One of the main provisions of the 2012 Farm Bill is a “shallow-loss” program. This program is being portrayed as a safety net, but there are significant questions that must be examined before the program is enacted. At this event, Vince Smith and Barry Goodwin will discuss these questions and will release new research and analysis on the cost of shallow-loss programs.

With the threat of a veto hanging over its head, the National Defense Authorization bill heads to the House floor today for debate. Among the provisions are several dealing with the question of a nuclear weapons armed Iran, and what the United States should do to avert a crisis, prepare to handle the threat, or eliminate the threat altogether.

The Obama administration does not allow states to limit eligibility for Medicaid, which is a major way they usually reduce costs while providing coverage for the most needy.

The tax code is 5,296 pages long and full of complicated details. We outlined a few of them in our recent column for the New York Times Magazine. So why hasn't Congress done anything to simplify the tax code? We posed the question to Alan D. Viard, a tax expert at the American Enterprise Institute. His response is below.

On April 5, 2012, the President signed into law the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, which passed by a large bipartisan majority in the Congress. The Act is designed to facilitate the equity funding of new companies. Recent research has documented that from 1980 through the 2008-09 recession new companies have been main drivers of job creation in the United States. 

In a recent letter, Martin Lobel describes as "intellectually bankrupt" our arguments against S. 940 and S. 2204, two recent bills that would have imposed unfavorable tax rules on five large oil companies that would not have applied to other taxpayers. Unfortunately, Lobel mischaracterizes our analysis of why the bills violate the rule of law.

The same money can't be spent twice. ObamaCare tries to do precisely that, and the government will have to borrow the difference.

On Wednesday 8, 2012, the House Committee on Ways and Means held a testimony on "The Interaction of Tax and Financial Accounting on Tax Reform." Here, Aparna Mathur contributes to their discussion.