Vikings and Pirates and Taxes, Oh My!
Today’s episode of “Hagar the Horrible” could be an epigraph for the new Fall 2009 issue of Cato Journal.
This issue includes Greek economists Michael Mitsopoulos and Theodore Pelagidis on “Vikings in Greece: Kleptocratic Interest Groups in a Closed, Rent-Seeking Economy” as well as Peter Leeson, author of The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates, writing (with David Skarbek) on the effects of foreign aid. As for taxes, well, editor Jim Dorn has assembled a number of useful papers:
- Andrew T. Young on taxing, spending, and “fiscal illusion”
- Michael J. New on the “starve the beast” hypothesis
- Alan Reynolds on Paul Krugman’s misunderstanding of the monetary and fiscal lessons of the Great Depression and Japan’s lost decade
And on the general rapaciousness of the state, don’t miss Jason Kuznicki’s careful review of government racial discrimination from the end of Reconstruction until the civil rights movement.
Filed under: Cato Publications; General; Tax and Budget Policy
To Make Health Care Affordable, Don’t Add Regulations — Repeal Them
David Freddoso of the Washington Examiner reveals how the monopolies that states enjoy over licensing doctors, nurses, and other clinicians reduce access to care for low-income Americans:
Stan Brock just wants to help. The former co-star of “Wild Kingdom” wants to deliver free medical, dental and vision care to the poor. Whereas most politicians talk about “bending the cost curve” in health care, Brock simply wants to break it – to provide care free of charge, at the hands of unpaid volunteer doctors and dentists using donated equipment.
Brock’s group, Remote Area Medical, wants to bring its services to Washington, and soon. He wants his volunteer eye doctors to grind new glasses on the spot for those having trouble seeing.
He wants his dentists to pull rotten teeth and perform root canals in badly neglected mouths. He wants to give checkups and HIV tests to the uninsured and the underinsured. No questions asked.
The only question is whether the bureaucrats will let him do it.
That sounds like hyperbole. It’s not. Read the whole thing (it’s short) and you’ll learn how in-state clinicians shamelessly use monopolistic licensing laws to protect themselves from competition — even at the cost of denying medical care to poor people.
Yesterday, Cato released a study where I advocate breaking up the state’s licensing monopolies and making state-issued licenses portable. Such a law would completely solve Remote Area Medical’s problem.
This Cato study by economist Shirley Svorny reveals how clinician licensing laws do more harm than good.
(Cross-posted at Cato@Liberty Politico’s Health Care Arena.)
Filed under: Cato Publications; General; Health, Welfare & Entitlements
ACORN and Health Care
Last week, editors at Politico posed two questions to an online panel to which I contribute: “ACORN: Underplayed or overblown?” and “Will the Dems ever get their act together on healthcare?”
The two are intimately connected by a simple proposition: “Most people want more housing and health care than they can afford.” Of course, for “housing” or “health care” one could substitute whatever one wishes: food, clothing, cars, education, entertainment, vacations, you name it. Economists call this the problem of scarcity, and it’s the beginning of economics.
In a free society, most individuals, families, and firms will deal with that problem through such homely measures as creating and husbanding wealth, planning for the future, and living within their means. Some, however, will be indifferent to such discipline and will demand more than they can afford. Enter thus ACORN and the Dems — the party of government. ACORN, like our president, is in the “community organizing” business — a euphemism for putting (some) people in a position to better demand things from government. Some of those demands are perfectly legitimate: reduce crime; fix the potholes. But others, the demands ACORN specializes in, are not thus “common.” They can be satisfied, in a world of scarcity, only by taking from some and giving to others.
And that’s what the housing and health care debates today are largely about. And it’s why on both, the Dems are having difficulty getting their act together, because however much they turn a blind eye toward scarcity or pretend that they all agree, the truth is that they represent discrete constituencies, with discrete conflicting interests. That’s what happens when we’re all thrown into the common pot. What once was decided by individuals, reflecting their own particular interests, is now decided by government — and it’s a Hobbesian war of all against all.
Tuesday Links
- How to measure the effectiveness of Obama’s stimulus plan.
- Forbes: The CBO estimate of the number of people who would stop being uninsured under the Senate Finance Committee proposal is exaggerated by at least 7 million to 10 million.
