The Tax Foundation says yes: When the federal statutory corporate income tax rate of 35 percent is added to the weighted average of state corporate income taxes, the resulting rate of 39.3 percent means that corporations in the United States are currently at an international competitive disadvantage. In fact, as recent research has indicated, the […]

The brave, brave men and women of the Republican party have decided that federal spending must be cut, and they have courageously decided that those who have it too easy in this country, those who need to make the sacrifices for the greater good are the poor, the elderly, single mothers, and students: The House […]

Chris Edwards picks on the Girlie-man Governor from my state for his claim that state governments are spending too much: State tax revenues jumped 8.7 percent in 2004 and about 8 percent in 2005. About three-quarters of state governments had tax-revenue growth of 6 percent or more in 2005. What will the states do with […]

Peter Gosselin and Joel Havemann of the LA Times do a good job today picking through the bits and pieces of the White House’s policy proposals regarding health care, and putting them together: WASHINGTON – President Bush wants to bring to healthcare the same “ownership society” approach that gained him little political traction during last […]

Kash does not think we need another commission to understand the Social Security solvency issue. Had anyone listened to Tim Russert on the Today Show, they might have another view. Russert claimed that the fact that the number of folks on retirement may double in the next several years means we have to either double […]

There was something familiar to me about this part of Bush’s SOTU address last night: [T]onight I ask you to join me in creating a commission to examine the full impact of baby boom retirements on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. This commission should include members of Congress of both parties and offer bipartisan solutions. […]

In its last meeting with Alan Greenspan at the helm, the FOMC decided today to raise interest rates (i.e. the Federal Funds rate) yet again. See Mark Thoma for analysis of the accompanying statement. Despite David Altig‘s response to my worry that the Fed might overshoot (I think David and I differ more in our […]

Keeping with my New Year’s resolution, let me say BRAVO to Ramesh Ponnuru for this: But conservatives are almost certainly overestimating how much good “earmark reform” can do … Critics of Alaska’s “bridges to nowhere” have pointed out that it makes no sense for the Congress to fund such dubious projects at the expense of, […]

As a follow up to my last post about administrative costs in the US health care system, let me take a moment to address the following hypothetical question: what could we really expect if the US moved from its current system to a single-payer system? Theoretically, there’s no clear answer to this question. On the […]

Why are health care costs so high in the US? Some possible explanations include medical malpractice insurance, improving (but also more expensive) medical technology, the desire by people to simply spend more of their income on health care services as their income rises, and large and increasing administrative costs. If he addresses the question of […]