 97 percent of large firms (with more than 50 employees). This gap between coverage in large versus small employers is unacceptable.

Congress is considering the most significant trade liberalization agreement since passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) more than 10 years ago. The Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) was signed last year by the United States and Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic. These six nations make up the second largest market for U.S. goods exports in Latin America, behind only Mexico. They purchased $15.1 billion worth of U.S. exports in 2003, an increase of 11 percent from 2000. Meanwhile, U.S. imports from the region totaled $16.8 billion in 2003, up 4 percent from 2000, making it the 15th-largest supplier to U.S. consumers and businesses.