- Smoke and mirrors within the Senate Finance Committee?
- How to save democracy in Honduras.
- Video: Economist Daniel J. Mitchell discusses economic reform on CNBC.
Tuesday Links
- Richard Rahn on the growing debt bomb, set to explode within three years: “Expect to see record high real interest rates and/or inflation, coupled with a collapse of many ‘entitlements.’”
- Why right wing “czar mania” is a needless distraction.
- Obama says that “nobody” considers the government mandate to buy health care a tax. But here are a couple of Obama appointees who do.
- Let the battle of ideas begin: Economists debate the monetary lessons of the last recession.
- Podcast: “Muddling Missions in Afghanistan” featuring Malou Innocent. More on Afghanistan here.
Nobody Considers Health Insurance Mandates a Tax? Really??
As my colleague Jeffrey Miron noted earlier today, when grilled by George Stephanopolous on whether the so-called “individual mandate” is a tax increase, Obama replied, “Nobody considers that a tax increase….You can’t just make up that language and decide that that’s called a tax increase…My critics say everything is a tax increase.”
Where do Obama’s critics get these wacky ideas? From a bunch of nobodies, that’s who!
Princeton economist Uwe Reinhardt, quoted by Larry Summers (1987):
[Just because] the fiscal flows triggered by mandate would not flow directly through the public budgets does not detract from the measure’s status of a bona fide tax.
Economist Larry Summers, Obama’s National Economic Council chair (1989):
Economists have generally devoted little attention to mandated benefits regarding them as simply disguised tax and expenditure measures… Essentially, mandated benefits are like public programs financed by benefit taxes… [If] the mandated benefit is worthless to employees, it is just like a tax from the point of view of both employers and employees…There is no sense in which benefits become ‘free’ just because the government mandates that employers offer them to workers.
Columbia University economist Sherry Glied, Obama’s appointee to HHS Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, in the New England Journal of Medicine (2008):
The mandate is in many respects analogous to a tax. It requires people to make payments for something whether they want it or not. One important concern is that the government will provide insufficient funds for the subsidies intended to accompany the mandate. In that case, the mandate will act as a very regressive tax, penalizing uninsured people who genuinely cannot afford to buy coverage.
Congressional Budget Office (2009):
Under some proposals, firms would be required to make payments to the federal government if they chose not to offer health insurance to their employees, and individuals who did not comply with the requirement to obtain insurance would have to pay a penalty. Such payments would be equivalent to a tax or a fine, and the government’s receipts should be recorded in the budget as federal revenues.
Here’s a question: if an individual mandate is not a tax, why exempt anybody? If an employer mandate isn’t a tax, why exempt small businesses?
Filed under: Cato Publications; General; Health, Welfare & Entitlements; Tax and Budget Policy
Why Chile Is More Economically Free Than the United States
In the 2009 Economic Freedom of the World Report, Chile is now #5, one place ahead of the United States.
In 1975, of 72 countries, Chile was No 71. How did this happen? The explanation lies in what I call the “Chilean Revolution,” because it was as important and transformative to my country as the celebrated American Revolution that gave birth to the United States.
The exceptional political circumstances of this period have obscured the fact that from 1975 to 1989 a true revolution took place in Chile, involving a radical, comprehensive, and sustained move toward economic and political freedom (from a starting point where there was neither one nor the other). This revolution not only doubled Chile’s historic rate of economic growth (to an average of 7% a year, 84-98), drastically reduced poverty (from 45% to 15%), and introduced several radical libertarian reforms that set the country on a path toward rapid development; but it also brought democracy, restored limited government, and established the rule of law.
In 1998, The Los Angeles Times described the importance of the Chilean Revolution to the world:
In a sense, it all began in Chile. In the early 1970s, Chile was one of the first economies in the developing world to test such concepts as deregulation of industries, privatization of state companies, freeing of prices from government control, and opening of the home market to imports. In 1981, Chile privatized its social-security system. Many of those ideas ultimately spread throughout Latin America and to the rest of the world. They are behind the reformation of Eastern Europe and the states of the former Soviet Union today… which demonstrates, once again, the awesome power of ideas.
Obama to Seek Cap on Federal Pay Raises
USA Today reports that President Obama is seeking a cap on federal pay raises:
President Obama urged Congress Monday to limit cost-of-living pay raises to 2% for 1.3 million federal employees in 2010, extending an income squeeze that has hit private workers and threatens Social Security recipients and even 401(k) investors.
