Slideshow: The People's Budget: Cutting the Deficit the Progressive Way

This slideshow examines the People's Budget from the Congressional Progressive Caucus. The plan makes major cuts to defense expenditures, increases infrastructure investment, and raises marginal tax rates.

Keywords: Budget deficit, national debt, marginal tax rates, tax reform.

Slideshow: What Can We Learn about the Ryan Medicare Plan from German Experience?

The recently approved Republican plan for reform of Medicare, conceived by Representative Paul Ryan, proposes to replace the current single-payer, government-run Medicare system with one under which seniors would choose from a list of approved private health care plans, with the cost to be paid partly by the government and partly by beneficiaries. This slideshow compares the Ryan plan with the German health care system, which uses a similar system of competing private insurance options with cost split between beneficiaries and the government.

Keywords: Health care economics, Republican Plan for Prosperity, Paul Ryan, Medicare.

Slideshow: Tax Reform as a Path to Growth-Friendly Fiscal Consolidation

Raising tax rates or cutting expenditures are policies that can help reduce deficits, but they can slow economic growth, especially if they are implemented during a cyclical downturn. This sideshow discusses how tax reform that broadens the tax base while reducing marginal tax rates represents a path to growth-friendly fiscal consolidation.

Keywords: Fiscal consolidation, deficit reduction, economic growth, tax reform.

Slideshow: Is Financial Reform Working or Will It Make Things Worse?

Recent financial reforms, including the Dodd-Frank act and the new Basel III capital standards, are encountering a backlash. Some observers, like former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, and some members of Congress, think they are making things worse. Others, like Representative Barney Frank himself, are sure they will work. This slideshow provides a simple graphical framework intended to clarify the issues.

Keywords: Financial reform, financial regulation, banking, Dodd-Frank, Basel III.

Slideshow: Econ 101, Hayek, and Why We are Losing the Drug War

Decades of efforts to reduce the supply of illegal drugs like cocaine and heroin have failed to stop widespread availability, and as an unintended consequence, have encouraged violence that has destabilized important US allies like Colombia and Mexico. This slideshow uses concepts from Econ 101 and the writings of Friedrich Hayek to explain why strategies used in the war against drugs create the conditions for their own failure.

Keywords: Supply and demand, elasticity, Friedrich Hayek

Slideshow: Monetary Accommodation of Oil Price Shocks: Some Simple Analytics

As oil prices spike in response to events in the Middle East, inflation has risen above its target level in the US, the UK, and the euro area. The three central banks face the choice of whether to resist the inflationary impact of the oil price shock, at the risk of slowing growth and rising unemployment, or to accommodate the shock, at the risk of inflation. This slideshow uses simple macroeconomic analysis to explain what happens when central banks accommodate oil price shocks or decide instead to resist oil price inflation.

Keywords: Monetary policy, oil price shocks, accommodation, aggregate supply and demand

Slideshow: Move Over Ethanol, Market Forces Favor CNG

The US government has spent billions in the elusive search for a "fuel of the future," that would be cheap, clean, and made in America. At the same time, it has given little attention to an off-the-shelf alternative, compressed natural gas (CNG), which is all of the above. This slideshow looks at the market forces that favor CNG and the barriers to its wider use.

Keywords: Energy, natural gas, CNG, elasticity, regulation.