by Romina Boccia and Dominik Lett, Cato at FreedomJuly 24, 2024.
Extract:
The Senate is ready to raid the figurative rainy day emergency fund again. As we have emphasized in a recent one Debt overviewSenate Appropriations Chairman Patty Murray (D-WA) and Vice Chairwoman Susan Collins (R-ME) have reportedly struck a deal to increase discretionary spending by $34.5 billion for fiscal year 2025 through some routine spending qualify as emergency financing. This is a common trick lawmakers use to get around spending limits when sticking to a budget seems too politically difficult.
At the American Enterprise Institute, Jim Capretta did just that pointed out how Congress has already completely rolled back the $1.3 trillion in 10-year savings from the June 2023 Fiscal Responsibility Act (as scored by the Penn Wharton Budget Model) when it included emergency designations in the 2024 funding bills and passed the unpaid bill for Ukraine plus foreign aid.
by JD Tuccille, RodeJuly 26, 2024.
Extract:
In recent years there has been a renewed increase in the number of small business start-ups, after decades of declining entrepreneurship. Spurred by the closure of major employers during the pandemic and the need for side jobs in an era of higher costs of living, Americans are eager to be their own bosses again. However, local regulations stand in the way of this, which often makes it difficult to start businesses from private homes, where most startups are born. Luckily, some places are slowly get out of the way. (italics in original)
by Joël Zinberg, Wall Street JournalJuly 23, 2024.
In this report, which focuses on pharmacy benefit managers, the FTC states that “amid increasing vertical integration and concentration,” PBMs “can benefit from driving up drug costs and squeezing Main Street pharmacies.” The qualifier “possible” appears throughout the report, indicating a lack of empirical evidence and analysis to support the conclusions about PPE. In fact, many studies, including some from the FTC itself, contradict these conclusions.
PBMs are private companies that administer prescription drug benefits on behalf of insurance plan sponsors. They negotiate with drug manufacturers and pharmacies. Manufacturers trade lower prices for access to formulas and more turnover. Pharmacies are trading discounts and increased retail requirements for favorable placement in plan networks and more customers. This selective contracting allows PBMs to receive rebates and rebates that reduce drug costs. It also allows them to encourage the use of medications that are cheaper (such as generics), more effective, or both. Although plan sponsors are not required to contract with PBMs, most do so, suggesting that they value PBMs’ services.
My own research for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, as well as studies by University of Chicago economist Casey Mulligan, found that PBMs promote competition that lowers drug costs. Mr. Mulligan estimates that PPE delivers at least $145 billion in value to society annually, on top of the cost of raw materials.
The entire op-ed is closed.
Effects of the wave of immigration on the federal budget and economy
Congressional Budget Office, July 2024.
Extract:
The increase in immigration increases federal revenues as well as mandatory spending and interest on the debt under CBO baseline projections, reducing deficits by a net $0.9 trillion over the 2024-2034 period (see Table 1). 2 Some Effects on the Economy The budget outcome results from the increase in the number of people paying taxes and collecting federal benefits. Other budgetary effects arise from changes in the economy during that period caused by the surge, including increases in interest rates and in worker productivity that are not part of the surge.
by Daniel Raisbeck, Cato at FreedomJuly 26, 2024.
Far less speculative are the root causes of Maduro’s current predicament. So it is appropriate to wonder how the once formidable Chavista regime, which was so confident in its grip on power that it sought to aggressively export its revolution to the entire region, found itself on its home turf with its back against the wall ended up, even in Hugo Chávez’s old region strongholds. The following charts, which deal solely with inflation and currency devaluation, will provide some hints.