Publications

It is important to grasp precisely what the proponents of the 1993 tax increase thought they were accomplishing, the logic behind their plan as well as what actually happened.

Would imposing price controls on drugs be good policy for the public, states and the nation?

At stake in this election is, among other things, the fate of almost $4.6 trillion in federal budget surpluses that the government expects to collect over the next ten years.

This Issue Brief compares the tax and spending plans of Al Gore and George Bush, and provides both static and dynamic forecasting of the economic effects of the candidates' proposals.

The September 2000 issue of IPI's 8-page, full-color newsletter, IPI Insights. This issue is devoted to the subject of education reform.

For over two years, the federal government has been pursuing antitrust action against Microsoft. Much heated debate has surrounded the case, most of it revolving around legal issues. But the broader ramifications for risk assessment, investor confidence and the general economy have been largely ignored.

The cloud hanging over Microsoft has already done serious damage to the economy. This IPI Issue Brief attempts to quantify the extent of the economic damage already done to the economy by the government's action against Microsoft.

The information economy forces us to throw out some old, outdated ideas (such as the Phillips curve, antitrust regimes, etc.) and consider new ideas for public policy, according to economist Michael Cox of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank, journalist James K. Glassman, and Majority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives Dick Armey (R-TX). IPI Center for Technology Freedom Director Bartlett Cleland moderated the event.

The March 2000 issue of IPI's newsletter, IPI Insights. Articles include "A Balanced View of the Debt," by Jude Wanniski, "A Penny Saved is a Penny Taxed," by Stephen J. Entin, and "Entering a Digital Decision: The Old Economy Wrestles with the New," by Bartlett Cleland. Available at this time in Adobe Acrobat PDF format only.

Ronald Reagan characterized politicians’ natural predisposition as, “if it moves, tax it; if it keeps moving, regulate it; and if it stops moving, subsidize it.” The Reagan dictum still holds, it seems, even if “it” moves in data packets at the speed of light. Today politicians at virtually every level of government are looking for ways to tax the Internet.

The Internet has quickly become the defining element of the last decade of the 20th Cen-tury.
Whether the Internet continues to be the driving force behind the economy, educa-tion
and even culture in the next century depends to a large extent on what policies,
regulations and taxes —if any —Congress and the states impose on the new medium.

While deciding not to tax the Internet raises several problems, so does imposing a tax.
How will businesses ensure the privacy of purchasers? Would government keep a record
of those purchases? Would an Internet sales tax slow the growth in e-commerce, and
would e-tailers flee U.S. shores in order to avoid the tax?

IPI's quarterly review and commentary of economic data, this issue covering the 4th quarter of 1999. This issue focuses on comparing the current and now-longest economic expansion in history with the second-longest--the 1960s. The current recovery is compared with the 1960s by a number of criteria. The conclusion is that the current recovery, while longer, has still not packed the punch of the recovery of the 1960s. And the current tax burden, much higher than that of the 1960s, is one factor that could potentially sink this current economic expansion.