Two tax policy experts from different sides of the policy fence, Bruce Bartlett of the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) and William Gale of Brookings Institution, will discuss the "good, the feasible and the impossible" in the 1997 Budget Tax Cut Bill.
A casual glance at the nation's highways shows that much has changed in the last 25 years, including fewer large family cars on the road, a dramatic increase in the number of light trucks and sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and the introduction of minivans.
I suppose it had to happen sooner or later. New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis – a 1930's socialist frozen in time – and I actually agree on something: that Congress is not the place to solve the nation's juvenile crime problem. For that matter, others can be found all across the political spectrum who share that view – no doubt for different reasons.
The philosophical battle over allowing you to invest your Social Security taxes in a market IRA is far from won. But progress is being made.
Senators Orrin Hatch and Ted Kennedy have joined forces to establish a new government program to finance children's health insurance. They propose to fund the program by increasing federal cigarette taxes from 24 cents to 67 cents per pack – an increase of 43 cents. The Hatch-Kennedy tax promises to raise $30 billion over five years, with $20 billion to go for children's insurance and $10 billion for deficit reduction.
Rather than legislating in haste and ignorance and repenting at leisure, our government should maintain rational policies, based on science and adaptable to future discoveries.
In the June issue of Reason magazine, senior editor Nick Gillespie notes the supposedly imminent dangers to our kids that we must guard against – asbestos, lead-based paint, abduction, satanic cults, pornography on the Internet, helmetless bike rides, playground equipment, and Lord knows what else – and wonders, "Do we best prepare our children for responsible, engaged lives by seeking to child-proof the world?"
The school voucher issue will be the topic of argument when the National Center for Policy Analysis and CEO America present the live taping of William F. Buckley, Jr.'s Firing Line Debate June 9th at Texas Christian University.
There is a bipartisan consensus in Washington that youth crime, particularly violent youth crime, is a real problem that threatens to grow over the next decade. This consensus makes it highly likely that President Clinton will sign some version of a new federal juvenile crime bill this year – unusual only because Congress traditionally has passed crime legislation in even-numbered (read: election) years. Congress expects to do at the federal level what many states have already done: toughen the treatment of young criminals, who have regarded the juvenile justice system as a joke for at least the last decade.
More than half a million American children are in government-run foster care.
More than half a million American children are in government-run foster care today. The federal government dictates — and funds — much of foster care policy, but states carry it out. Originally intended to provide safe, temporary homes for abused children, the $12 billion foster care system frequently keeps children in care for years — long after they are legally free to be adopted.
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) has given some indication of the direction he would like to take on health care reform — and it's a good one.
After a rancorous year-long debate over how to solve the financial crisis facing the Medicare trust fund, it appears that Congress and the president have a compromise that would call for slowing Medicare's rate of growth by somewhere around $115 billion over six years.
Columns by Bruce Bartlett, former Treasury official and Senior Fellow of the National Center for Policy Analysis, will be available nationally through the Creators Syndicate beginning May 1, 1997.
Calling the 1996 Health Insurance and Portability Act's imposed cap on Medical Savings Accounts arbitrary and restrictive, speakers at a Washington, D.C., press conference today called for expansion of the program.
Just how tough is the new welfare reform law on foreigners who are legally in the United States?
Last year Congress made tax-free Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs) available to 750,000 American workers and their families. Under a provision of the Kassebaum-Kennedy health insurance reform bill, small employers (50 or fewer employees) and the self-employed can purchase less expensive high-deductible health insurance policies and make tax-free deposits to an MSA. They can use their MSA money to pay small and routine health care expenses, reserving insurance to pay large, catastrophic expenses. Money that remains in the account at year's end earns tax-free interest.