I testified to the Senate Finance Committee today regarding federal spending and debt.

Here are some of the points I made:

• Last night, President Obama called for a “balanced solution” to our fiscal problems, including tax increases and spending cuts. However, CBO projections do not indicate that we face a “balanced” problem. Instead, projections show that the deficit problem is caused all on the spending side of the budget.
• The United States has sadly become a big-government country. Until recently, government spending in this country was about 10 percentage points less than the average of OECD countries. That smaller-government advantage has now shrunken to just 4 percentage points.
• In recent years, policymakers have given us the largest deficit-spending “stimulus” since World War II, yet we are suffering from the slowest economic recovery since World War II.
• Rising government spending suppresses GDP because the government’s “leaky bucket” gets leakier and leakier as spending increases.
• Leaders in Congress are talking about cutting spending by $3 trillion over 10 years, or roughly $300 billion per year. The result would be that spending would rise from $3.6 trillion this year to $5.4 trillion in 2021, rather than the currently projected $5.7 trillion. That would be only a 5 percent cut. Interest savings would reduce spending a little more—but, come on Congress, you can do better than that!

Senate Finance Hearing on Debt is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee,  Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI)*, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and the White House have just announced that they have made a deal to extend Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA, the program that extends extra unemployment and health care benefits to workers who lose their jobs because of globalization) until 2013, as part of a broader deal that would see passage of the three outstanding preferential trade agreements with Korea, Colombia, and Panama. The extension of TAA would be included in the legislation to implement the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement, “improved” (i.e., made less liberalizing) by the administration in December.

Interestingly and alarmingly, because implementing the FTAs (which will lower tariff revenue) and paying for the billion-dollar-plus TAA extension “requires” offsets, the draft language specifies in Sec. 601 that revenue should be raised by increasing customs user fees.  This solution was first aired publicly last week, and my friend, trade lawyer (and former Cato-ite) Scott Lincicome pointed out then that raising customs user fees is probably against WTO rules (not to mention counterproductive to the goal of liberalizing trade):

“[C]ustoms fees” are simply hidden taxes on import consumers.  A quick review of the US Customs website on “customs users fees” makes this clear.  They’re paid (mainly) by commercial transporters bringing goods (imports) into the United States, thus raising the costs of importation.  And those higher costs, of course, are eventually passed on to American consumers through higher import prices.

Thus, pursuant to the bi-partisan deal outlined above, the FTAs’ great import liberalization benefits will be immediately and tangibly undermined by new taxes on those very same imports (and others)!

…[I]t would [also] probably violate GATT Article VIII, which governs WTO Members’ imposition of “Fees and Formalities connected with Importation and Exportation” (in other words, customs fees).  The key provision of Article VIII reads:

1.(a) All fees and charges of whatever character (other than import and export duties and other than taxes within the purview of Article III) imposed by contracting parties on or in connection with importation or exportation shall be limited in amount to the approximate cost of services rendered and shall not represent an indirect protection to domestic products or a taxation of imports or exports for fiscal purposes.

WTO panels have interpreted this provision narrowly, and an old GATT panel has actually looked into the US system of customs users fees.  In these cases, the panels have ruled that Article VIII’s requirement that a customs fee be “limited in amount to the approximate cost of services rendered” is actually a “dual requirement,” because the charge in question must first involve a “service” rendered, and then the level of the charge must not exceed the approximate cost of that “service.”  They’ve also found that the term “services rendered” means “services rendered to the individual importer in question,” and that the fees cannot be imposed to raise revenue (i.e., for “fiscal purposes”).[emphasis in original]

Raising customs user fees for fiscal purposes may even go against U.S. law (subparagraph 9B of 19 U.S.C. chapter 1 ss58c).

