The PPACA's rate review and MLR provisions represent costly, bureaucratic interference with insurers' legitimate business decisions and state regulatory prerogatives. This will do little to enhance competition in health insurance markets and the availability and affordability of health insurance. [Read more]

Debt of non-budget government agencies is not counted officially as "government debt," which is harmful to American Taxpayers. [Read more]

Do federal agencies carry larger staffs than similar private entities? Is the U.S. government workforce large relative to that of our economic competitors? These questions are more difficult than assessing the pay of individual workers and far less research has been done in these areas. [Read more]

The international diplomacy of climate change is the most implausible and unpromising initiative since the disarmament talks of the 1930s, and for many of the same reasons; that the Kyoto Protocol and its progeny are the climate diplomacy equivalent of the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 that promised to end war (a treaty that is still on the books, by the way), and finally, that future historians are going to look back on this whole period as the climate policy equivalent of wage and price controls to fight inflation in the 1970s. [Read more]

Costa Rica’s leadership has been capitalizing on the opportunities created by the free trade agreement with the United States. For all the talk of China’s growing shadow in the Americas, with a typical country like Costa Rica, the United States is its No. 1 trade partner – by far, and for the foreseeable future. [Read more]

Thank you, Chairman Jordan and other members of the subcommittee, for the opportunity to discuss monetary policy and the price of oil. I believe that it is an appropriate use of the subcommittee's time to examine that connection. Indeed, both the net rise and the volatility of oil prices over the past nine months are partly a predictable byproduct of the Fed's expansion of its balance sheet in its policy known as quantitative easing (QE). [Read more]

In the course of doing everything I could to turn things around first in Iraq, then in Afghanistan, from the early months I ran up against institutional obstacles in the Pentagon--cultural, procedural, ideological--to getting done what needed to get done on behalf of those fighting the wars we are in. [Read more]

The overall direction of the Commission majority's report was determined before the Commission started its work. Throughout its 18 month life, the Commission focused only on issues that the chairman wanted to cover, was more interested in publicity than in a thorough investigation, and never paid serious attention to other views. It was not in any sense an objective or thorough study, did not produce any facts or data that could aid scholars in the future. [Read more]

Some policymakers and lawmakers will argue that Social Security is separate and distinct from our broader fiscal challenges. I disagree. I believe that immediately addressing the challenges facing the Social Security program offers an opportunity to improve our country's fiscal soundness, lift an undue burden from future generations, and strengthen our economy's long-run growth prospects. [Read more]

Gary J. Schmitt testifies before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on security issues in Europe and Asia. [Read more]