Ideal health insurance is often said to be health insurance with no deductible or co-payment, making medical care essentially free at the point of delivery. Yet, if patients have no out-of-pocket costs, their economic incentive will be to overuse the system, essentially consuming healthcare until the last amount obtained has a value that approaches...
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The U.S. Department of Education will soon be handing out federal paychecks to teachers across the country. On July 18 President Obama unveiled his $1 billion Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Master Teacher Corps. According to the White House: The STEM Master Teacher Corps will begin with 50 exceptional STEM teachers established in...
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In the continuing battle between Malthusians who view humans as “useless eaters” whose populations must be centrally controlled, and those of us who see creatures uniquely endowed with brains and talent, Chinese scholars have fired what one hopes is the opening salvo to bring an end to China’s brutal and repressive practice of forced...
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We are very pleased to announce the publication of our very timely, widely acclaimed, and compelling, new book on how to get beyond partisanship and special-interest politics to resolve one of biggest issues facing us today, Priceless: Curing the Healthcare Crisis by our Research Fellow John C. Goodman. Dr. Goodman is the renowned, free-market,...
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It was one thing for gullible college students in the late 1960s to present themselves for voluntary sterilization as a result of their buying into Paul Ehrlich’s Population Bomb myth. In keeping with the premise of the annual Darwin Awards, it might be just as well that those so prone to falling for groundless...
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With the growth in internet commerce, one of the big tax issues is that on-line buyers are not paying sales taxes on their purchases. One proposed solution is a multi-state compact that would be enforced by the federal government, in which sellers in participating states collect sales taxes and remit the revenues to the...
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Today President Obama was advocating the renewal of wind energy tax credits to promote green energy. Meanwhile, last week the Obama administration placed a 31% tariff on the importation of solar panels from China. So, is he for green energy, as the wind energy tax credit would suggest, or against it, as his raising...
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When JPMorgan announced it had sustained a $2 billion trading loss a few weeks ago, some commentators, including Paul Krugman, argued that their irresponsible investing was more evidence that we need stronger financial regulation. The evidence in the JPM case actually shows the opposite. Krugman’s column presents the arguments on both sides. The correct...
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Now that France’s incumbent President Sarkozy has been defeated at the polls by socialist candidate M. Hollande, Americans should have gotten a wake-up call. Angela Merkel now seems to be the only voice of European reason in the rising popular tide against budgetary austerity and a return to the by now old-fashioned idea that...
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When goods and services are free, people tend to consume more of them. Does this maxim apply to government spending and taxation? In other words, when people can receive federal benefits without paying taxes, do they demand more of them even if they’re funded by deficits? That possibility troubled John C. Calhoun. In 1810,...
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