Politicians love infrastructure, but many local government projects seem awfully wasteful.

Recent articles in respected business journals report that Amtrak lost only $29.8 million in 2019 (out of $3.3 billion in total revenues) and that it expects to make a profit in 2020.

In a recent study, I explored how federal subsidies induce state and local governments to spend on wasteful projects. Case in point: a new “streetcar named quagmire” in St. Louis.

The federal government is enormously inefficient. Agencies have little incentive to control costs or improve quality, and Congress does little serious oversight.

Vermont senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has officially unveiled the latest version of his plan for a government-run health-care system.

Tracy Gordon of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center writes interesting columns on taxes, fiscal federalism, and other economic issues. Before Congress and the administration enact another costly infrastructure bill, they should consider what Gordon wrote in a 2015 article.

The apparent death of California high-speed rail has led to a spate of stories asking, “What went wrong?”

The Office of Management and Budget recently argued that the proposed $5.7 billion would pay for 234 miles of a border barrier at a cost of $24.4 million per mile.

Smithsonian leaders have revealed that renovating the Air and Space museum in Washington, D.C. will cost almost $1 billion. That’s the equivalent of an army of 10,000 workers earning $100,000 each for a year to fix it up. Geez, government projects are expensive!