Over the next three decades, the number of retirees will double. However, due to declining fertility rates, the number of workers contributing to the system will fall from three for each retiree receiving benefits to two for each retiree. This will place a severe strain on working Americans to pay promised benefits to the elderly.
Careful studies have shown that the greatest degree of inequality exists among senior citizens, and the single most important cause of that inequality is not differences in preretirement income but differences in the degree to which people with the same income save rather than consume.
Following the sniper attacks that plagued Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia in the early fall of 2002, gun control advocates intensified their demands that the federal government develop a "ballistic fingerprint" database.
Over the past 150 years, geologists and other scientists often have predicted that our oil reserves would run dry within a few years. When oil prices rise for an extended period, the news media fill with dire warnings that a crisis is upon us. Environmentalists argue that governments must develop new energy technologies that do not rely on fossil fuels. The facts contradict these harbingers of doom.
Without freedom, technologies that enhance human welfare would be scarce rather than abundant. Technology and freedom are symbiotic, forming a virtuous circle. By examining the relationship between them, we can find ways to preserve the circle and to accelerate activity within it.
The reasons managed care has not worked as a national policy in addressing the concerns of cost, access, quality and patient satisfaction are the same reasons Medical Savings Accounts and other consumer-driven programs are attractive.
Two dynamic Internet software industries are emerging. One is the data-mining industry, producing software tools that firms use to analyze consumer behavior and preferences on the Internet. The other is the privacy software industry, whose products are designed to stop some or all of this individual information from being collected and analyzed.
Contrary to a widespread impression, America already has an extensive system of school choice. Yet the system is both inefficient and unfair. It discriminates against low-income families and racial minorities.
Many employers are concluding that it is time to rethink the way they provide health insurance benefits for their employees.
The need for alternatives to traditional public schools is clear. The alternatives must be able to withstand challenges to their constitutionality.
The Social Security earnings test is among the most unfair and counterproductive policies ever imposed by the federal government. On the one hand, we are continually told that workers have a "right" to Social Security whenever there is a proposal to modify cost of living adjustments. But on the other hand, we take away benefits from many seniors simply because they have chosen to work past the normal retirement age.
This Backgrounder discusses the proposal for Medicare reform that was developed by a bipartisan and bicameral group of members on the Medicare Commission.
While the tax is insignificant in terms of federal revenue, it is very significant economically. It wastes resources. It discourages work, saving and investment. And it does virtually nothing to equalize the distribution of wealth. For these reasons, it should be abolished.
Unwise government policies are largely responsible for the fact that the number of Americans without health insurance is 43 million and rising. Unwise government policies also are responsible for the fact that people who have health insurance are turning over an ever-larger share of their health care dollars to managed care bureaucracies that limit patient choices and sometimes give providers perverse incentives to deny care.
What explains the sudden decline in crime after a long rise? Better economic conditions? Cultural changes? A more convincing explanation is at hand: Courts have been handing out tougher punishment for crime, and potential criminals know and fear it.
The next quarter century of capitalism promises a silent boom – a rapid economic advance that will improve everyday life but elude the regular readings of the economy's vital signs. Statistical tools simply can't keep up with an economy moving at light speed.
Job losses are less harmful than they are often thought to be. To the contrary, the upside of downsizing lies in a reinvigorated economy. Indeed, the layoffs of the early 1990s can teach important lessons about how the economy operates to turn the bad news of lost jobs into the good news of higher living standards.
A marriage penalty results when a married couple pay more taxes by filing jointly than they would pay if each spouse could file as a single person. A couple face the marriage penalty only when both spouses have earned income.
The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 is important more as a political statement than for its economic impact. As the first major tax cut since 1981, it marks the end of the paralysis in fiscal policy that resulted from the rise of large and persistent budget deficits in the 1980s.
Welfare reform that emphasizes putting welfare recipients to work is the most successful public policy initiative of this century.
The estate tax is a bad tax. It raises little revenue. It does not redistribute wealth. It imposes large costs on the economy. And it is complicated and unfair. It should be abolished.
Some environmentalists portrayed congressional attempts to modify clean air, clean water and safe drinking-water laws as giving corporations license to pollute and to endanger America's children. Others saw these efforts as bringing common sense and sound science to bear on environmental policy.
Federal taxes have reached their highest level in history. To bring federal taxes to a tolerable level will require not just tax reform, but a complete overhaul of the federal budget as well.
The mortgage interest deduction has long been considered the untouchable third rail of tax reform. However, a close look at a flat-rate tax suggests that, on balance, homeowners would gain more from it than they would lose.
April 1995 marked the beginning of the fifth consecutive year of U.S. economic expansion. Despite this good news, media reports often paint a bleak picture of the average American worker's prospects. Such reports cite studies that claim wages and incomes are falling, the pace of economic progress is slower than in the past and not everyone is sharing equally in the economy's gains. In light of these contrasting views on the economy, it is understandable that many people are seeking clarification.