Who really pays for costs of employee health benefits that rise faster than labor productivity?

The European Union (EU) has announced plans to levy a tax on airline emissions for all planes landing and taking off from EU airports. This tax would be calculated not only based on mileage flown in EU airspace but also for the entire length of the flight (thus, Chinese and Japanese airlines would be taxed for an entire journey from Beijing or Tokyo).

Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently said if sequestration stands, "we wouldn't be the global power that we know ourselves to be today." He's right.

Either the Navy is retiring these ships too early or its lifecycle estimates are hopelessly optimistic. But service leaders cannot have it both ways. Similarly, the administration cannot realistically “pivot” to Asia—a region defined by the “tyranny of distance”—and cut the fleet at the same time.

AEI health care policy expert Thomas (Tom) Miller explains why current Medicare reform proposals are mostly "policy concepts devoid of structural details." Miller points out that even the Ryan-Wyden proposal which "makes an honest effort to start this process at the ‘high-concept’ level,” needs “a more detailed script that begins to answer at least 13 more questions."

The Institute of Medicine finally released its long-awaited set of recommendations for how the Secretary of Health and Human Services should accomplish the impossible--determining the "essential health benefits" for tens of millions of Americans under the to-be-implemented Affordable Care Act.

The possibility of a grand bargain that would produce major trade liberalization in manufacturing, services and agriculture has steadily diminished and has now disappeared.