by Romina Boccia and Dominik Lett, Cato at LibertyJuly 24, 2024.
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The Senate is ready to raid the emergency rainy day fund again. As we highlighted in the latter Debt Digest, Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-WA) and Vice Chairwoman Susan Collins (R-ME) reportedly reached an agreement to increase special spending for fiscal year (FY) 2025 by $34.5 billion by designating some general spending such as emergency funding. This is a common tactic legislators use to get around spending limits when sticking to a budget seems too politically difficult.
At the American Enterprise Institute, Jim Capretta pointed out how Congress has already fully recovered all of the $1.3 billion in 10-year savings from the June 2023 Budget Commitment Act (as found by the Penn Wharton Budget Model) when it included emergency appointments. in FY 2024 funding bills and passed a non-reimbursed foreign aid bill for Ukraine—and.
by JD Tuccille, The reasonJuly 26, 2024.
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In recent years there has been a renewed surge in small business startups after decades of slow growth for entrepreneurs. Spurred by the pandemic-era shutdown of major employers and needing reins at a time of high living costs, Americans are once again eager to be their own bosses. Standing in the way, however, are local laws that often make it difficult to launch businesses in people’s homes, where many startups are born. Fortunately, there are other places slowly to get out of the way. (original italics)
by Joel Zinberg, The Wall Street JournalJuly 23, 2024.
In the report, which addresses pharmacy benefit managers, the FTC says that “amid increased vertical consolidation and concentration,” PBMs “may profit by increasing drug costs and suppressing Main Street pharmacies.” The qualifier “may” appears throughout the report, indicating a lack of empirical evidence and analysis to support its conclusions about PBMs. In fact, many studies, including several by the FTC itself, contradict those conclusions.
PBMs are private businesses that manage prescription drug benefits on behalf of insurance plan sponsors. They negotiate with drug manufacturers and pharmacies. Manufacturers trade lower prices to gain access to the formulary and more sales. Pharmacies trade in discounts and increased sales requirements to better position themselves in program networks and add customers. This selective agreement allows PBMs to receive rebates and discounts that lower the cost of the drug. It also allows them to promote the use of drugs that are cheaper (such as generics), more effective, or both. Although plan sponsors are not required to contract with PBMs, many do, suggesting that they value PBM services.
My research for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, along with research by University of Chicago economist Casey Mulligan, found that PBMs encourage competition that lowers drug costs. Mr. Mulligan estimates that PBMs generate at least $145 billion in annual value to society beyond their utility costs.
The entire op/ed is digested.
Implications of the Increase in Immigrants on the State Budget and the Economy
Congressional Budget Office, July 2024.
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Increased immigration increases federal revenue and mandatory spending and interest on the debt in CBO’s baseline projection, reducing the deficit, in total, by $0.9 trillion over the period 2024–2034 (see Table 1).2 Some of the effects on the budget result due to the increase in the number of people paying taxes and collecting corporate benefits. Some of the effects of the budget stem from changes in the economy during that period brought about by expansion, including rising interest rates and labor productivity that are not part of this expansion.
by Daniel Raisbeck, Cato at LibertyJuly 26, 2024.
Little speculation is at the root of Maduro’s current crisis. So it’s worth asking how the once powerful Chavista regime, so confident of its hold on power that it tried to aggressively export its revolution across the region, ended up turning its back on its home turf, the old regional strongholds of Hugo Chávez. The following graphs, dealing only with inflation and currency depreciation, will provide some hints.
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