This article is the first part of a two-part examination of the contentious issue of how state governments' provision of goods and services to the public should be taxed under a VAT.

The value-added tax is an old idea in tax policy that, despite periodic consideration, has not been adopted in the United States.

This book by Alan Viard and Robert Carroll proposes to completely replace the income tax system with a progressive consumption tax.

The general economic "health" of the U.S. manufacturing sector has re-emerged in a Presidential election year. In his 2012 State of the Union address, President Obama announced to Americans "that we have a huge opportunity, at this moment to bring manufacturing back," promising manufacturers special tax reductions and other federal...

Ever since its founding in 1948, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has maintained an aggressive and bellicose international security posture. Today, fully two decades after the end of the Cold War, North Korea's external defense and security policies look arguably more extreme and anomalous than ever.

Last week, Manhattan's appellate court gave the New York City Department of Education the go-ahead to release the names and "value-added score" rankings of thousands of the city's teachers. These scores are designed to quantify the direct impact of teachers on student performance.

Student achievement should be incorporated into teacher evaluation and compensation, and transparency is a vital tool for recognizing excellence and shaming mediocrity. But a public data release is the wrong way to get there.

If education philanthropists want to influence policy, then they must open themselves to more public debate about their  plans and goals.