Focus Point – Innovation with Youthful Offenders
A new NCPA study shows that restorative justice programs offer something besides jail to control crime. They're based on the principles of victim restoration and offender accountability.
Focus Point – Book Review
I always enjoy reading memoirs of people who were at the center of a great adventure, and the new autobiography by chris craft – "flight" — fills the bill.
Focus Point – Tax Protection
I've talked over the last couple of weeks about the reasons why the Bush tax cut is the right thing to do — even why it ought to be accelerated. There's the moral argument, the economic argument, the fairness argument.
Focus Point – Stopping John McCain
Seeing John McCain at work trying to pass his campaign spending "reform" — I put the word in quotation marks — I'm reminded of the song title, "How can I miss you if you won't go away?"
Focus Point – Using PRAs
If the federal government doesn't use projected budget surpluses for tax cuts, spending increases or social security reform, look for a big push to use it to pay down the debt, then start accumulating assets.
Lieberman's $60 Billion Tax Rebate Idea Won't Work
A small tax rebate would only serve to provide tax rate cut opponents with political cover, while doing virtually nothing to help stimulate the economy.
Focus Point – JFK Sells Tax Cuts
I love the democratic outrage over Bush administration radio ads touting his tax plan.
What Are The Prospects For Medicare Reform This Year?
The National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) and the National Association for Business Economics' (NABE) Health Economics Roundtable will co-sponsor a Capitol Hill briefing to answer some of the critical questions about the chances for Medicare reforms this Congress.
Focus Point – Trashing Edison
Edison schools took over a failing public elementary school in San Francisco in 1998. It turned the school around.
Focus Point – Phase-outs
The title of a new NCPA Brief Analysis says it all: "If You Like Complicated Hidden Taxes, You'll Love Phase-outs."
Chasing Windmills in the U.S. Senate
There is no doubt that Sen. McCain believes he is on a noble quest. But the reality is, he's just chasing windmills – and constitutionally protected ones at that.
Focus Point – Napster
I'm on record as the Internet's number one fan. I think we ought to take all thoughts of taxing it, tie them to a cinder block, and drop them in the ocean. I love its freewheeling, anything goes attitude.
Gun Show Loophole Doesn't Exist
Mandating background checks at gun shows will not reduce crime significantly. Rather than closing a loophole in current law, mandatory background checks will be a step towards banning private firearm sales between individuals.
Why Efforts to Further Regulate Private Firearm Transactions at Gun Shows are Misguided as a Policy for Crime Reduction
Chairman Hinojosa, Vice-Chair Dunnam and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify concerning the merits of HB 367, HB 404 and HB 635 today.
Focus Point – Microsoft Decision
If you're wondering why a hefty percentage of the American people think Bill Gates is the devil incarnate it may be because the judge in the Microsoft trial – Thomas Penfield Jackson — unfairly painted Microsoft as a villian.
How Much Should We Spend on Health Care?
Here we go again. Another round of health insurance rate hikes. This time premiums are going up anywhere from 10 percent to 20 percent and more. And health care costs generally are rising at two to three times the rate of inflation.
Focus Point – Bad Tax Tips
How much would you get from a Bush tax cut plan? Don't bother checking the distribution table from the treasury to find out.
Focus Point – The Spenders
Big-spending liberals got their clocks cleaned by the Reagan tax cuts 20 years ago and never got over it.
Facing Sprawl in Texas
Texas is expected to grow by more than 7 million people by the year 2025 – the second largest increase in the nation.
Restorative Justice, American Style
Ted McGarrell, a criminology professor at Indiana University in Bloomington, has teamed up with the Hudson Institute and the city of Indianapolis to try an experiment that offers something besides jails to control crime. "Restorative justice," a program being tried with youthful first-time offenders, is based on three principles:
Bush Makes Right Call On Co2
President Bush's announcement that the administration will not impose mandatory emissions reductions for carbon dioxide on the nation's power plants is good news for our nation's energy and environmental policy.
Focus Point – Democratic Capitalism
We recently marked the 20th anniversary of Ronald Reagan's address to the congress setting out his economic policy.
Trigger-Happy Taxers
Washington is trigger-happy this week, and it has nothing to do with guns. It has to do with putting fiscal policy on autopilot, tying the implementation of stimulative tax cuts next year to the spending habits of Congress this year. Sound strange? It is.
The Bush Plan to Insure the Uninsured
The number of people who lack health insurance now stands at about 43 million, more than were uninsured a decade ago. Moreover the growth in the uninsured has occurred during a period when income and wealth was rising for the vast majority of American families.
Saving for a Rainy Day
In its January forecast, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected budget surpluses totaling $5.6 trillion between 2002 and 2011, up from $4.6 trillion a year earlier. This forecast assumes (1) no tax cut, (2) no spending increase and (3) no Social Security privatization. The forecast therefore assumes that the surpluses will be used to pay down the government debt available for repurchase and then buy assets that earn a return similar to that earned on Treasury issues. This means that beginning in 2006, the government would do something it has never done: accumulate and hold significant levels of private financial assets.