April 13, 2012
Latest Studies
48 new items, including a Manhattan Institute report on how ObamaCare make Medicaid worse, and a Cato Institute report on the continuing failure of the welfare state
Blog Entries
“Buffett rule” no fix for federal finances, Taxmaggeddon coming, people vote with their feet for lower taxes, and more
Budget & Taxation
• Future Funds or Future Eaters? The Case Against a Sovereign Wealth Fund for Australia – Centre for Independent Studies
• Learning from the Past: How Canadian Fiscal Policies of the 1990s Can Be Applied Today – Fraser Institute
• Congress Should Not Authorize States to Expand Collection of Taxes on Internet and Mail Order Sales – The Heritage Foundation
• Facts & Figures Handbook: How Does Your State Compare? – Tax Foundation
• Sales Tax Rates in Major U.S. Cities – Tax Foundation
Economic and Political Thought
• My Primer for Obama – Hoover Institution
Economic Growth
• Is China Slowing Down? – American Enterprise Institute
• Rich States, Poor States: ALEC-Laffer State Economic Competitiveness Index – American Legislative Exchange Council
• Heritage Employment Report: March Report Mixed, on Balance Disappointing – The Heritage Foundation
• Measured Inequality: Fallacies and Overstatements – Manhattan Institute
• The U.S. Experience with Fiscal Stimulus – Mercatus Center
• Eureka! How to Fix California – Pacific Research Institute
Education
• Classes without Walls: ACCESS Distance Learning Works for Alabama – Alabama Policy Institute
• 2012 ABCs of School Choice – Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice
• Obama’s 2013 Education Budget and Blueprint: A Costly Expansion of Federal Control – The Heritage Foundation
• A Leader in Digital Education: How Florida Became One – and Why It Must Remain One – James Madison Institute
Foreign Policy/International Affairs
• Chinese Commercial Espionage: U.S. Policy Recommendations – The Heritage Foundation
• North Korean Missile Launch Demands Strong U.S. Response – The Heritage Foundation
• U.S.–Brazil Summit: Time for a Bold Policy Vision – The Heritage Foundation
• Uncertainties over North Korea’s Leadership Transition: Broader Contingency Planning Is Essential for Regional Stability – The Heritage Foundation
• Israel and the Struggle over the International Laws of War – Hoover Institution
• State of Disrepair: Fixing the Culture and Practices of the State Department – Hoover Institution
Government Reform
• Reducing Corruption Will Increase Economic Freedom in the Philippines – The Heritage Foundation
Health Care
• Comparative Effectiveness Research under Obamacare: A Slippery Slope to Health Care Rationing – The Heritage Foundation
• Medicaid Block Grants and Medicaid Performance – Independence Institute
• The Medicaid Mess: How Obamacare Makes It Worse – Manhattan Institute
• The Fiscal Consequences of the Affordable Care Act – Mercatus Center
• The Five Step Plan to Achieve National Health Care Reform – Wyoming Liberty Group
Immigration
• Alleged Costs of Ending Universal Birthright Citizenship – Center for Immigration Studies
• REAL ID Implementation Annual Report – Center for Immigration Studies
• The Visa Waiver Program: Time for Nations to Bear the Consequences of Non-Compliance – The Heritage Foundation
International Trade/Finance
• How the U.S. Can Support Free Trade in the Philippines – The Heritage Foundation
Labor
• The Impact of Florida’s Minimum Wage Law on Employment in the Hospitality Industry – James Madison Institute
National Security
• Back to the (Uncertain) Future – Hoover Institution
• Threat for Threat – Hoover Institution
• Why Do Great Powers Decline? – Hoover Institution
Natural Resources, Energy, Environment, & Science
• Roosters of the Apocalypse – Heartland Institute
• Thinking the Unthinkable: Modeling a Collapse of Saudi Oil Production – The Heritage Foundation
• Squeezing Profits from Endangered Species – PERC – The Property and Environment Research Center
• The Underwater Enviropreneur – PERC – The Property and Environment Research Center
• The Environmental Protection Agency and Boiler MACT Regulation – Reason Foundation
Regulation & Deregulation
• Uncontrolled: The Surprise Pay-Off of Trial and Error in Business, Public Policy, and Society – Basic Books
Retirement/Social Security
• Boomers at the Gate – Private Enterprise Research Center
