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32. Ending Congestion by Refinancing Highways
- Author:
- Randal O'Toole
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Cato Institute
- Abstract:
- Although gasoline taxes have long been the main source of funding for building, maintaining, and operating America's network of highways, roads, and streets, the tax is at best an imperfect user fee. As such, Congress and the states should take action to transition from gas taxes to more efficient vehicle-mile fees.
- Topic:
- Economics, Government, Communications, and Infrastructure
- Political Geography:
- United States
33. The American Welfare State: How We Spend Nearly $1 Trillion a Year Fighting Poverty—And Fail
- Author:
- Michael Tanner
- Publication Date:
- 04-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Cato Institute
- Abstract:
- News that the poverty rate has risen to 15.1 percent of Americans, the highest level in nearly a decade, has set off a predictable round of calls for increased government spending on social welfare programs. Yet this year the federal government will spend more than $668 billion on at least 126 different programs to fight poverty. And that does not even begin to count welfare spending by state and local governments, which adds $284 billion to that figure. In total, the United States spends nearly $1 trillion every year to fight poverty. That amounts to $20,610 for every poor person in America, or $61,830 per poor family of three.
- Topic:
- Economics, Government, and Poverty
- Political Geography:
- United States and America
34. What Made the Financial Crisis Systemic?
- Author:
- Patric H. Hendershott and Kevin Villani
- Publication Date:
- 03-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Cato Institute
- Abstract:
- The current narrative regarding the 2008 systemic financial system collapse is that numerous seemingly unrelated events occurred in unregulated or underregulated markets, requiring widespread bailouts of actors across the financial spectrum, from mortgage borrowers to investors in money market funds. The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, created by the U.S. Congress to investigate the causes of the crisis, promotes this politically convenient narrative, and the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act operationalizes it by completing the progressive extension of federal protection and regulation of banking and finance that began in the 1930s so that it now covers virtually all financial activities, including hedge funds and proprietary trading. The Dodd-Frank Act further charges the newly created Financial Stability Oversight Council, made up of politicians, bureaucrats, and university professors, with preventing a subsequent systemic crisis.
- Topic:
- Economics, Government, Markets, Global Recession, and Financial Crisis
- Political Geography:
- United States
35. The Virtues of Free Markets
- Author:
- Mark A. Zupan
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Cato Journal
- Institution:
- The Cato Institute
- Abstract:
- Free markets have many virtues. Arguably, the most recognized is the expansion of individual choice—and thus freedom—through mutually beneficial exchange (see Bauer's definition of economic development in Dorn 2002: 356). This proposition is at the heart of the enduring impact of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations ([1776] 1937) which aptly spells out the benefits of the Invisible Hand for citizens and societies.
- Topic:
- Government
36. The Impact of Ohio's EdChoice on Traditional Public School Performance
- Author:
- Matthew Carr
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Cato Journal
- Institution:
- The Cato Institute
- Abstract:
- Over the course of the last 35 years, traditional public school student achievement in the United States has been stagnant, despite myriad reform efforts and a doubling in total expenditures on K–12 education (Ravitch 2000, Hanushek 1986, Greene 2005). The ramifications of this academic achievement plateau on human capital development and thus the country's global economic standing are of paramount importance (Heckman and Masterov 2007). Thus, one of the most important public policy questions that government and society faces is how to improve the academic performance and quality of the nation's public education system.
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- United States
37. Honest Money
- Author:
- Jerry L. Jordan
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Cato Journal
- Institution:
- The Cato Institute
- Abstract:
- This article addresses some of the recent proposals for the conduct of monetary policies in the post-bubble environment. Advocacy of higher inflation targets is analyzed, and the challenge of maintaining monetary discipline in the face of massive fiscal deficits and mounting government debts is presented. Proposals for reforms of monetary arrangements must be based on consensus regarding the objectives of such reforms. The article concludes with some suggestions for near- and intermediate-term changes to present arrangements, as well as ideas for longer-term reforms.
- Topic:
- Government and Reform
- Political Geography:
- Canada
38. Robust Political Economy: Classical Liberalism and the Future of Public Policy
- Author:
- Richard L. Gordon
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Cato Journal
- Institution:
- The Cato Institute
- Abstract:
- Pennington undertakes a needed effort to provide a systematic, analytic critique of recent efforts to discredit what he terms “classical liberal economics.” His is effectively the standard but hard-to-sell proposition that prescient impartial counselors—Plato's philosopher kings—have failed to emerge from the development of modern knowledge. In particular, Pennington makes good use of Hayek's radical contrast between the competitive testing of concepts in a spontaneous market order and the construction of solutions by government monopolies. As Pennington's conclusions nicely summarize, skepticism of limited government is high and fostered by those who are seeking rents from intervention. Thus, ideas that committed libertarians see as obviously absurd need systematic debunking for a broader audience. Pennington, therefore, pretends that he is treating serious arguments and confronts them respectfully.
- Topic:
- Government and Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- United States
39. Social Security's Financial Outlook and Reforms: An Independent Evaluation
- Author:
- Jagadeesh Gokhale
- Publication Date:
- 10-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Cato Institute
- Abstract:
- Social Security is often described as a "foundational" element of the nation's social safety net. Almost all Americans are directly affected by the program and many millions primarily depend on its benefits for supporting themselves during retirement. But the program's financial condition has worsened considerably since the last recession, which began in 2007. In that year, the Social Security trustees estimated that the program's trust fund would be exhausted by 2042. The trustees' annual report for 2011 brings the trust fund exhaustion date forward to 2038. Indeed, the programs revenues fell short of its benefit expenditures in 2010 and it appears unlikely that significant surpluses will emerge again under the program's current rules. If the program's finances continue to worsen at this rate, it won't be long before the debate on reforming the program assumes an urgency and intensity similar to that during 1982-83, when imminent insolvency forced lawmakers to implement payroll tax increases and scale back its benefits.
- Topic:
- Economics, Government, and Human Welfare
- Political Geography:
- America and Ethiopia
40. The Case for Gridlock
- Author:
- Marcus E. Ethridge
- Publication Date:
- 01-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Cato Institute
- Abstract:
- In the wake of the 2010 elections, President Obama declared that voters did not give a mandate to gridlock. His statement reflects over a century of Progressive hostility to the inefficient and slow system of government created by the American Framers. Convinced that the government created by the Constitution frustrates their goals, Progressives have long sought ways around its checks and balances. Perhaps the most important of their methods is delegating power to administrative agencies, an arrangement that greatly transformed U.S. government during and after the New Deal. For generations, Progressives have supported the false premise that administrative action in the hands of experts will realize the public interest more effectively than the constitutional system and its multiple vetoes over policy changes. The political effect of empowering the administrative state has been quite different: it fosters policies that reflect the interests of those with well organized power. A large and growing body of evidence makes it clear that the public interest is most secure when governmental institutions are inefficient decisionmakers. An arrangement that brings diverse interests into a complex, sluggish decisionmaking process is generally unattractive to special interests. Gridlock also neutralizes some political benefits that producer groups and other well-heeled interests inherently enjoy. By fostering gridlock, the U.S. Constitution increases the likelihood that policies will reflect broad, unorganized interests instead of the interests of narrow, organized groups.
- Topic:
- Democratization, Government, Politics, Power Politics, and Governance
- Political Geography:
- United States and America