It’s unclear how far this draft will advance at the “mock mark-up,” scheduled for Thursday afternoon in the Senate Finance Committee, as the ranking member of that committee, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), is one of the leading critics of trade adjustment assistance.  Senator Hatch has already sent out a press release opposing the inclusion of the TAA renewal in the Korea FTA implementing bill:

This highly-partisan decision to include TAA in the South Korean FTA implementing bill risks support for this critical job-creating trade pact in the name of a welfare program of questionable benefit at a time when our nation is broke. This is a clear breach of Trade Promotion Authority and threatens the ability of American exporters and job creators who stand to benefit from the largest bilateral trade agreement in more than a decade.  TAA should move through the Congress on its own merit and should stand up to rigorous Senate debate. President Obama should send up our pending trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and Korea and allow for a clean vote.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is also apparently critical of the decision to include the TAA renewal in the Korea legislation, preferring instead to consider it only in exchange for something new, i.e.,  a deal on fast track (or trade promotion) authority for further trade deals. As the American Enterprise Institute’s Phil Levy points out, “It is problematic to “buy” the [existing] FTAs with an expanded version of TAA, since those were already “purchased” as part of a May 10, 2007 deal.” [link added] The Republican House leadership is also keen to separate TAA from the FTA implementing bills, in contrast to the opinion and efforts of their colleague Representative Camp.  So the fight is far from over.

If you are interested in hearing more about the trade deals, and how TAA renewal fits in with their passage, Senator Hatch will be speaking at an event at the American Enterprise Institute on Thursday (just hours before the mock mark-up is scheduled to begin). Howard Rosen of the Peterson Institute for International Economics and yours truly will be debating the merits of TAA after Senator Hatch has spoken. More information on the event, including access to the streaming video, here.

*UPDATE: Contrary to what I suggested in my orginal post, Chairman Camp did not in fact join an announcement with the White House and Chairman Baucus about the trade deal Tuesday. He did issue a statement Tuesday evening indicating that although he finds it “regrettable that the White House has insisted on Trade Adjustment Assistance in return for passage of these job-creating agreements,” he has “been willing to work with the White House to find a bipartisan path forward on TAA in order to secure passage of the trade agreements.” So it appears he has agreed to the deal broadly, even if he was not formally part of the announcement, and is still reviewing the details. Chairman Camp’s full statement is available here.

Dirty Deal Done Not So Dirt Cheap is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Yesterday, the Senate Finance and House Energy & Commerce committees released a joint report on the costs that ObamaCare’s Medicaid mandate will impose on states.  That report, which is based on other reports, likely understates the cost of that unfunded mandate.

In a new Cato Working Paper, “Estimating ObamaCare’s Effect on State Medicaid Expenditure Growth,” senior fellow Jagadeesh Gokhale constructed cost projections for the five largest states — California, Florida, Illinois, New York, and Texas — which account for 40 percent of the nation’s population.  Gokhale carefully decomposed and organized micro-data and state-specific administrative data on Medicaid eligibility, enrollments, benefit recipiency, and average benefits per recipient.  Gokhale found much larger cost burdens than the committees’ projections.  

For example, Gokhale projects that ObamaCare will force Florida to spend an additional $20.4 billion between 2014 and 2023. That is almost double the committees’ estimate of an additional $12.9 billion in spending by Florida between 2013 to 2023.

Congressional Republicans May Be Understating the Cost of ObamaCare is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

I testified to the Senate Finance Committee today regarding taxes and small business. My testimony is posted here.

President Obama plans to raise the top two individual income tax rates. That will not be good for business or the economy. A little more than half of all business income in the United States is reported on individual returns, not corporate returns. Of the business income reported on individual returns, 44 percent is in the top two income tax brackets.

My testimony pointed out that while Congress cut the top individual rate by 5 percentage points this past decade, the average top rate in the 30 OECD countries also fell by 5 percentage points, as shown in the chart below.

If the top federal rate rises to 40 percent next year, the United States will have the ninth highest top individual rate in the OECD, including state-level taxes. We’ve already got the second-highest corporate tax rate in the OECD.

A nation that has been a relative bastion of market capitalism and individual achievement has a tax code that is becoming very hostile to high-earners, entrepreneurs, and businesses of all types.

