With the latest chapters of the foreclosure mess, we have a conundrum: Being fair to some players could end up causing more pain for society as a whole. How then, should we proceed? Nearly any public policy choice can be…
Category: Other
Farm subsidies shouldn’t survive “tea party” scrutiny
They are not even sworn in yet, but some of the newly elected members of Congress are raising questions among agricultural economists. Incoming Missouri Congresswoman Vicki Hartzler, for example, defended continued farm subsidies on the grounds of ‘national security.’ A…
Proposal has something for everyone to hate
The fact that antitax guru Grover Norquist, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and AFL-CIO chief Richard Trumka all moved swiftly to condemn deficit-reduction proposals made jointly by Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles is a sure indication these ideas are worth…
With ethanol, even foes of central planning are on board
The EPA’s recent ruling that gasoline can contain 15 percent ethanol and the litigation that decision has spawned by a variety of groups illustrates the degree to which central planning is getting a toehold in the U.S. economy with the…
Better policies might benefit wind, ethanol
The national economy is weak, but things were hopping in Moulton Township when I worked on our farm west of Chandler late last month. On Friday, the Pizza Ranch in Edgerton had 12 construction workers in addition to the usual…
Pluses or minuses of Fed’s bond buy still unknown
This week’s meeting of the Federal Reserve’s key policy making committee had all the suspense of a work by Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Eugene Ionesco in which you know a character is going to die, but first you have to…
Reagan aides dismiss GOP tax strategy
Of all the misunderstandings that plague public policy making in our country today, none is as important as the question of whether cutting tax rates raises tax revenues. Having written about this frequently, including columns on March 14 and 21,…
Eliminating entitlements a misunderstood concept
‘Entitlements’ are a favorite target of those who want to trim the federal deficit, especially in this political season. But just as there are many misconceptions about government spending and taxing (the subject of my Sunday column), many people don’t…
Realities of federal spending don’t fit myth
Charles Mackay wrote his book ‘Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds’ 170 years ago, but the phenomenon is alive and well today. The fact that people cling to beliefs that are at odds with readily available data might…
What’s the alternative to corporate income tax?
Two of the three principal candidates for governor want to eliminate Minnesota’s corporate income tax. Tom Emmer would ax it as soon as possible, while Tom Horner wants it to end eventually, just not right now. Is this a good…