…The president’s action comes when consumer prices have fallen 2.1% in the 12 months ending in July, because of a massive drop in energy prices. The recession has taken an even tougher toll on private-sector wages, which rose only 1.5% for the year ended in June — the lowest increase since the government started keeping track in 1980. Private-sector workers also have been subject to widespread layoffs and furloughs.
Last week, economist Chris Edwards discussed data from the Bureau of Economic research that revealed the large gap between the average pay of federal employees and private workers. His call to freeze federal pay “for a year or two” received attention and criticism, (FedSmith, GovExec, Federal Times, Matt Yglesias, Conor Clarke) to which he has responded.
As explained on CNN earlier this year, the pay gap between federal and private workers has been widening for some time now:
Filed under: Government and Politics; Tax and Budget Policy
Sweet, and Yet Very, Very Sour
My colleagues have blogged before about the recent sugar “market” woes. There was some hope that the USDA, which manages sugar imports very carefully to maintain U.S. prices up to three times higher than world prices, would relax the sugar quotas this year and give sugar users some well-deserved and long overdue relief.
Alas, it was not to be. According to Congress Daily, the USDA announced today [$] that there would be no increase in the import quota for the time being, and that their models saw no cause for alarm because of predicted increases in domestic production and Mexican imports (allowed special import status through NAFTA). And who cares about sugar users’ concerns when you have models?
The American Sugar Alliance says (sigh) that the announcement “makes perfect sense. Supplies are adequate and will soon be building. If any tightness were to emerge, it would not be until next summer. USDA will have adequate time next spring to boost supplies.”
Do you hear that, sugar consumers of America? The USDA is on the case. Now, I’ve got nothing personally against the folks at USDA. I know many of them personally and they are fine people, and smart economists, who are just following congressional orders. But, really, are we still, in 2009, in an at least nominally market-oriented economy, seriously attempting to micro-manage supply and demand of commodities?
Rose Friedman Passes
Rose Friedman, co-author of several books with her late husband and Nobel laureate economist Milton, passed away this morning. Rose and Milton co-wrote Free to Choose the wonderful book that formed the basis of Milton’s PBS television series, as well co-writing their joint auto-biography “Two Lucky People.”
She was intimately involved in the school choice movement both before and after Milton’s passing, as co-founder of the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation for School Choice, ably led by Robert Enlow.
Rose and Milton were not just skilled economists who cared about kids, they were a charming couple. At a casual policy event a decade ago, they shared a single armchair to ensure that there would be enough seats for everyone. They weren’t just models of commitment to a worthy cause, they were models for how two smart, forthright people can build a marriage that lasts a lifetime.
Rose and Milton will long be remembered.
Is Buying an iPod Un-American?
We own three iPods at my house, including a recently purchased iPod Touch. Since many of the iPod parts are made abroad, is my family guilty of allowing our consumer spending to “leak” abroad, depriving the American economy of the consumer stimulus we are told it so desperately needs? If you believe the “Buy American” lectures and legislation coming out of Washington, the answer must be yes.
Our friends at ReasonTV have just posted a brilliant video short, “Is Your iPod Unpatriotic?” With government requiring its contractors to buy American-made steel, iron, and manufactured products, is it only a matter of time before the iPod—“Assembled in China,” of all places—comes under scrutiny? You can view the video here:
In my upcoming Cato book, Mad about Trade: Why Main Street America Should Embrace Globalization, I talk about how American companies are moving to the upper regions of the “smiley curve.” The smiley curve is a way of thinking about global supply chains where Americans reap the most value at the beginning and the end of the production process while China and other low-wage countries perform the low-value assembly in the middle. In the book, I hold up our family’s iPods as an example of the unappreciated benefits of a more globalized American economy:
The lesson of the smiley curve was brought home to me after a recent Christmas when I was admiring my two teen-age sons’ new iPod Nanos. Inscribed on the back was the telling label, “Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China.” To the skeptics of trade, an imported Nano only adds to our disturbingly large bilateral trade deficit with China in “advanced technology products,” but here in the palm of a teenager’s hand was a perfect symbol of the win-win nature of our trade with China.
