Dan J

You know how the government is supposed to kick people while they're down? It has done a great job with Shared Responsibility Payments. The Affordable Care Act, also known as "Obamacare," requires that all Americans possess health insurance. That's called the "individual mandate.

Remember that giant bailout of the banking industry by the U.S. federal government?  That was ten years ago.  At the time, it wasn't clear what was happening with those hundreds of billions of dollars.  Now we know a bit.  Not everything, but more.  And the story ain&

Governments frequently subsidize pro sports teams.  Whether a lot or a little, it's an abuse of taxpayers. Bloomberg recently published an article with the headline, "You Can Pay for a Ballpark Without Fleecing Taxpayers."  The author of this piece calls it "a rather different story,

We, modern humans, are the benefactors of millennia of political experimentation. We know the effects of tribalism, monarchism, feudalism, imperialism, liberalism, conservatism, socialism, communism, and countless other ideologies. One would think we'd have politics figured out by now. Yet somehow modern politics leaves us feeling overwhelmed and furious.

Republicans took full control of the United States Congress in the 2016 election.  Their legislative session began in 2017.  Their actions have been so ill-considered and shameful, they have made the Democrats look righteous in comparison. Republicans' first move in 2017 was to attempt to strip authority from

An Iowa woman's justification of one of Obamacare's strangest requirements is actually a great way to see that something is wrong with the way we're governing our nation. Congressman Rod Blum, in a townhall session in Iowa on May 8, 2017, said Congress should

Government is a reason for the student loan crisis, not the solution. Student loans have become a fiasco in the United States, and the situation is only getting worse. In fact, Consumer Reports now apparently considers student loans a dangerous consumer product.  The cover story of the latest Consumer Reports

Economists shouldn't be making public policy. There is a curious discussion going on among economists.  It's about whether the lessons of a basic economics class are useful in crafting public policy.  And it's a sad statement about the field of economics, because the conversation

People who oppose the welfare system may be rational to oppose reforming it. Imagine you're walking on a sidewalk at night. You turn a corner, and you find yourself confronted by a strange man.  Then you recognize him from the news. He's a madman, notorious for