Saving the American Dream is the one plan that will balance America’s budget—once and for all. From entitlements to tax reform to government spending, it tackles the big problems. Together, we can change the status quo in Washington.
The American welfare state is not as different from the European welfare state as conventional wisdom would have it. If we define the welfare state as that part of the state (the whole apparatus of government at all levels) devoted to taking charge of the welfare of the public, welfare-state functions cover social protection (which includes public pensions), health, and education. As shown in Table 1, these functions make up 57 percent of total U.S. government expenditures compared to 63 percent for the typical eurozone country.1 In this sense, the American welfare state is only about 10 percent smaller than the European welfare state.
Margaret Thatcher once quipped about the problem facing modern social welfare states: “They always run out of other people’s money.” Today, in country after country, we are seeing that prophetic remark coming true.
Country Rankings: World & Global Economy
2013 World Economic Freedom Levels: Heat Map
This paper is one of three in a series on higher education costs. The series also includes “Addressing the declining productivity of higher education using cost-effectiveness analysis” and “Public policies, prices, and productivity in American higher education.”
How to contain the cost of colleges and universities is attracting much attention in higher education policy circles. The reasons for the attention are not hard to fathom. Students and parents labor under ever-rising tuition rates. Schools feel they must spend more in real terms to build or protect their brand, by boosting faculty research and scholarship, enhancing the student experience, and so on. And to round out the perfect storm, most states are curbing higher education appropriations because of rising budget pressures.
Most of the time, police protect us, keep us safe, and enforce law and order. However, sometimes they break the law—whether it’s a hungry cop pulling a gun on a McDonald’s customer, trigger-happy officers shooting people’s pets, or Texas police pulling over women to perform roadside cavity searches.
Advocates of central bank reform must examine why central banks emerged and what forces sustain them. They did not arise in an institutional vacuum, and will not be reformed in an institutional vacuum. The historical origins of central banks explain how they came into existence. The forces sustaining and feeding their growth may differ from those explaining their origin.
Plans to abolish central banks constitute an extreme reform. It is doubtful that such plans can succeed without broader institutional change, occurring either first or simultaneously. That is likely true regardless of the strength of evidence on central bank performance. I examine these issues in what follows.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFO1AtjoUoo?feature=player_embedded] Brigitte Gabriel, an outspoken Lebanese national,
Introduction
Proponents of same-sex marriage often argue that not recognizing same-sex unions is unfair because many federal and state laws treat married couples as a unit. One example is tax law: a married couple can file a joint tax return and pay taxes on the spouses’ combined income.
Abstract Regulatory burdens on Americans increased by nearly
