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COMMENTARIES

The Case for I Bonds

The Case for I Bonds

Right now, the interest rate adjusted for inflation on government securities is negative. Today’s yields on TIPS (Treasury Inflation Protected Securities) are minus 1.81 percent out five years and minus 0.21 percent out 30 years. But Series I Saving Bonds issued by the US Treasury are offering a real rate of interest of zero fixed for 30 years. You can invest up to $10,000. You don’t receive interest until you cash in the bonds. And you don’t have to ay taxes on inflation-generated returns.

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A Smarter and Fairer Student Loan Fix

A Smarter and Fairer Student Loan Fix

A far better, fairer and simpler student-loan reform is available. It lets students, as well as their parents, borrow at the government’s long-term Treasury bond rate. The current rate is 1.85 per cent. College students face a 2.75 per cent borrowing rate, graduate and professional students face a 4.30 per cent rate, and parents, who borrow to help finance their children’s education, face a 5.30 per cent rate. Hence, this proposal, which would permit federal and private loans to be refinanced federally at the prevailing 30-year rate, would substantially lower the cost of borrowing for higher education.

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Why Trump lost the Election: Health Care

Why Trump lost the Election: Health Care

The editors of the Wall Street Journal, the editor of National Review (Rich Lowry) and John Goodman all agree: Trump didn’t endorse the plan outlined by Goodman and Heritage Foundation scholar, Marie Fishpaw.… Oops…. Trump actually did the things Goodman and Fishpaw recommended, including allowing people to talk to their doctors by phone, email, and Skype; allowing employees to have access to 24/7 primary care as an alternative to the emergency room, and allowing employer-provided health insurance to be personal and portable. But Trump never talked about any of this. So, he didn’t get credit for any of it.

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Tax Reform on the Ballot in Georgia

Tax Reform on the Ballot in Georgia

A new study of the 2017 federal tax cuts has found that, although controversial when adopted, the tax reform law will lead to lower taxes and higher wages as the average Georgia household will enjoy more than $39,000 in economic benefits over their lifetime. That’s the conclusion of a new study by Boston University professor Laurence Kotlikoff and funded by the Goodman Institute for Public Policy Research. An earlier study by Kotlikoff and economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta estimated the gain at $22,676 because of personal income tax cuts. The new study adds the impact of lower corporate taxes.

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Four years of Argument Ad Hominem

Four years of Argument Ad Hominem

Donald Trump is probably the most consequential president of our lifetime. Yet in the four years of his presidency, I can recall very few instances where one of his major policy changes was rationally discussed on the editorial pages of the New York Times. Instead, it’s been four years of a steady stream of name calling. 

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Q & A on the Labor Market

Q & A on the Labor Market

Finance and accounting are probably the easiest health care services to outsource. But the potential list is growing. It’s estimated that one-third of all physician visits could be replaced by consultations using Zoom, Skype or Facebook – and the incidence of such remote consultations is soaring.

In the future, your doctor could be in India. So could your accountant, your lawyer and dozens of others who produce goods and services you consume.

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Worthless Heirs

Worthless Heirs

According to The New York Times article “Silver-Spoon Socialists,” there are legions of young people who want to use their trust fund money to destroy the very system that made their trust fund possible: capitalism. The Democratic Socialists of America has recently been transformed from a fringe group of older leftists to a national organization 100,000 strong – with most of its members under 35 years of age – according to the article. 

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Bipartisan Health Reform

Bipartisan Health Reform

Avik Roy’s think tank, the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP), has produced a health reform proposal that has been introduced as a bipartisan bill in Congress. There is a lot of overlap with proposals you will find in the document (endorsed by more thatn 70 representatives of think tanks and public policy organization) and many of these ideas are being implemented buy the Trump administration.

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Q & A on Prescription Drugs

Q & A on Prescription Drugs

Until recently, every patient with the coronavirus in the United States for the past ten months has been treated with a non-approved drug. What allows doctors to do this? They have always been able to do it.

In medicine, the use of non-approved drugs is ubiquitous. In fact, medical science couldn’t progress without it. In treating a patient with a brand-new condition (like Covid), for example, doctors often experiment with drugs that have worked for related conditions. They compare notes. They trade data on outcomes. They discard less-promising therapies for more promising therapies – in a trial and error process.

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Joe Biden’s Tax Plan

Joe Biden’s Tax Plan

The long-run loss to the US capital stock is roughly 6 percent and the long-run decline in output is roughly 2 percent. We predict a roughly 2 percentage-point reduction in wages of US workers, with a larger reduction in the wages of high-skilled workers. Changes of this magnitude could significantly offset the micro gains to low-wage and middle-wage workers of Biden’s fiscal reforms. 

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