The State Budget Squeeze
Low revenues and high costs plunge states into crisis
On the Newsstand:taxpayers
E.U.: Vacationing a Human Right
In a bold step intended to reduce poverty, the European Union will soon be providing some of the Continent’s poorest citizens with subsidized plane tickets and hotel rooms. The Toronto-based National Post reported on Monday that the European Union has declared traveling for tourism a human right, and is launching a scheme to subsidize vacations with taxpayer money for those ... Read More
The Problem with Bankers’ Pay
Exorbitant compensation threatens the stability of the banking system
Shovel-Ready Spaceflight
Obama neglects the best stimulus of all: space exploration In the past few months President Obama has proposed hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending to lift the United States out of the recession. Employing arguably the most talented engineers and scientists and involving the most cutting-edge research, spaceflight is one of the very best ways in which Obama ... Read More
A Fatter or Skinnier Fed?
Below is a piece on financial regulation from HPR alum Rahul Prabhakar ’09. Rahul is now a Fellow at the Glover Park Group in Washington D.C. ——————————————————————————————————————- Over the past month, the U.S. Congress has held a series of hearings to debate the Obama Administration’s proposal to overhaul the American financial regulatory structure. The fates of the SEC, CFTC, and ... Read More
Congestion Pricing
The future of urban transportation While Washington debates the economic mayhem surrounding bailouts and foreclosures, a more mundane phenomenon quietly imposes tremendous economic costs on America’s urban areas: traffic jams. The Texas Transportation Institute estimates that urban traffic congestion causes a $78 billion annual drain on the economy, in the form of 4.2 billion lost hours and 2.9 billion gallons ... Read More
The Incentives of Proposing Tax Cuts for the Very Rich
Reading today’s New York Times editorial on the Lincoln-Kyl proposal to cut estate taxes to the tune of $250 billion, I wondered about what kind of reward these politicians hope to get for their sponsorship of such a plan. According to CNN, Arizona (from which Sen. Kyl hails) had more foreclosures in the first two months of 2009 than every ... Read More
Rescuing Finance
Does the federal government have too free a hand? In 1792, the United States faced a financial crisis as the price of government bonds plummeted nearly 25% in a two-week span. Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton acted quickly, buying hundreds of thousands of dollars of government bonds and asking banks to accept bonds as collateral for their loans. As a result ... Read More
The Future of Energy Policy
The prospects for Obama's energy plan
