Daily Policy Digest
Tax and Spending Issues
| The Perils of Automatic Budgeting Congress needs to adopt long-term, sensible and durable budget solutions that will lead to low inflation and a departure from complacent politics... |
| California High Speed Rail Falls Short of Expectations A new study from the Reason Foundation estimates that California's high speed rail system would result in losses of $124 million to $373 million a year... |
| Who the IRS Audits and Why Small business owners in the suburbs of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, Atlanta and the District of Columbia are most likely to evade taxes... |
| Estimates of Federal Student Loan Profits Inaccurate Not raising the interest rate on subsidized student loans last year cost taxpayers about $6 billion but only amounted to an average savings of $9 a month for those paying off the loan... |
| America's Bridges Are Not Falling Only 26.3 percent of urban interstates were rated as congested in 2010, compared with 52.6 percent in 1989... |
| The Obama Budget's Economic Message To prepare for slower growth, the Obama administration must show spending restraint instead of proposing a budget that leaves gross debt at more than 100 percent of gross domestic product in 2020... |
| Redundant Federal Programs Waste Billions Over the past three years, the U.S. Government Accountability Office found 162 areas where agencies are duplicating efforts, at a cost of tens of billions of dollars... |
| The Amount of Hidden Debt Will Stun Taxpayers Collectively, state and local governments are estimated to owe $7.3 trillion and most of this debt was never approved by taxpayers... |
| Tax Freedom Day Five Days Later than Last Year In 2013, Americans will pay $2.76 trillion in federal taxes and $1.45 trillion in state taxes for a total tax bill of $4.22 trillion -- 29.4 percent of total income... |
| Disability: The New Welfare? In 1960, only 0.65 percent of the workforce between age 18 and age 64 was receiving Social Security disability insurance; today, 5.6 percent of the workforce receives a payment, despite reduced physical labor and better overall health... |
