- August 9, 2016
David Burress
A ten-year boy died Sunday on the Verrückt water slide at the Schlitterbahn Water Park in Kansas City, Kansas. The park was located in KCK rather than KCMO, presumably to escape Missouri regulation. Due to heavy lobbying, amusement parks are not regulated by the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Kansas has some purely nominal regulation, but ...
- August 8, 2016
David Burress
Imagine a US in which political power was divorced from wealth, and we realigned the economy more rationally. Then I suggest:
1. Medicare for all plus some drug marketing reforms would take health care from 17% of GDP to 12% (which is what countries with better health care than ours pay)
2. Financial sector reforms would take ...
- August 5, 2016
David Burress
I do not entirely understand the struggles now going on for elite control over movement conservatism.
Talking Points Memo stated that, “Huelskamp’s agriculture record became a cornerstone of the campaign as outside money poured into the race from major donors. The Koch brothers and the Club For Growth backed Huelskamp while the conservative Ending Spending Action Fund, ...
- August 4, 2016
David Burress
Kansas City Star political columnist Dave Helling veers between sharp observation and center-right obtuseness.
In the later vein he complained today about public subsidies for political party primaries. If primaries were what economists call a pure private good, he might have a point. But in large part they are a public good: the entire world is ...
