As recently as 50 years ago, economists regarded the vitality of the economy as consonant with its ability to produce things people want (and would pay for). Today, the economy has been redefined into something called the Gross Domestic Product, or GDP. It measures all goods and services brought to market in a given year. But is it really an accurate measure of how well an economy is serving people's needs? Here are some outlandish ways the GDP can be boosted.
Among the tax discussions on Capitol Hill this year are the proposed changes in the 80-year-old inheritance tax. Part of the Republican tax plan calls for an increase in the estate tax exemption from $600,000 to $1,000,000, with considerably larger exemptions for farmers and other small business owners. The less generous Clinton Administration proposal would provide low interest rates on estate taxes paid in installments.
Free trade and peace go together; protectionism is the handmaiden of war. These were key teachings of the early classical economists, as well as the Austrians. Consistent libertarians have never doubted it. But recently the theory has come under fire from all sides—and led to dangerous coalitions pushing for the worst of all worlds, autarky and military belligerence.
This summer, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it had effectively decontaminated dioxin-laced soil from what was once the community of Times Beach, Missouri. But while the dirt of this site may now be certifiably clean, it will take much more than an incinerator to decontaminate the toxic EPA policies which destroyed the town. The experience of Seveso, Italy, clearly demonstrates that it was not necessary for EPA to destroy Times Beach in order to save it.
Academia has undergone a remarkable transformation in recent years. Take a look at the recent book catalog of Duke University Press, once a prestigious publishing house. Today it features third-rate, race-obsessed, sex-obsessed, solipsistic tirades masquerading as scholarship.
The 50th anniversary of the Marshall Plan provided another occasion for the media to celebrate the government's good works. The U.S.'s headlong plunge into global welfarism (nearly $100 billion in current dollars), they said, saved European economies after the Second World War. One reporter, Garrick Utley of NBC, even theorized that Marshall aid explains why East Germany was poor and West Germany rich.
At last, the Republican Congress has proposed cutting death taxes. It wants the exemption to be raised from $600,000 to $1 million. Not bad for a start. But if Congress is serious about reducing the tax, the rate should immediately index the exemption to the inflation rate. If the inflation of the last 10 years continues over the next, the $1 million exemption will be worth a third less. Why should the government get rich by mismanaging the monetary system?
Our domestic automakers produce fine cars and trucks that people freely choose to buy. They make lots of money doing this. So why is the federal government shoveling hundred of millions of dollars annually in corporate welfare their way?
The rise of home schooling coincides with the general breakdown in the public school system. It began when LBJ, our first "education president," signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, with funding of $1.65 billion. The congressional sponsor predicted, ironically, that the bill would reduce "the cost of crime, delinquency, unemployment, and welfare."
The Clinton administration has targeted a new batch of global enemies. It wants to crush them with the usual mix of negotiation, treaty, and enforcement through spying, fines, and propaganda. It's all in a day's work for the "world's indispensable nation"—the administration's new name for itself.
