Power Corrupts
Wednesday May 22, 2013 | Randall Holcombe

At one time, President Obama noted similarities between his presidency and Ronald Reagan’s, but these days it seems his administration is more often compared with Nixon’s. The Benghazi coverup, followed by the IRS scandal that targeted right wing groups, followed by the revelation that the Department of Justice seized the telephone records of Associated...
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Six Billion Physician Fees
Wednesday May 22, 2013 | John C. Goodman

Even though prices don’t have the same meaning in the medical marketplace that they do in other markets, they still have the power to influence provider behavior. Take Medicare, which has a list of some 7,500 separate tasks it pays physicians to perform. For each task, there is a price that varies according to...
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Healthcare and the Cost of Non-Price Rationing
Monday May 20, 2013 | John C. Goodman

The orthodox approach to health policy is obsessively focused on the burdens of price barriers to care, and at the same time inordinately oblivious to the burdens of non-price barriers. Yet non-price barriers to care can be very costly. This is an important point that dooms many healthcare proposals, as I explain in my...
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Stupid Regulations
Friday May 17, 2013 | Randall Holcombe

I received a postcard in yesterday’s mail. The first paragraph reads: “The City of Tallahassee’s Office of Cross-Connection Control monitors actual or potential backflow via cross connections with non-approved water sources. We are committed to the quality of water delivered to our customers, and your drinking water remains clean and free of contaminants [sic]....
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Healthcare and the Poor: Why Money Works Better than Waiting
Wednesday May 15, 2013 | John C. Goodman

What I call health policy orthodoxy is committed to two propositions: (1) The really important health issue for poor people is access to care, and (2) to ensure access, waiting for care is always better than paying for care. In other words, if you have to ration scarce medical resources somehow, rationing by waiting...
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Why Government Shouldn’t Build Things (Part 3)
Monday May 13, 2013 | Mary Theroux

I had earlier posted about the SNAFUed boondoggle also known as the Eastern span of the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge (here and here), but the bad news just keeps rolling in. Yesterday it was revealed that the tower supporting the entire self-anchored suspension bridge rests on bolts that are likely to fail, causing the...
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No Longer Fruitcakes. . .
Monday May 13, 2013 | Alvaro Vargas Llosa

Barring legal maneuvers, a fringe party becomes part of a country’s mainstream politics for one of two reasons: because it sheds or conceals its extravagant views or because mainstream politics shifts in such a way as to make it relevant. The UK Independence Party, which won an average of 25 percent of the vote...
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Bonuses for Top 1% Bureaucrats?
Thursday May 23, 2013 | Craig Eyermann

Did you know that the top-level bureaucrats who are doing the most to increase the negative impact of federal government spending cuts to the American people are in line to get big bonuses this year? Lindsay Wise of the McClatchy News Service reports: An elite group of federal employees is set to receive cash...
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Why “s— happens” with government
Wednesday May 22, 2013 | K. Lloyd Billingsley

“Look, s— happens.” That was California governor Jerry Brown, a former candidate for President of the United States, responding to reports of faulty bolts and rods on the new span of the Bay Bridge linking Oakland and San Francisco. The governor didn’t get into why, exactly, all that happened, but it’s worth a look....
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“Customer Service” at the IRS?
Monday May 20, 2013 | K. Lloyd Billingsley

On May 17 outgoing IRS boss Steven Miller – president Obama fired him but he was going to resign anyway – testified to the House Ways and Means Committee about his agency’s campaign to target conservative groups seeking non-profit status. Mr. Miller contended that he did not mislead Congress or the American people. He...
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Hitting the Debt Ceiling
Sunday May 19, 2013 | Craig Eyermann

On this Sunday, May 19, 2013, the U.S. federal government will metaphorically max out its credit card. Jeffrey Sparshott of the Wall Street Journal‘s Real Time Economics blog reports: The U.S. government will bump up against the federal debt limit this weekend, though a series of emergency steps will allow it to continue paying...
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Feds Apply Full Court Press
Friday May 17, 2013 | K. Lloyd Billingsley

The federal government is obfuscating about Benghazi and deploying the IRS against groups less than worshipful of government. As if that were not enough, the Justice Department is seizing the phone records of Associated Press reporters, which the AP calls a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” on press freedom. Ben Wizner of the ACLU called...
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A Government Too Vast
Thursday May 16, 2013 | Craig Eyermann

Has the U.S. government become too vast for the President to be accountable for the misconduct of its bureaucrats? Believe it or not, that’s the argument being advanced by President Obama’s former campaign manager David Axelrod for the purpose of defending the President in the abuse of power scandals now engulfing his administration. Politico...
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Internal-Repression-Service.con
Wednesday May 15, 2013 | K. Lloyd Billingsley

The Internal Revenue Service has been targeting conservative groups but the powerful federal agency was not content with abuse of groups with “tea party” and “patriot” in their names. As the Wall Street Journal noted, the IRS was acting in a highly inclusive manner, giving extra scrutiny to groups seeking to “make America a...
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