The Complex Dynamics Of Raising The Minimum Wage
Both proponents and opponents of a federally mandated increase in the minimum wage are framing the issue in the wrong terms.
Whatever Happened to Environmental Policy Reform?
The new Republican Congress roared into Washington and set out to change the rules of environmental policy. Environmental reforms were going to be based on risk assessment, cost-benefit analysis, less business regulation and smaller environmental agencies. Congress was going to prune back the oppressive bureaucracy and get the government off our backs.
Eastern Europe and the Western Alliance
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil," Edmund Burke observed, "is for good men to do nothing." While what has happened in Europe since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 is hardly evil; communism was the evil; the fact is that good men have done very little to nourish the seeds of Western values in the freed nations of Eastern Europe.
Unfunded Mandates: Congress Is Targeting Business Instead of Governments
One of the success stories of the Contract With America is that Congress has made it illegal for the federal government to impose unfunded mandates – requirements to take certain actions or provide certain services without providing the federal funds to pay for those mandates – on state and local governments.
The Envelope, Please
Tired of the seemingly endless stream of award shows? Have the Emmys, the Grammys, and the People's Choice – not to mention the Country Music and MTV video awards – turned into one long blur of banal platitudes? Perhaps we need a new and different kind of award. So, move over Oscar and Tony, here comes the Louis.
Misplaced Criticism of MSAs
Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs) have become the most controversial element of the health insurance reform proposal before Congress. They should be the least controversial.
Four Steps to Reforming Superfund
Superfund is the largest single project of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Yet despite cumulative federal expenditures of more than $30 billion over 15 years, Superfund successes are few.
Still the Land of Opportunity
With commencement season upon us once again, there is good news for graduates: America is still the Land of Opportunity. You can – and with some hard work likely will – live better than your parents. And all of us, wealthy, middle class, and poor, are becoming better off as the years go by. As President John F. Kennedy observed, the tide of economic growth is lifting all our boats.