Recent statements from John McCain about the possibility of increasing payroll taxes seemed to suggest he was tiptoeing away from his no-new-taxes pledge. (He later repeated his earlier vow.) People can make their own judgments about McCain’s fitness as a…
Category: Other
Data vital to health care reform
Information is essential in choosing how to use resources to meet your needs. That is why Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s latest health care proposals are a useful contribution. A shared Web site with pricing information from different health plans, quality data…
Personal accounts, social insecurity
I wish John McCain had been with me at the paint store for a lesson in politics, if not in economics. The employee was glum. ‘Yeah,’ he said to the customer ahead of me, ‘a lot of people are not…
Why don’t we auction off public assets? Politics
Economists get it wrong often enough that our smugness is pardonable when events prove us right. This week’s news that the Canadian government got some $4.2 billion by auctioning rights to use radio frequencies for the next generation of cell…
Transit fare hike may be the best in the short run
At the risk of blaspheming, the situation for public transit is ‘$4 gas giveth, $4 gas taketh away, blessed be $4 gas.’ High fuel prices pose hard choices. In the long run, high energy prices favor transit, as many find…
Mortgage giants need some home improvements
Fears about what would happen if Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac went broke have submerged a more fundamental question: Is the existence of Fannie and Freddie good for our nation? The immediate concerns are not trivial. The fear is that…
After abuses or laxness, regulations return
Financial regulation goes in cycles. Some event occurs in which an abusive practice apparently harms the public. The government creates new regulations to prevent similar harm in the future. But ingenious financial firms attempt end runs around the new regulations.…
Reaction to Fed’s lending reins a matter of politics
Just because several horses already have disappeared over the hill, closing the barn door isn’t necessarily a bad idea. More may be coming in from the corral and you wouldn’t want them to gallop away too. But to secure an…
Favors are subtle forms of “rent seeking”
There always will be people willing to do favors for public officials. Can these be benign or do they always constitute ‘rent seeking’? That’s the term economists use for the manipulation of government policy for private benefit. Several prominent public…
At the Fed, President appoints, Senate disappoints
The Federal Reserve is supposed to be insulated from politics, but that is impossible to do perfectly, especially in an election year. That is coming out in two ways right now. First, politics is keeping the Fed’s Board of Governors…