In response to a newspaper report that he was either gravely ill or dead, American author and humorist Mark Twain famously said, “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” Although Mark Twain is undeniably dead, along with every other American…
Elon Musk made headlines this week when he revealed the Social Security Administration (SSA) failed to record the deaths of millions of people over the age of 100 and suggested vampires might be real and a lot of them were…
This past Thursday the House Budget Committee kicked off the (sometimes) annual budget process by marking up its version of the Fiscal Year 2025 congressional budget resolution. The House version differs substantially from the Senate Budget Resolution marked up earlier…
This week the Senate Budget Committee is expected to markup a Congressional Budget Resolution for Fiscal Years 2025 through 2034. The Chairman’s mark to be considered by the Committee includes the recommended levels of spending, revenue, deficits, and debt over…
The National Center for Health Statistics recently released the latest data (2022-2023) from the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG). This survey collects health and family-related information, including data on actual previous births and expected future births. The latest survey…
Last month during its post-election “lame duck” session, Congress passed the Social Security Fairness Act (H.R.82) that repealed the GPO and WEP. These two provisions reduced or eliminated the Social Security benefits of workers who receive a pension from a…
It’s January 2025 and under the terms of the June 2023 budget deal, the United States government is once again subject to a limit (roughly $36 trillion) on how much it can borrow. That might strike a lot of people…
Economist Mancur Olson once observed, “Where small groups with common interests are concerned, then, there is a systematic tendency for ‘exploitation’ of the great by the small!” Olson’s observation was originally applied to the provision of public goods. But his…
Congratulations to all the winners of the 2024 elections! Now comes the hard part. You have gained the offices you sought, but with that honor you have also taken on the responsibility of governing a nation that finished its last…
