Daily Policy Digest
Economic Issues
| As Companies Seek Tax Deals, Governments Pay High Price In New York, the cost of providing film credits every year equals the cost of hiring 5,000 new public school teachers... |
| Federal Housing Administration: the Next Housing Bailout The Federal Housing Administration recently released its 2012 fiscal year actuarial review of the single family mortgage insurance fund and concluded it was insolvent... |
| The Underworked Public Employee If public-sector employees just worked as many hours as their private counterparts, governments at all levels could save more than $100 billion in annual labor costs... |
| BRICS: The World's New Banker? Countries like the United States have a large percent of the International Monetary Fund's voting share, allowing it to veto any major decisions... |
| American Men Find Careers in Collecting Disability In 1960, the percentage of the economically active 18-to-64-year-old population receiving disability benefits was 0.65 percent; in 2011, it was 5.6 percent... |
| Cigarette Smuggling The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives estimates that illegal cigarette sales cost local, state and federal governments nearly $10 billion a year... |
| Diving Off the Fiscal Cliff Lifting marginal tax rates will cost the economy $2.20 in lost income for every $1 of new tax revenue... |
| Why Economic Backwardness Persists Many rulers around the world calculate that it is better to keep people in poverty than risk losing the privileges of political power... |
| Understanding Job Statistics Labor force participation (job seekers and the employed) has declined from 66 percent before the recession to 63.8 percent, says Robert McTeer, a distinguished fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis... |
| A "Cliff" Deal Could Still Cost Consumers Billions The impact of the scheduled tax hikes and spending cuts under the "fiscal cliff" would take more than $600 billion from the economy... |
