Publications

In this paper, economists Gary and Aldona Robbins describe in detail their dynamic revenue estimation model, and demonstrate several simulations to compare how dynamic analysis differs from static analysis. This paper is part of a project demonstrating ways that government estimators can build elements of dynamic analysis into their forecasting models, and contains an introduction by Senator John Ashcroft, and Rep. Tom Campbell.

President Clinton has proposed a 2-year, $1,500 per year refundable tuition tax credit for the first two years of post-secondary education. But for every new student drawn to postsecondary education, the President's proposal would spend $51,500. Because already today, over 62 percent of all high school graduates go to college, and because tuition rates have risen in correspondence to the increase in federal student aid, the President's proposal is at least an inefficient expenditure of taxpayer funds.

The Institute for Policy Innovation and the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution asked leading experts on government regulation for examples of the worst government regulations. The result is a rogue's gallery of the worst examples of government regulation based on pork politics, bad science, bureacratic inefficiency, and invasion of privacy. All are candidates for the newly-instituted Corrections Day calendar.

In recent months the news has been filled with reports of sluggish economic growth and the problems such inadequate growth causes, such as declining personal income, corporate layoffs, etc. But how did the economy get in this shape, and is there anything we can do about it? In this report economist Stephen Moore documents the change in fiscal policy that has taken place under Presidents Bush and Clinton, and contrasts the results of this change with the economic results experienced during the 1980s under President Reagan. The result is a strong case for a return to the supply-side policies of the 1980s.

Support is growing among the American public for far-reaching tax reform, but which plan? The National Sales Tax? The Flat Tax? Or the USA Tax? This report computes the tax bases of each type of tax reform, and from there determines what tax rates are necessary to make each plan revenue-neutral under the traditional static analysis employed by government forecasters. The results may surprise you.

In a previous report (#131), we showed that the recent decline in America's saving rate is tied to the tax treatment of capital. In this report, we show that a similar relationship exists between business capital formation and the tax treatment of new investment.The results of this study have clear implications for tax policy and the tax reform debate. The evidence suggests that lowering taxes on capital may produce enough positive economic effects to offset most or all of the static revenue loss. Unfortunately, the current practice of government revenue estimators is to deny that any relationship exists between the aftertax return to capital and capital formation. Unless this practice is corrected, the outcome of the upcoming tax reform debate will produce unintended consequences and missed opportunities for the economy and the budget.

This report is the first step in a long project of making the case that in order to stimulate the economy through increased saving and investment, that United States should change its tax policy to remove the penalties on saving and investment. In ohter words, to move toward the taxation of consumption. This report is chock full of data, tables, and formulas, and the data is available in a Lotus spreadsheet on the File Download Page of this Web site (see table of contents).

Government-Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) such as Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Sallie Mae, and the Federal Home Loan Banks comprise a federal taxpayer liability of about $1.5 trillion dollars. It is time to begin privatizing these GSEs, because nearly all financial services provided today by GSEs are also available from effective private competitors without the taxpayer risk.

The House and Senate welfare reform bills represent a change from the status quo and a move in the right direction, while the Clinton plan represents more of the same failed Federal programs. This report analyzes the House, Senate, and Clinton proposals in light of the following criteria, and scores each proposal on a scale from -2 to +2: Total Expenditures, Work Requirements, Program Coverage, Time Limits on Benefits, Fail-Safe Provisions, Treatment of Entitlements, Additional Incentives, Shifting Power to the States, and Other Aspects.

In only six short years, the Social Security trust fund has lost $8.8 trillion, or three-fourths of its projected balance. This study explains what happened, and what we can do about it.