Publications

Remember the tax revolt that ushered in the age of Ronald Reagan: Proposition 13 in California.

There’s yet another poll by the Associated Press that purports to show that most Americans want higher taxes.

The Social Security Personal Savings and Prosperity Act of 2004 has been introduced by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). The bill closely follows the proposal authored by IPI Senior Fellow Peter Ferrara, published by IPI in June of 2003. The bill's reforms would ultimately provide for a dramatic increase in the personal prosperity of working people in America. It would be the most sweeping change in America's social and economic policy since the New Deal.

Supporters of parallel trade in pharmaceuticals argue that it lowers prices, which is popular with consumers and cash-strapped governments. But, in fact, parallel trade reduces safety, since it represents an end-run around domestic inspection procedures. More importantly, re-importation undermines intellectual property protection and hence incentives to invest in research and development of IP-based products, which will have ominous implications for consumers in the long run

Dr. Mark McClellan, former commissioner of the FDA, has claimed that other countries are not paying their fair share of pharmaceutical R&D costs. A look at the data shows that Dr. McClellan was right. Most OECD countries pay significantly less for drugs than do U.S. consumers, even when accounting for the difference in purchasing power. If other countries want to reinvigorate their pharmaceutical R&D sectors, they have to be willing to relax their price controls and let markets work.

Escalating federal spending presents a real and present danger to the fiscal health of the nation. The solution to bringing congressional budgeting back under control is personal retirement accounts. They would provide a built-in mechanism to control federal spending, pay off the national debt, eliminate the long-run unfunded liability of Social Security, keep the trust funds perpetually solvent, and boost economic growth

Conspicuously absent from the presidential campaign is any mention of Social Security and Medicare.

The enormous benefits of Social Security reform involving large personal accounts is quite achievable, as is the proposed transition financing. A manageable amount of debt would be issued in the early years and paid off during the course of the reform. The reform plan would promote modest restraint in the growth of other federal spending, and should produce significant revenue feedback effects.

The reimportation of prescription drugs is being pushed not only by big government regulators but also by misguided free market advocates. The result: the effective imposition of foreign price controls on U.S. drug markets and the further erosion of genuine competition. But the cost could be worse than money. Governments that control drug prices routinely sacrifice their people's health in order to save money.

When Ronald Reagan uttered those words in 1980, he was talking about the Democratic incumbent and rival for the presidency, Jimmy Carter.