Daily Policy Digest
| Policy Uncertainty Undermines Economic Recovery The average increase in policy uncertainty between 2006 and 2011 led to a 2.5 percent drop in industrial production and 2.4 million fewer jobs in the United States... |
| Diminishing Quality of Fiscal Institutions in the United States The debt-to-gross domestic product ratio increased from 55 percent in 2001 to 67 percent in 2007 to 107 percent in 2012... |
| Regulations Slow Beneficial Natural Gas Exports The Council on Foreign Relations estimates that U.S. gains from liquefied natural gas trade would total $4 billion annually... |
| A Balanced Approach to Climate Change According to the Palmer Drought Severity Index, droughts were most widespread through the 1930s and 1950s, with the last 50 years having been generally wetter on average... |
| Take the Public-Private Road to Efficiency Private infrastructure projects are more likely to be chosen without political influence and are more likely to be completed on time and on budget... |
| Texas and the Recipe for Growth Following the financial crisis, when the overall job growth rate was 0.4 percent, Texas' job market grew by 2.4 percent, says Wendell Cox, an adjunct scholar with the National Center for Policy Analysis... |
| Federal Government Releases List of Health Benefits Insurers Must Offer The Affordable Care Act sets out 10 benefit categories that must be covered by most individual and small-group insurance plans at the same level as a typical employer plan, ranging from hospitalization to prescription drugs to maternity and newborn care... |
| Taxing Rich Ignores Underlying Problems Increasing tax rates may raise short-term revenue, but in the long-term it will keep people from entering the top earning brackets by disincentivizing hard work... |
| Competitive Market Forces Serve Texas' Electricity Needs The process of pricing electricity capacity, reliability and deliverability is wrought with subjective assumptions and theoretical ideals that bear little relation to actual market effects... |
| Taxpayers Pay for Employees to Engage in Union Activities Paying government employees to perform union activities unrelated to their government responsibilities has cost the federal government an estimated $1 billion since 1998... |
