I’m crashing on a deadline for the print edition of the magazine, but here are a few links to tide you over:
(1) Pascal-Emanuel Gobry draws our attention to a workfare proposal devised by Morgan Warstler. My impression is that risk-averse politicians would be very reluctant to embrace it, but it certainly merits discussion.
(2) Donald Marron and Eric Toder have a new paper on the real size of the federal government.
(3) I find Ronald Brownstein’s characterization of a proposal to cap the value of tax expenditures as “the Buffett Rule approach” very misleading, but he makes an interesting argument about the most politically viable route to tax reform regardless.
(4) Josh Barro suggests that conservative critics of President Obama’s health law may have been right in one of their central critiques: the Obama administration is already backing away from its efforts to cut Medicare expenditures. Given that much of the savings generated by the law flow from cuts to the growth of Medicare expenditures, this might mean that it won’t be a deficit-improving measure after all.
(5) Though I have a great deal of respect for Sen. Orrin Hatch, I get the strong impression that Dan Liljenquist would make an excellent senator. Check out Rachel Weiner’s profile of Liljenquist from last year.