The 2013 Farm Bill presents a real opportunity for substantive changes in U.S. agricultural policy. But instead of reform, both the House and Senate agricultural committees are offering classic bait-and-switch proposals to protect farm subsidies – more than 80 percent of which flow to households much wealthier than the average American family. 

As I discuss in my new study for the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, the bills' bait is the elimination of the politically toxic Direct Payments program, introduced in 1996, which annually sends about $5 billion in welfare checks to people who own or farm cropland – whether or not they grow any crops. The switch is the introduction of new programs that would give farmers even larger subsidies if either crop prices or average per-acre crop revenues decline from...

Each year, the board of trustees for Social Security and Medicare release reports highlighting the financial outlook and solvency for these massive entitlement programs.

"We are looking at over $30 trillion in total obligations that we have to find sources to pay for above and beyond projected payroll tax and premium revenues."

Basically, both Social Security and Medicare are on unsustainable paths and must be reformed.

Take Social Security, for instance. Since 2010, Social Security has been running a permanent cash-flow deficit. That means that taxes collected for the program aren't enough to cover the benefits paid to retirees.

To fill the gap, the program is drawing from the trust-fund balances (first using the interest, then the principal) to keep payments to retirees going. In concrete terms, Treasury will borrow money to repay the trust funds, thus increasing our debt load as we go.

Pennsylvania Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi has announced that he will introduce legislation to uncap Pennsylvania's Film Production Tax Credit (FPTC) in an effort to entice production companies to film in the commonwealth.

To justify this sweetheart tax break for the film industry, Sen. Pileggi cites a “detailed report from the Independent Fiscal Office” that “concludes that ‘uncapping' the film tax credit would have a significant positive impact on Pennsylvania's economy with a minimal cost in the coming fiscal year.”

This is partially true. The Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) did release a report. The rest of the senator's statement, like most of what the film industry produces, is pure fantasy.

On page 2, the IFO clearly states that “(the report) does not address the fiscal or economic impact of the FPTC in general, nor does it evaluate the overall effectiveness of the credit.” In fact, the report can be summarized in two points: The tax credit will...

The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced today that the U.S. economy added 175,000 new jobs in May, slightly below this year’s average of approximately 189,000 jobs per month. Mercatus Center senior research fellow Keith Hall, a former BLS commissioner, said that the current modest job growth numbers indicate that it will take several years for the labor market to fully recover from the Great Recession.

“Both the unemployment and labor force participation rates were essentially unchanged—rising from 7.5 percent to 7.6 percent and from 63.3 percent to 63.4 percent, respectively. 

“A full labor market recovery still seems years away, as we continue to have the same modest progress as in 2012. Job growth continues to...