Assembling iPods obviously creates jobs for Chinese workers, jobs that probably pay higher-than-average wages in that country even though they labor in the lowest regions of the smiley curve. But Americans benefit even more from the deal. A team of economists from the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California-Irvine applied the smiley curve to a typical $299 iPod and found just what you might suspect: Americans reap most of the value from its production. Although assembled in China, an American company supplies the processing chips, a Korean company the memory chip, and Japanese companies the hard drive and display screen. According to the authors, “The value added to the product through assembly in China is probably a few dollars at most.”
The biggest winner? Apple and its distributors. Standing atop the value chain, Apple reaps $80 in profit for each unit sold—an amount higher than the cost of any single component. Its distributors, on the opposite high end of the smiley curve, make another $75. And of course, American owners of the more than 100 million iPods sold since 2001—my teen-age sons included—pocket far more enjoyment from the devices than the Chinese workers who assembled them.
To learn a whole lot more about how American middle-class families benefit from trade and globalization, you can now pre-order the book at Amazon.com.
How Many Uninsured Are There?
The Wall Street Journal’s Numbers Guy tackles the question:
The Census Bureau estimates that the number of uninsured amounts to 45.7 million people. But the agency might be over-counting by millions due to faulty assumptions…
Even though legislation won’t cover many of them, illegal immigrants are especially difficult to enumerate: Few raise their hands to be counted. Prof. [Jonathan] Gruber estimates they make up about 13% of the uninsured today, or nearly six million people of that 45 million number…
Of the rest, some people are eligible for health insurance but don’t know it and many can afford it but don’t want it. About 43% of uninsured nonelderly adults have incomes greater than 2.5 times the poverty level, according to a report released Tuesday by the business-backed Employment Policies Institute.
He left out a few things, though.
The estimate of 46 million uninsured, which comes from a less-than-ideal government survey, has been the occasion of a fraud on the public. For 20 years, the Church of Universal Coverage told us that 40-some million Americans are uninsured for the entire year. Then, experts including the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said that no, 40-some million is the number who are uninsured on any given day, and a lot of those people quickly regain coverage. The number of Americans who are uninsured for the entire year is actually 20-30 million. Yet the Church of Universal Coverage kept using that 40-some million estimate as if nothing had happened – even though the meaning of that estimate had completely changed.
The Congressional Budget Office also reports that as many as 15 percent of those 20-30 million chronically “uninsured” are eligible for government programs, so they’re effectively insured.
According to economists Mark Pauly of the University of Pennsylvania and Kate Bundorf of Stanford, as many as three-quarters of the uninsured could afford coverage but choose not to purchase it. Again, according to the Congressional Budget Office, 60 percent of the uninsured are under age 35, and 86 percent are in good-to-excellent health.
Government intervention has made health insurance unnecessarily expensive for them, so these folks quite sensibly don’t want to be ripped off. Mandating that they buy coverage is really about hunting them down and taxing them.
The Cost of Flu Fears – and Our Ongoing Vulnerability
The ever-sensible Shaun Waterman has begun to tally the cost of overreaction to the fear outbreak inspired by the H1N1 flu strain. He reports in ISN Security Watch:
Even the precautions that you take against this kind of global flu pandemic could knock about 1.9 [or] 2 percent off global [economic production]. That’s about a trillion dollars,” according to journalist Martin Walker, who cited World Bank figures from a study last year.
The Economist reported last week that the crisis in Mexico was costing Mexico City’s service and retail industries $55m a day – not because of the handful of deaths but because of people’s reactions. And that was even before the national suspension of non-essential public activities called for this week by the authorities there, which was expected to double that cost.
Waterman also cites my joke about moving Vice President Biden to an undisclosed location in future crises – not for his protection or government continuity, but to keep him away from the media.
It’s comedic wrapping on a substantive point: As long as people look to government leaders in times of crises, leaders have a responsibility to communicate carefully, according to a plan, and with message discipline. If they don’t, the damage can be very high.
Even if all Americans knew to dismiss the words of the Vice President as if he’s a “Crazy Uncle Joe” – and they don’t – foreign tourists certainly don’t know that. Biden harmed the country simply by speaking off the cuff.