The Constitution/Civil Liberties
• You Can’t Say That! Freedom of Speech and the Invisible Muzzle – Centre for Independent Studies
Transportation/Infrastructure
• Fixing America’s Crumbling Underground Water Infrastructure – Competitive Enterprise Institute
• Gaining Public Support for Freeway Congestion Pricing – Reason Foundation
Welfare
• US Food and Nutrition Programs: Costs, Effectiveness, and Impact on Obesity – American Enterprise Institute
• The American Welfare State: How We Spend Nearly $1 Trillion a Year Fighting Poverty—And Fail – Cato Institute
Former NASA Scientists and Astronauts Object to Agency’s Global Warming Activism
Forty-nine former astronauts and scientists of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration have sent NASA administrator Charles Bolden a letter concerning his statements on global warming. Here’s what they had to say (as published by Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, April 10):
We, the undersigned, respectfully request that NASA and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) refrain from including unproven remarks in public releases and websites. We believe the claims by NASA and GISS, that man-made carbon dioxide is having a catastrophic impact on global climate change are not substantiated, especially when considering thousands of years of empirical data. With hundreds of well-known climate scientists and tens of thousands of other scientists publicly declaring their disbelief in the catastrophic forecasts, coming particularly from the GISS leadership, it is clear that the science is NOT settled.
The unbridled advocacy of CO2 being the major cause of climate change is unbecoming of NASA’s history of making an objective assessment of all available scientific data prior to making decisions or public statements.
As former NASA employees, we feel that NASA’s advocacy of an extreme position, prior to a thorough study of the possible overwhelming impact of natural climate drivers is inappropriate. We request that NASA refrain from including unproven and unsupported remarks in its future releases and websites on this subject. At risk is damage to the exemplary reputation of NASA, NASA’s current or former scientists and employees, and even the reputation of science itself.
Wave of New Taxes to Crash on the Economy in 2013
There’s a “Taxmageddon” coming—a $494 billion tax increase resulting from the expiration of a number of tax laws on January 1, 2013 as well as new ObamaCare taxes that kick in on January 1.
These tax increases might not happen, but Congress and the President would have to act in order to prevent them. If they do nothing, the tax increases take place. That prospect is hurting the economy right now, says Curtis Dubay (The Heritage Foundation, April 4):
Although these tax increases will not start raising new revenue until next year, they are having a negative impact on the economy today. Families, businesses, and investors need to know how much tax they will pay in the future before making important economic decisions. The uncertainty caused by Taxmageddon means they are stuck in neutral while they wait for President Obama and Congress to act. This is slowing job creation and stopping many of the millions of unemployed Americans from going back to work.
A tax increase the size of Taxmageddon for just one year is simply unprecedented. Usually tax and budget policies are evaluated on estimates over 10 years. A 10-year tax increase of Taxmageddon’s magnitude would be off the charts. By comparison, all the tax increases in Obamacare—itself an enormous tax increase—raise $502 billion over 10 years, which is almost as much as Taxmageddon will increase taxes just in 2013.
“Buffett Rule” Is No Fix for Federal Finances
Implementing the president’s so-called “Buffett rule” by imposing a 30 percent minimum tax rate on all millionaires might be great class warfare, but it’s no solution to the federal deficit, points out Charles Krauthammer (Washington Post, April 12):
The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates this new tax would yield between $4 billion and $5 billion a year. If we collect the Buffett tax for the next 250 years — a span longer than the life of this republic — it would not cover the Obama deficit for 2011 alone.
Toolkit: Is Google+ Really Worth Your Time?
