Saturday, January 14, 2012

Weekly Policy Round-Up 2

Nick Gillespie & Meredith Bragg, Reason: Hit & Run, 01/10/2012
The Congressional Budget Office projects that if we keep spending the way we have been, federal debt held by the public will grow from around 60 percent of GDP to a whopping 82 percent of GDP over the next decade, with no end in sight. That’s the sort of borrowing that can ruin a country's economy.
Tad DeHaven, Cato@Liberty, 01/13/2012
As I discuss in a Cato essay on the SBA, rather than helping small businesses compete against big businesses, the SBA’s loan guarantees mainly help a tiny share of small businesses compete against other small businesses. In reality, the biggest beneficiary of the SBA is the banks, which reap the profits from the loans guaranteed by the agency.
Merging Wasteful Agencies Won't Shrink Government (audio)
Cato Daily Podcast, 01/13/2012
The real purpose of these agencies is politics. Every member of Congress wants to say that they support small business, because they support funding to the SBA.
The inefficiency of merging agencies was demonstrated by the failure of the Department of Homeland Security, which only added a new level of bureaucracy. Contrary to what many fake conservative politicians will tell you, consolidating government does not shrink government. In almost every case that we have observed, it has lead to an increase in government.

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