Topic: Tax and Budget Policy

Irony, in the Alanis Morissette Sense

By
Jim Harper

Here’s a nice book-end to Chris Edwards’ recent post — and the flurry of controversy — about federal compensation reaching precisely double the national average: 

Tax Prof Blog (via Volokh) notes that federal employees owe $2.8 billion in taxes. Tax Prof lists and compares the “scofflaw” rates of different agencies and departments, with the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights coming in just shy of 10 percent.

Topics: 
Government and Politics, Tax and Budget Policy

But Tell Us What You Really Think of the NCLB, Matt

By
Andrew J. Coulson

Matt Ladner, VP for research at the Arizona-based Goldwater Institute, has some harsh words for the No Child Left Behind Act:

The latest incarnation, in fact, represents yet another step in the long sad history of ineffectually throwing money at public schools. NCLB is headed for the ash-heap of failed education reforms. The only question at this point is how expensive of a failure it will become.

Topics: 
Education and Child Policy, Tax and Budget Policy

NEJM Reviews Medicare Meets Mephistopheles

By
Michael F. Cannon

This week’s issue of the New England Journal of Medicine carries a review of the Cato Institute’s latest health care book, Medicare Meets Mephistopheles by Cato adjunct scholar David A. Hyman. Reviewer Peter Jacobson of the University of Michigan School of Public Health writes:

Hyman’s bracing critique reflects the fact that neither Medicare’s problems nor the ascendancy of market-based approaches to solving them can be ignored any longer.

Medicare Meets Mephistopheles provides a good starting point for free-market advocates who are serious about preventing the federal government from imposing price controls on prescription drugs, or otherwise stealing from future generations.

Topics: 
Cato Publications, General, Health Care, Tax and Budget Policy

Underpaid CEO?

By
David Boaz

The Wall Street Journal headline blares “Disney CEO Iger’s Bonus, Salary Total $17 Million” (in the print edition). To most of us, that’s an unbelievable amount of money, and no doubt many readers felt their blood pressure–and their populist anger–rising.

What the story didn’t quite say, though, was how much money Bob Iger made for Disney shareholders since he took over in October 2005. It did note that the company’s stock price has risen 43 percent in that time. So in the 15 months that Iger’s been in charge, shareholders have made some $23 billion. They probably figure $17 million is a fair reward to the CEO who played a major role in that gain.

Topics: 
General, Tax and Budget Policy

Schwarzenegger’s Shakedown

By
Michael F. Cannon

Much has been written about TerminatorCare, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s (R) plan to guarantee health coverage to all Californians by employing every lousy idea the Left has ever conjured. 

But much of what has been written about TerminatorCare is wrong. Media accounts and even some policy wonks have reported that Schwarzenegger, through the magic of Medicaid, would have taxpayers in other states pay for only half the cost of his plan. Would that that were so.

Instead, Schwarzenegger actually proposes to use an old Medicaid trick that would put non-Californians on the hook for much more than half the cost. First, he would boost state payments to providers, which triggers federal matching funds. But then he would tax the providers so much that he would recover the state’s initial outlay plus most of the federal matching funds, which he would then use to finance the rest of the plan.  At the end of the day, California would spend zero extra dollars on provider payments, yet the ruse would net an additional $1.3 billion from taxpayers in other states.  

After one cuts through the budget gimmicks, one finds that Californians would contribute only $1.3 billion to the plan, while taxpayers in other states would contribute $4.5 billion — or over three times as much.

I haven’t seen so many people who couldn’t shoot straight since Commando. 

Ooh, wait, I have another one! The Schwarzenegger health plan brings to mind the tagline from Commando:

Somewhere… somehow… someone’s going to pay!

(Hey, with a dry cool wit like that, I could be an action hero.)

Topics: 
Cato Publications, General, Health Care, Tax and Budget Policy

Those Who Sell Out Will Eventually Be Punished

By
Michael F. Cannon

In a sick way, I’m enjoying the debate over price controls for prescription drugs under Medicare Part D. Of course, I don’t want Congress to dry up the stream of drugs that will keep me alive and vigorous when I’m a geezer. It’s just … what were the Republicans and the drug companies thinking when they created Part D? What did they think would happen? Did they really believe that, if they’d create this program, Congress would never impose price controls?

As I argued on TV today, Part D has Congress buying — through the middleman of the private drug plans — a product with high research and development costs and low marginal costs. And Congress buys those drugs for a politically powerful group of citizens (the geezers). That kind of setup cannot last. The temptation for Congress to pay nothing more than the marginal costs will be inexorable, because doing so pleases constituencies that are paying attention (seniors and current taxpayers) and harms only those constituencies that are either unpopular (drug manufacturers) or else aren’t paying attention (future seniors, including those not yet born).

The writing is on the wall. It may not happen this year, but unless we scrap Part D, sooner or later we will get price controls on seniors’ prescription drugs.

So let’s scrap Part D.

What? You’re a Republican who voted for Part D, against conscience and better judgment?? And now you’re afraid to scrap Part D for fear of (gasp!) flip-flopping or offending the geezers?? Then start talking about fundamental Medicare reform, buddy. And start now.

Topics: 
Cato Publications, General, Health Care, Regulatory Studies, Tax and Budget Policy

Subsidies Fail to Save French Farms

By
Daniel Griswold

French farmers harvest billions of euros every year in government support through the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Yet those lavish subsidies and trade barriers have failed to achieve one of their primary objectives: saving the French family farm.

According to a study just released by the French Statistical Institute (INSEE), and reported in today’s Financial Times, an average of 100 French farms have gone out of business EVERY DAY for the past 50 years. The number of farm workers in France has dropped by two-thirds in the past 25 years. France’s farm exports have been declining by 3.4 percent per year since 1999, and farm household income has actually fallen during the past decade, while the incomes of non-farm households in France have been going up.

The decline of the French farm has occurred despite, or perhaps because of, the generous support of the CAP. France’s farmers receive the equivalent of $11.6 billion a year in handouts, more than one fifth of total European Union spending on agriculture. Those subsidies have arguably kept French farms from becoming more competitive and thus contributed to their long-term decline.

When the EU’s farm commissioner, Mariann Fischer Boel, warned that French farmers should seek second incomes outside the farm sector to survive, the French farm minister denounced her comments as “an insult to the social model to which European citizens are profoundly and legitimately attached.”

Is an agricultural “social model” that costs billions of euros a year and only adds to the decline of the French farm worth holding on to?

Topics: 
Government and Politics, International Economics and Development, Tax and Budget Policy, Trade and Immigration

Pages