The long and the short of it is: maybe. Google+ is, in many ways, Google’s attempt to rival Facebook. With obvious successes in search, video, and a whole host of other ventures, it seemed logical that Google would strike gold with Google+. However, things have not gone quite as planned for Google.
The platform started with a bang, getting 20 million users in the first 24 days. It took Facebook and Twitter over 1,000 days to get 20 million users. That was about the height of Google+’s popularity. After the initial splash, it largely fell flat. There are a few heavy users, but those are few and far between. It is mostly a ghost town. To try to get more people to use it, Google redesigned it; some say it is too little, too late.
Having said that, there are still reasons to pay attention to Google+. The main reason is that when you click the +1 button embedded on many Web sites, that click registers, not only on your Google+ profile, but also as a recommendation on Google searches. What that means is that when you are logged in to Google and you search for something, it will show you your friends that recommended a link; you also get the option of seeing only links recommended by your friends.
You don’t need to spend that much time on it for now, but like everything on the Internet, that can change. It’s always better to be on the forefront, than to try to catch up. (Check out The Heritage Foundation’s Google+ page.)
—Todd Thurman
Government Does Almost Everything Worse than Free People
John Stossel at his debunkingest best:
His new book is No, They Can’t: Why Government Fails but Individuals Succeed.
People seem to prefer lower taxes:
Over the last decade, on net, more than 4.2 million individuals have moved out of the 10 states with the highest state and local tax burdens (measured as a percentage of personal income). Conversely, more than 2.8 million Americans migrated to the 10 states with the lowest tax burdens. Put differently, every day on average—weekends and holidays included—1,265 individuals left the high tax states, nearly one a minute. […]
According to Census data from the last decade, the average population growth of no tax states is 13.65 percent, compared to 5.49 percent for the highest tax states’ average. As a group, every single year, the nine no tax states gained more residents than they lost.
Just two of the many points of comparison between state economic policies to be found in the latest edition of the American Legislative Exchange Council’s “Rich States, Poor States” report.
Medicare Trustee Says ObamaCare Actually Expands Deficit
Scoring conventions of the Congressional Budget Office have misled the public about the fiscal consequences of ObamaCare, says Charles Blahous in a new paper for the Mercatus Center (April 10).
CBO originally scored ObamaCare as reducing the deficit by $210 billion over 10 years. Updating that figure to reflect the suspension of the CLASS program (a revenue raiser in the short term) leaves ObamaCare achieving $123 billion in 10-year deficit reduction.
Blahous calculates, however, that ObamaCare increases the deficit by at least $340 billion over 10 years when compared to previous law. The discrepancy arises, says Blahous, primarily because CBO compared ObamaCare not to previous law but to an alternative baseline that assumes the Trust Fund running out does not affect Medicare outlays. That baseline, explains Blahous (e-21, April 10), amounts to double counting Medicare savings:
[U]nder law Medicare is permitted to spend any proceeds of savings in the Medicare HI program. If we cut $1 from Medicare HI spending in the near term, then an additional $1 is credited to the HI Trust Fund as a result. The Trust Fund thus lasts longer and its spending authority is expanded, permitting it to spend another $1 in a later year.
A core fiscal problem with the ACA is that the same $1 in Medicare savings that expands Medicare’s future spending authority by $1 is also assumed to finance the creation of a large new federal health program. […]
[M]uch of the cost-savings attributed to the ACA is actually not net new savings, but rather substitutions for those required under previous law. Under previous law, Medicare payments either would have been suddenly cut in 2016, or lawmakers would have had to enact other Medicare cost-savings.
See also: Avik Roy’s roundup of the debate over Blahous’s paper at Forbes (April 10).
Don’t Celebrate Dip in UN Spending Yet
The United Nations reduced spending slightly in its regular budget for 2012-2013; but, as Brett Schaefer reports (The Heritage Foundation, April 2), that doesn’t mean the war on UN profligacy has been won. According to Schaefer’s tally, this one-year dip follows a decade of unprecedented growth in UN spending:
The UN, in other words, is still big. And here is one reason we should expect spending to climb again in future years.
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