Daily Policy Digest
| Traffic Congestion Wastes Fuel and Time The total financial cost of congestion is $121 billion, of which $27 billion is wasted time and diesel fuel from trucks moving goods... |
| Nine Fallacies Used to Defend Public-Sector Pensions Public pensions require fundamental reform, but defenders of the current system have advanced arguments that do not reflect sound economic thinking... |
| Preventable Hospital Readmissions Continue to Pose Problem More than 1 million Americans wind up back in the hospital only weeks after they left for reasons that could have been prevented... |
| Solar Energy: Dirtier Than We Think More than 46 million pounds of waste was generated from solar companies in California between 2007 and mid-2011... |
| States Seek to Redefine Who Can Provide Care A proposal in California would allow physician assistants to treat more patients, nurse practitioners to set up independent practices, and pharmacists and optometrists to act as primary care providers... |
| Hip-Replacement Cost Hard to Pin Down Just under half -- 45 percent -- of top-ranked hospitals were able to provide a bundled price -- physician and hospital -- for the cost of a hip replacement... |
| Sin Taxes: A Questionable Source of Revenue Sin taxes disproportionately affect low-income individuals who are more likely to use many of the consumer goods, like alcohol and tobacco, than are higher-income individuals... |
| Research Investments Are Frequently Fruitless A large portion of the Environmental Protection Agency's $800 million research funds are spent on public relations and diverted to nonprofit organizations without any oversight... |
| Five Percent of Credit Reports Contain Costly Mistakes The Federal Trade Commission says that 5 percent of U.S. consumers have an error on their credit report that could lead to them paying more for products such as auto loans and insurance... |
| Growth of Social Security Benefits Should Be Slowed By limiting the growth of Social Security benefits, policymakers can ensure that benefits are adequate while at the same time addressing cost-containment concerns... |
