Kevin Corcoran defends the small stuff.
A growing number of conservatives are in favor of new or increased family benefits and/or workers’ benefits. We can have debates about the value of these specific proposals and their impact on the incentive to marry or to work. However, no one who argues for more spending should be able to make their case without also naming the programs they would like to cut first.
Nobody likes paying fees. A fee, however, is a transparent way to reflect the price of something. And in a market economy, prices convey vital information that consumers and producers use to make good decisions. A rise in the price of apples tells producers that consumers want more apples. This prompts more apple production (and eventually, lower prices). And so when political interference keeps prices from fluctuating freely, the result is inefficiency and waste.
Juliette Sellgren talks with Alain Bertaud about cities and urban planning.
Kevin Corinth and Scott Winship continue to expose the negative consequences of the child tax credit.
Joel Griffith writes informatively about Biden’s effort to reduce exports of liquified natural gas.
The admission that subsidies must be funded by tax increases or offsetting spending cuts has cast Mr. [Olaf] Scholz’s administration into a crisis from which it might not recover. Case in point: A mass protest—by farmers, as it happens—erupted when Berlin tried to inch toward a policy vaguely resembling a carbon tax. The administration had to backtrack. Whatever else voters say they want on climate, people really, really don’t want to redistribute the costs of mitigation toward those who emit more carbon—at least not if Johann Q. Publik thinks he might be the emitter in question.
[DBx: No surprise. Read Geoff Brennan and Loren Lomasky. Read Bryan Caplan. Voting enables and encourages each individual to express his or her opinions and preferences free of charge. This costlessness in voting booths of the ability to express opinions and preferences about how fellow citizens should live their lives and spend their money leads to poorly formed opinions and carelessly accumulated preferences. But it does not, of course, eliminate the real-world scarcities that create real-world problems when government officials attempt to satisfy voters’ expressed demands.]
Matt Ridley reports on “the shameless cover up of the lab leak theory.”
Deborah McKenzie tweets: (HT Jay Bhattacharya)
Journalism died when journalists failed to question the government and public health officials over draconian and harmful measures & mandates during the covid era.