Taxes and Small Business is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

My colleague Dan Griswold pointed out yesterday some unfortunate editing in the Washington Post. Here are a couple of other trade-related items in the news recently:

More Trade News is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

The New Republic‘s Jonathan Cohn reports that back in March, IMS Health projected slightly negative revenue growth for the pharmaceutical industry but recently changed that projection to 3.5-percent annual growth from 2008 through 2013.

“What changed?” Cohn asks. “A major factor, according to IMS, was the emerging details of health care reform . . . Put it all together, and you have more demand for name-brand drugs . . . enough to boost revenue significantly.” And:

“If this bill is implemented,” the report concludes on page 138, “an increase in prices on new drugs can be expected.”

How could this be happening?  Oh yeah:

That brings us back to the deal that the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America, which represents those companies, made with the White House and Senate Finance Committee . . .

The industry agreed to embrace health care reform and, later on, launched a massive advertising campaign to promote the cause. In exchange, the White House and Senate Finance–which had been asking various industries to pledge concessions that would help pay for the cost of coverage expansions–promised not to seek more than $80 in reduced payments to drug makers.

To an industry as big and profitable as the drug makers, giving up $80 billion over ten years wouldn’t seem like much of a sacrifice–a point critics started making right away. But if IMS is right, the drug industry wouldn’t even be giving up $80 billion, in any meaningful sense of the term. If anything, it’d be making more money. Maybe quite a lot of it.

Which is what I predicted, both here and here.

Cohn concludes, “the drug industry has enormous leverage in Congress.” But Cohn still supports the president’s health care takeover. Or is it PhRMA’s health care takeover?

ObamaCare’s ‘Sweetheart Deal’ for PhRMA is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

The fat lady hasn’t even started to warm up yet.

The narrow 220-215 victory in the House on Saturday night was a step forward on the road to a government takeover of the health care system.  But as close and dramatic as that vote was, that was the easy part.  The Senate must still pass its version of reform—which will not be the bill that just passed the House.  Nancy Pelosi was, after all, able to lose the votes of 39 moderate Democrats.  Harry Reid cannot afford to lose even one.  A conference committee must reconcile the two vastly different versions.  And then, Pelosi must hold together her 3 vote margin of victory (if it gets that far).  Yet several House Democrats who voted for the bill on Saturday said they did so only to “advance the process.” Their vote is far from guaranteed on final passage.  And, House liberals are almost certain to be disappointed by the more moderate bill that may emerge from the conference.

Among the more contentious issues:

Individual Mandate: This should’ve been low-hanging fruit. Democrats agreed on a mandate early in the process. But it became increasingly plain that a mandate would hit those with insurance as well as the uninsured — forcing people who are happy with their plan to switch to a different, possibly more expensive plan. With this mandate now being seen as a middle-class tax hike, qualms have developed.  The House bill contains a strict mandate, with penalties of 2.5 percent of income backed up by up to five years in jail.  The Senate Finance Committee, on the other hand, watered down the mandate’s penalties and delayed the mandates implementation.

Employer Mandate: The House bill also contains an employer mandate, a requirement that all but the smallest employers provide insurance to their workers or pay a penalty tax of up to 8 percent of payroll.  The Senate,  looking at unemployment rates over 10 percent, seems unlikely to include an employer mandate.

The Public Option: The House included, if not a “robust” public option, at least a semi-robust one.  But moderate Democrats in the Senate are clearly not on board.  Joe Lieberman (I-CT) says that he will join a Republican filibuster if the public option is included.  Harry Reid is trying various permutations: a trigger, an opt-in, an opt-out.  But as of now there is not 60 votes for any variation.

The Sheer Cost: Fiscal hawks like Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) say they will not support a bill that adds to the deficit or spends too much.  But the house bill cost a minimum of $1.2 trillion.

Taxes: The House plan to add a surtax on incomes of $500,000 or more a year has no support in the Senate. At the same time, the Senate plan to slap a 40 percent excise tax on “Cadillac” insurance plans is unacceptable to key Democratic constituencies like labor unions.

