Kudos to the President for proposing to scale back terrorism reinsurance

Kudos to the President for his proposal to scale back the subsidy for terrorism reinsurance. I wish he had gone all the way to eliminate this program during this term, but I’ll take the partial win.

Understanding the President’s international tax proposal

Let’s look at three factories, each of which produces $100 of income.

1. Your factory A is in the U.S. Your corporation pays a 35% U.S. corporate income tax rate ($35).

Should bank stress test results be public?

Today the 19 largest banks are getting the results of their stress tests from their regulators. Should these results be made public?

This is not a simple question.

A short history of higher taxes

There is always a lot of rhetoric on Tax Day. Later I will comment on some of today’s rhetoric. In this post I will instead focus on some basic facts that are not earth-shattering, but provide some important historic context for the current tax and spending debate.

Will the Administration fund CSI: New Haven and Tattoo removal in L.A.?

President Obama may not realize that the people who work for him are required to ignore hundreds (thousands?) of Congressional earmarks. The President has the ability to stop them from doing so. I hope that…

Working in the West Wing: Senior Staff

I promised I would write about what it’s like to work in the West Wing of the White House. After more than six years of working there, the process details seem less than fascinating to me, but conversations with friends suggest that even routine process…

Third party payment in health care (part 3): Technology drives cost growth

Imagine that Sony plans to bring to market a new TV that is twice as good as the old $500 TV but costs $200 more to produce. If instead it is twice as good but costs $2,000 more, they will probably hold…