Downsizing Blog
Farm Bill Fiasco
Congress is set to pass an appalling farm bill that increases subsidies rather than reforms them.
Public Transit's Decline
Nationwide transit ridership has declined steadily since 2014, with some of the largest urban areas, including Atlanta, Miami, and Los Angeles, losing more than 20 percent of their transit riders in the last few years.
Walworth County Goes Debt-Free
Government borrowing enriches financial firms, encourages corruption, and magnifies the ultimate tax burden that citizens will bear for the related spending.
Why Passenger Trains Don’t Work in Europe
The reality is that Europe’s trains are enjoyed by tourists, but they don’t work that much better for Europeans than the U.S. system works for Americans.
Why Federal Debt Is Damaging
The U.S. Treasury reports that the federal budget deficit was $779 billion in fiscal 2018.
Ethanol Politics Trump Common Sense
President Trump recently announced a plan that would further the harms created by the “renewable fuel standard.”
Wealthy Taxpayers Are Fleeing These States in Droves
High-tax states are losing their most productive residents. If those states want to prosper in today’s competitive economy, they need to deliver more efficient services at lower costs and cut their high tax rates.
Badger Book on Federal Grants
Wisconsin’s Badger Institute has a new book—Federal Grant Standing—that examines the $750 billion system of federal grants to state and local governments.
HUD’s Inexperienced Bureaucrats
The Washington Post slammed Ben Carson’s Department of Housing and Urban Development today. The paper found that “loyalty eclipses expertise” in the upper ranks of the agency given that 24 of HUD’s 70 political appointees have little housing experience.
Cost and Abuse Problems in Low-Income Housing
A new Government Accountability Office report on the Low Income Housing Tax Credit echoes some of the concerns about the programs vulnerability to abuse that Vanessa Brown Calder and I suggested in a 2017 Cato report.