Abortion: Conservative Democrats insisted on a strict prohibition on the use of government funds for abortion.  The bill could not have passed without the inclusion of that provision.  House liberal swallowed hard and voted for the bill, despite what they called “a poison pill” anyway with the expectation that it will be removed later.  If the final bill includes the prohibition at least a couple liberals could defect.  If it doesn’t, conservative Democrats won’t be on board.

Immigration: The Senate Finance Committee included a provision barring illegal immigrants from purchasing insurance through the government-run Exchange.  The House Hispanic Caucus says that if that provision is in the final bill, they will vote against it.

As if these disagreements among Democrats wasn’t bad enough, public opinion is now turning against the bill.

President Obama has called for a bill to be on his desk before Christmas—the latest in a series of deadline that are so far unmet.  It is hard to see how Congress can meet this one either.  The Senate has not yet received CBO scoring of its bill and is not prepared to even begin debate until next week at the earliest.  That debate will last 3-4 weeks minimum, assuming there are 60 votes for cloture.  That means, the bill cant’ go to conference committee until mid-December, even if everything breaks the way Harry Reid wants.  Privately, Democrats are now suggesting late January, before the State of the Union address, is the best they can do.

The fat lady can go back to sleep—this isn’t over yet.

Health Care: Not Close to Over is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Just like the Senate Finance Committee’s government takeover, the House of Representatives’ government takeover hides more than half of its cost by pushing those costs off the government’s budget and onto the private sector.

So when Speaker Pelosi says the House bill would cost under $900 billion, what she actually means is that it would cost around $2.25 trillion.

Parsing Pelosi: House Health Takeover Would Cost around $2.25 Trillion is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Just days after the health-insurance lobby released a report criticizing the Senate Finance Committee’s health care overhaul (for not expanding government enough!), Democrats and President Barack Obama lashed out at health insurers, threatening to revoke what the Government Accountability Office calls the insurers’ “very limited exemption from the federal antitrust laws.”

Democrats say they’re motivated by the need to increase competition in health insurance markets.  Right.

According to Business Week:

David Hyman, a professor of law and medicine at the University of Illinois College of Law and adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute…considers it unlikely that repeal would fundamentally change the nature of the market. While it might increase competition in some markets, he says, it could actually decrease it in others, such as those where small insurers survive because they have access to larger providers’ data. Changes to the act could therefore hurt smaller companies more than larger ones, he says.

Because the act doesn’t outlaw the existence of a dominant provider but simply prohibits collusion, says Hyman, a repeal would fall short of breaking up existing market monopolies that are blamed for artificially inflating prices. The current move against [the] McCarran-Ferguson [Act], he says, “has more to do with the politics of pushing back against the insurance industry’s opposition to health reform than it does with increasing competition in health-insurance markets.”

Combined with what The New York Times described as the Obama administration’s “ham-handed” attempt to censor insurers who communicated with seniors about the effects of the president’s health plan — the Times editorialized: “the government’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had to stretch facts to the breaking point to make a weak case that the insurers were doing anything improper” — it’s hard to argue that this is anything but Democrats threatening to use the power of the state to punish dissidents.

When Republicans were in power, dissent was the highest form of patriotism.  Now that Democrats are in power, obedience is the highest form of patriotism.

Nice Insurance Company. Shame If Anything Were to Happen to It. is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

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Tuesday Links is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

The Senate Finance Committee votes today on Senator Max Baucus’ version of the health care bill. Cato health care experts have analyzed the bill thoroughly, and point out three vital components to the cost and reach of the legislation:

1) The real cost of the bill is in excess of $2 trillion.

Chairman Max Baucus hoodwinked the CBO with a number of clever budgetary gimmicks, most notably by keeping about half of the cost off the federal books. The bill also assumes Congress will make cuts to Medicare payments, which has never once happened before.

2) The bill contains an enormous middle-class tax hike.

The bill imposes a 40 percent excise tax on health insurance plans that offer benefits in excess of $8,000 for an individual plan and $21,000 for a family plan. Insurers would almost certainly pass this tax on to consumers via higher premiums. As inflation pushes insurance premiums higher in coming years, more and more middle-class families will find themselves caught up in the tax — providing the government with more revenue.

3) The bill creates a national ID program.

