I’ve wondered why state governors and legislators haven’t been more vocal opponents of the healthcare reforms being drawn up in Washington.  All these proposals would put huge financial burdens on the states.
I haven’t seen much in the news until this article appeared, reporting that two Florida state senators are proposing that the state examine dropping [...]

In Newsweek, November 16, 2009, p. 20, Fareed Zakaria says, “There are two general health-care crises in America — one involving coverage and the other cost.  The Obama plan appears likely to tackle the first but not the second.  This is bad economics but also bad politics: the crisis of cost affects 85 percent of [...]

Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) was asked “Specifically where in the Constitution does Congress get its authority to mandate that individuals purchase health insurance?”  He couldn’t cite a specific section, but noted that Congress has required individuals to do lots of things in the past.
As a practical matter, Senator Reed is right.
Originally, the Constitution created a [...]

I’ve subscribed to Newsweek for more than 30 years.  I started subscribing in the 1970s, partly because I wanted a magazine that summarized the week’s news (plenty of choices there) and partly because Newsweek ran a monthly column by Milton Friedman.
When I started subscribing I didn’t notice what some might call a liberal bias in [...]

John Stossel (who’s leaving ABC to join the Fox Business Network) gave a well-received talk at my university yesterday titled “Freedom and Its Enemies.”  Several times during the talk he referred to himself as a libertarian.
Sometimes the libertarian label seems like a liability for people who are both (1) serious about substantially reducing the scope [...]

As Congress debates the merits of the “public option” for health insurance, we might look at Florida for some experience, because Florida has had a public option for years, not for health insurance but for property insurance.
After Hurricane Andrew hit Florida in 1992 some Floridians were having difficulty purchasing homeowners’ insurance.  (The reason: rates are [...]

The United States enacted its minimum wage law in 1938.  It didn’t cover all workers, and still doesn’t, but establishes a policy that in some cases government should abridge people’s freedom of contract to mandate a wage different from the one people might agree upon.  The “principle” appears to be that some wage levels are [...]

Leon County, Florida, where I live, is selling carbon credits for methane gas it is burning from the county landfill, going part-way into turning our garbage into cash.  Here’s the story (facts come from the local paper, the Tallahassee Democrat, October 19, page 3A).
Because of complaints of nearby residents of odors coming from the landfill, [...]

With so much press coverage of the Nobel Peace Prize, the Nobel Prize in economics has not been discussed much.  I am an economist, but I’m not really complaining.  The other prizes haven’t received much press coverage either, and most people don’t have that much interest in economics anyway.  (That’s not to say they’re not [...]

The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) is a year old now.  On September 19, 2008, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced the need for a $700 billion program to purchase toxic assets held by banks to prevent a financial meltdown, and after some modification TARP was rapidly approved by Congress on October 3.  Looking back after [...]