Here, an outbreak of flu appears to have caused billions of dollars in damage to the world economy. One billion lost to the U.S. economy is about 145 deaths (using the current $6.9 million valuation for a human life). When overreactions restrict economic activity, that reduces wealth and thus health and longevity.
Now, imagine what might happen if the United States encountered a novel, directed threat – some kind of attack that inspires widespread concern. Will Vice President Biden and officials from a half-dozen agencies rush forth with personal observations and speculation? The results could be devastating, especially to a country that is already suffering economically.
People die from poor situation management, and it makes Americans worse off. Political leaders should not get a free pass for failing to communicate well just because it’s hard to do.
The Obama Administration should learn from its many errors in handling the rather benign H1N1 flu situation. It should train up for communicating in the event of a real emergency. If the Obama Administration fails to soothe nerves in the event of some future terrorist attack, that will be a clear failure of leadership.
Filed under: Foreign Policy and National Security; Health, Welfare & Entitlements; Telecom, Internet & Information Policy
Robert H. Frank, A 200% Tax Even Socialists Will Hate
In the latest issue of Forbes, Cornell University economist Robert H. Frank is pushing “A Tax Even Libertarians Can Love.” I hope he wasn’t counting on this libertarian’s support.
What he advocates is “replacing the income tax with a progressive tax on spending. …A family’s income minus its savings is its consumption, and that amount minus a large standard deduction — say, $30,000 a year for a family of four — would be its taxable consumption. …Rates would start low, perhaps 20%, then rise gradually with total consumption. …With savings tax-exempt, top marginal tax rates on consumption would have to be significantly higher than current top rates on income.”
His concept of “significantly higher” includes tax rates of 100-200% on marginal income that isn’t saved. This is about minimizing affluence, not maximizing revenues. There is ample evidence from Emmanuel Saez and others that the amount of reported income drops sharply as marginal tax rates rise above 25-30% (and even less on capital gains).
In his 2007 book, Falling Behind: How Rising Inequality Harms the Middle Class, Frank suggests marginal tax rates of 50% above $220,000 and rising to 200%. Since seniors (like me) commonly finance retirement from past savings, Frank’s tax scheme amounts to rapid confiscation of past savings.
For young people, Frank’s tax can’t possibly encourage savings because it discourages earning any income in the first place. Consumption is, after all, the motive for both earning and saving. The prospect of facing future consumption taxes of 50-200% would surely discourage saving much, because the rewards from invested savings (namely, future consumption) would be subjected to such prohibitive tax brackets. Under this steeply progressive tax on unsaved income, any income exempt from taxes today would be subject to brutal taxes whenever folks wanted to buy anything of value, like a car or house, or to retire on their accumulated savings.
Filed under: Government and Politics; Tax and Budget Policy
Miron, Calabria Join Cato Institute
Jeffrey Miron, Director of Undergraduate Studies at Harvard’s Department of Economics, has joined the Cato Institute as a Senior Fellow.
“I am delighted to be working with Cato,” Miron said. “This is a crucial moment in our nation’s history, and Cato’s mission – increased understanding of the virtues of limited government, free markets, individual liberty, and peace - has rarely been more important.”
Miron will help Cato’s economic team promote dynamic market capitalism and economic freedom through media appearances and policy analyses, in addition to speaking engagements and outreach to the academic community. He is the author of Drug War Crimes: The Consequences of Prohibition (Independent Institute, 2004) and The Economics of Seasonal Cycles (MIT Press, 1996), in addition to numerous opeds and journal articles.
Miron will retain his affiliation with Harvard. Prior to joining Harvard, he served as chairman of the Department of Economics at Boston University. Miron received his Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Mark Calabria, a veteran staff member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs, has joined the Cato Institute as Director of Financial Services Regulation.
“I join Cato with a great sense of excitement and urgency,” Calabria said. “Cato has long been a strong, and sometimes the only, voice for expanding and protecting individual choice. We are confronted with stark choices regarding the regulation of our financial markets: whether to expand the role of politics in deciding who will get credit and what institutions will fail. In a time when markets and freedom are being questioned and attacked, Cato’s mission of understanding the impact of government proposals is all the more necessary.”
Calabria will lead Cato’s efforts in developing solutions to what ails the U.S. financial markets that do not include more oppressive government regulation. He will also help educate the public, via media appearances and other outreach, as to how the government itself contributed heavily to the disruptions now occurring in the financial sector.
In addition to his work on Capitol Hill, Calabria served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development, and was also senior economist at the National Association of Realtors. Calabria earned his Ph.D. in economics from George Mason University.
“We are delighted to have two of the nation’s most effective proponents of free markets and individual liberty on board now at Cato,” said Cato founder and president Ed Crane. “Mark Calabria and Jeff Miron are distinguished economists who will play an important role in advancing Cato’s mission in the months and years ahead.”
Agony of Defeat
Oh, what a burn. My tax debate with French economist Thomas Piketty was a dead heat, 50-50, for the past four days. Then just as the contest was closing, he pulled ahead to seize victory, 51-49.
The Economist editor described the tightly fought battle:
Chris Edwards got over a strong initial disadvantage to narrow what was originally a strong lead for Mr Piketty to a dead heat, but eventually Mr Piketty has prevailed: but only just—even hours before closing, the vote was split exactly down the middle. One could not have asked for a closer contest: this has been the most closely-fought of our 21 online debates, although it began with a fairly substantial lead for the proposition.
Certainly, the debate revealed high levels of interest in taxation and relative income levels. There were more than 1,100 reader comments posted, making it the “most commented” story on the Economist site for the last 10 days or so. My thanks to all the supportive voters and commenters.
Piketty won the website voting battle, but I don’t think he’ll win the war. Global tax competition has led to large cuts in top tax rates in recent decades, and will continue to exert downward pressure for years to come. However, these are dangerous times as governments press to end financial privacy, to create international tax cartels, and to substitute competition with multinational government power in various other ways.
Vote for Me!
Final statements in my tax debate with economist Thomas Piketty were posted today at the Economist.
I think I’m softening Piketty up, as he reiterated that a 60% tax on high earners might be OK, rather than the 80% that he suggested.
The voting from readers has been locked at 50%/50% for days. So it is important that you register your vote by the end of tomorrow before the magazine’s “decision” on the winner Friday.
New at Cato
Here are a few highlights from Cato Today, a daily email from the Cato Institute. You can subscribe here.
- Malou Innocent argues that the United States should not increase its troop presence in Pakistan in a new Cato Policy Analysis.
- Doug Bandow discusses Tax Freedom Day in the American Spectator.
- Watch Tucker Carlson discuss whether a president should blame problems on past administrations on Fox News.
- Chris Edwards is finishing his live debate with French economist Thomas Piketty over whether the rich should pay higher tax rates. Readers decide who wins, so don’t miss the chance to cast your vote.
- Join the Cato Institute Wednesday, April 15 to hear James Tooley, author of The Beautiful Tree:A Personal Journey Into How the World’s Poorest People Are Educating Themselves, discuss successful ways to educate the world’s poor.
Piketty Tax Battle: Round Two
The Economist has posted rebuttals to first-round arguments in my tax debate with French economist Thomas Piketty. Piketty seems to think that everyone with a high income has a “grabbing hand” that comes at someone else’s expense.
The debate over tax rates on the rich is important, but Piketty is important in himself because he is widely cited in the media and elsewhere as if he were a neutral authority. For example, President Obama’s budget featured a chart showing that the top 1 percent of earners have greatly increased their share of national income over the decades, using Piketty’s numbers.
But Alan Reynolds has found serious flaws in Piketty’s calculations. Piketty bases his calculations on tax return data, but reported income under the federal income tax has changed greatly over time.
The bottom line is to be suspicious when you see a chart on income trends that is sourced to this advocate of 80 percent tax rates.
Who’s Blogging about Cato
Are you blogging about Cato? Let us know. Send a link our way @catoinstitute or email cmoody@cato.org
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- Georgia Examiner writer and blogger Jason Pye offered his thoughts on Ilya Shapiro’s post about the “Jefferson 1.”
- Wes Messamore finished his list of the top 100 libertarian blogs and Web sites.
- Free Marketeros editor James Barcia linked to Juan Carlos Hildalgo’s new report on the success of El Salvador’s free market reforms.
- Health care writer John Goodman discussed John Cochrane’s recent Policy Analysis on market-based strategies to improve health security.
- At NRO’s The Corner, Veronique de Rugy is following the debate between Cato scholar Chris Edwards and French economist Thomas Piketty over whether the rich should pay higher taxes.
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