The bill contains a paragraph explicitly addressing “eligibility verification.” You must prove who you are to federal entitlement agencies in order to qualify for the bill’s “state exchanges” and tax credits. No ID, no benefits.

Three Irrefutable Facts About the Baucus Bill is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Thanks to the push for a more transparent Congress, we’re getting a better look at what new health care regulations might shape up to be. Alas, not a very good look: with weak justifications, the Senate Finance Committee is working on a strange “plain language” description of the bill, and apparently not planning to read or release the final language.

I’ve found something worth noting, though, in each of the bill versions I’ve seen. The Senate Finance Committee’s Rube Goldberg plan for health care in America has a provision establishing paragraph talking about “Eligibility Verification.”

If you want to access the “state exchanges” or collect the federal tax credits created by the bill, your eligibility will have to be verified. Here’s what it says:

Eligibility Verification. In order to prevent illegal immigrants from accessing the state exchanges or obtaining federal health care tax credits, the Chairman‘s Mark requires verification of the following personal data. Name, social security number, and date of birth will be verified with Social Security Administration (SSA) data. For individuals claiming to be U.S. citizens, if the claim of citizenship is consistent with SSA data then the claim will be considered substantiated. For individuals who do not claim to be U.S. citizens but claim to be lawfully present in the United States, if the claim of lawful presence is consistent with Department of Homeland Security (DHS) data then the claim will be considered substantiated. Individuals whose status is expected to expire in less than a year are not allowed to obtain the tax credit. Individuals whose claims of citizenship or lawful status cannot be verified with federal data must be allowed substantial opportunity to provide documentation or correct federal data related to their case that supports their contention.

Translation: Every American who wants to access a “state exchange” or get the tax credits in the bill would have to submit data about themselves to the Social Security Administration or Department of Homeland Security for verification. If you don’t do it, no exchanges or tax credits. If your data doesn’t match, no exchanges or tax credits, unless you can convince SSA or DHS bureaucrats that you are who you say you are.

Sound familiar? Then you probably read my Cato Policy Analysis “Electronic Employment Eligibility Verification: Franz Kafka’s Solution to Illegal Immigration.” The paper discusses how verification of immigration status for employment eligibility would plunge Americans into a Kafka-esque bureaucracy and deny many law-abiding Americans the ability to work. Ultimately, the system requires a national identification card.

The same goes with a health care “eligibility verification” system. If you’re one of the millions of people about whom the Social Security Administration has bad data, plan to spend long hours waiting in line to plead with indifferent federal bureaucrats for health care access. When attacks and complications on the verification system break it down, they’ll move to “strengthen” the system. Get ready to dig up your birth certificate—they’ll want to scan it into their computers—plan to be photographed and fingerprinted, and get ready to stand in line for your national ID card.

It was refreshing to see Joe Wilson heckle the president the other week—the president is our employee, after all—but in their enthusiasm to generate differences with President Obama, Republicans may be coalescing behind plans to push a national ID and federal background check system that all freedom-loving Americans should reject.

Senate Health Regulation Bill Includes National ID Plan is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

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Weekend Links is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

In my recent Cato paper, “All the President’s Mandates: Compulsory Health Insurance Is a Government Takeover,” I explain that if Congress compels Americans to purchase health insurance, it would “inevitably and unnecessarily open a new front in the abortion debate, one where either side—and possibly both sides—could lose.”

Slate‘s William Saletan explains how the pro-choice side could lose:

This week, the Senate finance committee is considering amendments that would bar coverage of abortions under federally subsidized health insurance. Pro-choice groups are up in arms. After all, says NARAL Pro-Choice America, “In the current insurance marketplace, private plans can choose whether to cover abortion care—and most do.” If Congress enacts subsidies that exclude abortion, “women could lose coverage for abortion care, even if their private health-insurance plan already covers it!“…

The argument these groups make is perfectly logical: If you standardize health insurance through federal subsidies and coverage requirements, people might lose benefits they used to enjoy in the private sector. But that’s more than an argument against excluding abortion. It’s an argument against health care reform altogether.

