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E21 Asks: Federal Minimum Wage
Last week, we asked e21 readers about their preferred level of the minimum wage. ”None, it should left to the states” was the overwhelming favorite and received 60 percent of the vote. The next most...
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Beyond the Spin: Why it’s Terrible News that the ACA Lowers Employment
On February 4, 2014, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report that instantly became a focus of intense controversy and competing political spin. The report found that the Affordable Care...
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The ACA Lowers Employment, and that's Terrible News
On February 4, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report that instantly became a focus of intense controversy. The report found that the Affordable Care Act (ACA or “Obamacare”) would...
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The Persistent—if Insufficient—American Dream
The intuition that if something is bad it used to be better is completely understandable, but in the case of social mobility, it is probably wrong. Even before a deservedly lauded study by Harvard...
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Save Ukraine by Exporting Natural Gas
A prescient House Energy and Commerce Committee report released last month, just in time for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, suggested that "by becoming a natural gas exporter, the U.S. can supplant the...
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Fracking Saves Water?
A common criticism of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is that it wastes water. Los Angeles just became the largest U.S. city to vote to ban fracking. One of the main justifications was water...
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The War on Paul Ryan
On March 3, 2014 House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan released a report that was essentially an extensive literature survey on the efficacy of federal anti-poverty programs. The report has...
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How to Punish Putin Without Spending a Dime
With Russia solidifying its hold on the Crimean region of Ukraine, America can help the Ukraine—and its own economy—by increasing exports of natural gas. This would hit Russia in the pocketbook and...
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Is Chairman Harkin Exploiting His Unpaid Staff?
Reasonable people might assume that legislators who support raising the federal minimum wage would pay their employees the current minimum wage of $7.25 or their proposed wage of $10.10. But, once...
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Taxing Carried Interest Discourages Investment
President Obama’s proposal to tax certain returns on investments, known as “carried interest,” as ordinary income would raise taxes on some investment partnerships. It would bring in $14 billion over...
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e21 Asks: Comprehensive Tax Reform
Last week we asked e21 readers whether they supported House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp’s tax reform proposal. Camp’s bill would simplify income tax brackets down to three from seven....
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Labor Force Decline Driven by Young, Middle-Aged Workers
Over the past seven years, the civilian labor force participation rate has steadily declined. As of February, the rate stood at 63.0 percent, the same level as 1978 (before the economic boom and...
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What the President's Budget Reveals
While not every president's budget is relevant to policymaking, most budgets do say something about the priorities and governing philosophy of the administration putting it together. The Obama...
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Unions Conclude Obamacare Will Make Inequality Worse
A new report from the union UNITE HERE, entitled The Irony of Obamacare: Making Inequality Worse, concludes that the Affordable Care Act will increase inequality because low-income Americans will have...
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Immigrants Don’t Take Jobs, They Make Them
A new National Bureau of Economic Research working paper finds that, out of several possible immigration reforms, increasing the legalization rate for immigrants would create the most jobs. Conversely,...
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Reconfiguring the Fed’s Forward Guidance
The Federal Open Market Committee has an explicit, two percent U.S. inflation target. That announcement, made in January 2012, promises that the monetary policy mistakes of the 1970s will never be...
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America Trumps OECD in Dividend Taxation
New data from the nonpartisan Tax Foundation show America’s average combined state and federal tax rate on personal dividend income is 28.6 percent. Seven states have no dividend income tax at all, but...
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Let’s Raise a Glass to Ireland’s Corporate Tax Rate
Rather than wearing green ties for St. Patrick's Day, how about we copy Ireland's tax system?The top U.S. combined state and federal corporate tax rate is 39 percent—50 percent higher than the OECD...
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Keystone XL Pipeline Delays: Don’t Blame Canada
Here at Canada’s University of Calgary, the world’s premier pipeline research center, the disadvantages of blocking the Keystone XL pipelines are obvious.If President Obama does not approve Keystone...
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e21 Asks: Privatizing or Eliminating Government Programs
This week, we gave readers four choices of government programs, and asked them to pick one to eliminate or privatize. The Department of Education was the most popular candidate for elimination,...
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