Author: Norman Leahy

Tax season is underway, and that means millions of Americans will be gathering their paperwork together in order to file their returns on time. Just don’t count on the IRS to be prepared to handle them, as the agency is still working through a backlog of paper returns from last year’s tax filing season. According to the National Taxpayer Advocate’s report to Congress: …the IRS began 2022 with a backlog of 4.7 million original individual returns (Forms 1040) and 3.2 million original business returns. The IRS processed the carryover returns and most paper-filed returns received in 2022, cutting its original…

The political theater surrounding the federal debt ceiling is already trending toward the absurd. Normally, the absurdities come from cynical statists who warn that trying to pair even the most modest of budgetary restraint with a debt ceiling hike is tantamount to destroying the global economy. It’s easy to dismiss such demagoguery. What’s harder to dismiss is when the enemies of even modest spending restraint are one’s alleged allies. Such is the case inside the Republican Party, which not only has to wrestle with tried-and-true Democratic doom-mongering but former President Donald Trump’s fiscally reckless meddling as well: Republicans have vowed…

There has been a lot of ink spilled over the potential and perils of the artificial intelligence program ChatGPT. Some of this is chin-pulling nonsense. But there’s an intriguing, and potentially troubling, use for AI that’s already being tested: as lobbyists. Not the Gucci-Gulch kind of lobbying that most people think of. But lobbying that is much more widespread: the use of written comments, either on proposed regulations, letters to members of Congress, comments on official websites and select news sites. Unlike the bots that crawl social media today, or even the more prosaic programs some advocacy groups use to send…

Let’s be clear: Politicians lie. It’s not an exception; it’s a rule. Serial liar George Santos, a newly minted House member from Long Island, is not the first politician to spin fables about his resume. He won’t be the last, either. But as Reason Magazine reminds us, the much bigger, more damaging lies, that come out of politicians’ mouths — over policy — have very real consequences for us all: Consider last summer’s stupendously misnamed Inflation Reduction Act, which [President Joe Biden] announced would shrink the budget deficit and reduce rising prices. Even outlets sympathetic to Biden weren’t buying that.…

We’re going to hear a lot about the “extraordinary measures” the Treasury Department has and will continue to take in order to avoid defaulting on the nation’s $31 trillion (and counting) national debt. Many of these maneuvers are accounting tricks that allow the Treasury to shuffle money from one government account to another (The New York Times has a good rundown on what measures have been used and what others may be used in the future). Right now, the so-called “Date X,” when the Treasury runs out of gimmicks to pay Uncle Sam’s bills in sometime in June. But it…

The nation’s electric grid is outdated, increasingly unreliable and ultimately unprepared for growing customer demand. The scale of the problem came in stark relief near Christmas when the Eastern U.S. grid system nearly collapsed during a record cold spell. The reasons for that near-miss are still being discovered. But one that doesn’t get nearly the attention it deserves is the role state laws on transmission lines – which favor incumbent energy producers over newcomers – have contributed to a shortage of transmission capacity. As Jim Rossi writes in Regulation Magazine, Right of First Refusal (“ROFR”) laws are at the heart…

Politicians at the national level are generally uninterested, if not outright hostile, to the idea of federalism. Rather than allow states to exercise their authority under our federal system, national politicians, of both major parties, prefer to consolidate power in official Washington whenever and wherever possible. It’s an odd and illuminating thing, then, to see one of the national parties decide that because official Washington can’t get the job done, they will try to get states to do it themselves. Such is the case with a handful of state lawmakers in deep blue states working together to push for wealth…

The new Republican House majority is on record that it wants to reduce federal spending. Or rather, they want to roll back spending on discretionary programs. How much? Less than one might think, but enough to send official Washington into a tizzy. According to Roll Call: Total “base” appropriations for fiscal 2023, excluding supplementals and other typical upward adjustments, are $1.602 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The comparable figure for fiscal 2022 is $1.471 trillion, as [Rep. Chip] Roy outlined…so the House GOP-drafted fiscal 2024 spending bills are expected to produce a $131 billion net cut. Reducing spending…

Politicians are fond of introducing bills they know won’t pass but will generate a lot of headlines. Such is the case of a piece of legislation from Wyoming that says the state supports “phasing out the sale of new electric vehicles in Wyoming by 2035.” It’s a joint resolution, which means it doesn’t carry the force of law. Instead, it’s a “message” or “brochure” bill that lawmakers can issue press releases on, make speeches about and include in the campaign literature at the next election. According to its sponsor, Sen. Jim Anderson, he doesn’t actually want the state to ban…

“Treason” gets tossed around a lot in official Washington, usually as a way to silence critics of a particular administration, individual or even a policy. An example of the latter comes from the Cato Institute, which has been a long-time critic of the 100-year-old Jones Act. This 1920s vintage law “requires goods shipped between U.S. ports to be transported on ships that are built, owned and operated by United States citizens or permanent residents.” Its intent was to boost the U.S. maritime industry. What it did was create a powerful interest group that owes its current and future existence to…