Saletan also explains why pro-life and pro-choice positions on Obama’s health plan are irreconcilable:

To get what they consider neutrality, pro-choicers have to make pro-lifers pay indirectly for abortions. And to keep what they consider clean hands, pro-lifers have to make abortion coverage federally unsupportable and therefore, in a subsidy-dependent system, commercially nonviable.

Rather than an argument against all health care reform, I’d say this is an argument against reforms that expand government subsidies or otherwise give government the power to choose what kind of insurance you purchase.  Fortunately, there are better ways to reform health care.

“Keep Your Subsidies off My Ovaries” is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

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Tuesday Links is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Will Americans get “quality time” with proposed health care legislation before it passes?

Some say no: The Senate Finance Committee recently turned back an effort to put Chairman Max Baucus’ bill online for 72 hours before the committee’s vote. The Committee is on the wrong side of history.

Transparency shifts power away from the center, so it’s favored by those out of power. It’s no wonder that Republican representative John Culberson, a member of the minority party, is putting H.R. 3400 (a significant health care bill) online for comment, using a tool called SharedBook.

Transparency won’t be a gift from government. It is something we have to take. That’s why I think the action lies in private efforts like OpenCongress, GovTrack, and (my own) WashingtonWatch.com. (Links are to sites’ H.R. 3400 pages.)

The public has a way of conforming their expectations to what’s possible, and transparent law-making is entirely possible today. Closed processes like the Senate Finance Committee’s consideration of health care legislation will not satisfy the public, and it will emerge from the committee with one strike against it irrespective of the merits.

Transparent Health Care Legislating? is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

As Michael Cannon discussed in an earlier post, the White House is trying to claim that health care “reform” does not mean higher taxes. This is a two-pronged issue. First, there is a mandate to purchase health insurance. Second, there is a tax (the White House calls it a fee) on people who fail to purchase a policy.

The White House claims this mandate is akin to state-level requirements for the purchase of health insurance, and that the newly-insured people will be getting some value (a health insurance policy) in exchange for their money. These assertions are defensible, but that does not change the fact that a tax is being imposed.

It might be plausible to argue that the mandate is not a tax if the value of the insurance policy to the individual was equal to the cost. But since these are people who are not buying policies, their behavior reveals that this obviously cannot be true. So this means that they will be worse off under Obama’s plan and that at least some of the cost should be considered a tax.

The Social Security payroll tax allows a good analogy. Labor economists correctly argue that the payroll tax functions, in part, as a “premium” for what can be considered a government-provided annuity. As such, when we try to measure the disincentive effect of the payroll tax, it is appropriate to include the perceived value of future Social Security benefits (for most Americans, especially with average or above-average incomes, the “rate of return” is very low or negative, so a substantial share of the payroll tax is a tax both in the legal sense and economic-distortion sense). The same is true of a mandatory health insurance policy (even if the money does not go through the government’s hands).

On the broader issue of paying money and getting something of value in return, another analogy is helpful. A share of the gasoline excise tax is used for road construction and maintenance. We all benefit from roads, even if we don’t drive (let’s set aside issues such as whether the benefits equal the costs, whether the federal government should be involved, etc). Does that somehow mean the gasoline excise tax is not a tax? Of course not.

Turning now to the excise tax, the Administration’s argument that this is a fee is even less defensible. The Baucus legislation in the Senate Finance Committee explicitly references an excise tax. Equally revealing (and even more ominous), the IRS is charged with collecting the fee. The White House can argue that the tax – in the economic sense – is lower than the fee if something of value is exchanged. But the tax is still there.

Rather than play games, the White House should make an open argument for bigger government. The fact that the Administration prefers to be deceptive says a lot about the underlying merits of their proposal.

The President’s Health Care Tax is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

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Thursday Links is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) has announced that he has reached agreement on scoring a series of options that will reduce the cost of his health care reform bill to just $1 trillion over the next 10 years. Whew. Now we can all rest easy.

Still, no agreement on the tax increases needed to pay that $1 trillion though.

Remember When $1 Trillion Was Real Money? is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog