Freedom and responsibility are two of the fundamental themes underlying the conservative revolution in Washington. It is these two principles that set conservatives apart from our liberal counterparts, as was evident in two recent events.
Anxiety lies heavy in households in April. Taxes to be paid, and graduating high school seniors anxiously awaiting news of acceptance to the college of their dreams. Parents lose sleep over both taxes due and how to pay for college tuition.
Dr. Barry Asmus, Senior Economist of the National Center for Policy Analysis, will deliver a "tax day" message to the House Ways & Means Committee on behalf of all Americans who pay the price for an ill-designed government-run tax system which discourages growth.
The need to ease the taxpayer burden and to spur economic growth are immediate, as anyone with a static salary about to mail a bloated check to the IRS realizes.
Apparently living in its own surreal world, the Environmental Protection Agency has proposed tightening the clean air standards for both particulate matter (soot and that sort of stuff) and ground level ozone (what we generally call smog). As I mentioned in last week's column, the proposed standards could wreak economic havoc while accomplishing only marginal progress in cleaning up the air – which is already a lot cleaner than it was 30 years ago.
The future of American health insurance coverage remains tenuous. Medicare is nearly bankrupt. Forty million Americans are uninsured.
The National Center for Policy Analysis and the Hatton W. Sumners Foundation present a special Firing Line debate that goes to the heart of the current controversy over environmental policy versus personal and property rights.
Public attention has recently turned to the global nature of many environmental problems, such as global climate change, the transmigration of pollution, the rapid loss of biodiversity, and the collapse of ocean fisheries.