In the course of putting together a critique of a critique of the 2005 Economic Report of the President, Daniel B. Klein and Michael J. Clark surveyed 11 economists at George Mason University and came up with a top ten list of economic liberalization policies.
Diminish trade restrictions (tariffs and quotas).
Phase down all agricultural subsidies and liberalize agricultural regulations.
Reduce FDA regulations on pharmaceuticals, devices, and information.
Lighten the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice’s anti-trust enforcement and restrictions.
Reduce regulations on healthcare facilities and professionals.
Repeal legal restrictions on competitive delivery of mail.
Decrease the size of the Drug Enforcement Administration in conjunction with liberalizing the drug laws.
Repeal the expansion of money laundering laws held within the Patriot Act and the Bank Secrecy act of 1970 that require some businesses to keep tabs on customers and report activity to the federal government.
Revisit Sarbanes-Oxley regulations.
Liberalize the control or enforcement of equal opportunity/anti-discrimination in employment.
Then came a list of privatizations (schools do not appear on the list because they are primarily controlled locally, not federally).
Disaster insurance (make private and eliminate any subsidy)
U.S. Postal Service (along with liberalization of entry)
Amtrak
Social Security accounts (even if only a small percentage of pay-ins)
Space exploration (NASA)
Power and electric infrastructure
All job training and workforce assistance programs
Disaster response agencies
Water infrastructure (excluding natural channels and rivers)
Federal loan programs
My own top priority is to phase out Medicare.
Thanks to Greg Mankiw for the pointer. Mankiw also points to an article by Robert J. Samuelson on Medicare. Samuelson shares my concern with the problem, but fails to provide a solution. He really needs to read Crisis of Abundance.
READER COMMENTS
Scott W
Sep 13 2006 at 7:09am
This list looks a lot like Milton Friedman’s in “Capitalism and Freedom.”
Justin
Sep 13 2006 at 7:53am
This is why I love Mason.
Lauren Landsburg
Sep 13 2006 at 7:58am
Hi, Scott W. You said:
I’m looking at Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom but not finding the list you refer to.
Do you have a page number or other reference?
RogerM
Sep 13 2006 at 8:55am
I would vote for eliminating the Departments of Energy, Education and HUD and the Small Business Administrion.
Lauren Landsburg
Sep 13 2006 at 10:04am
Russ Roberts relayed that the page Scott W. may be referring to is at the end of Chapter II. of Capitalism and Freedom, 1962, U. of Chicago Press, pp. 34-36. It reads as follows:
I think Friedman’s list and ideas were a tremendous influence on current thought, but the route of that influence may have been via face-to-face communication and word of mouth rather than that exact published list.
Cliff
Sep 13 2006 at 11:22am
Interesting that neither property rights nor freedom of commercial speech are mentioned.
Dezakin
Sep 13 2006 at 3:52pm
It would be most useful to discover why things like the softwood lumber dispute exist before we tackle larger problems such as agricultural subsidies and then medicare.
The canadian/american softwood lumber dispute rewards a tiny lobby with punishing tariffs on canadian lumber, raising the operating costs of housing and other fields that rely on inexpensive lumber. Its fairly obvious to see how the politics of social security are self-perpetuating on ignorance and fear, but I can’t see at all how the softwood lumber dispute has gone on with the electorate being apathetic about it and much larger lobbies (construction and housing) bearing significant costs.
Kent Gatewood
Sep 13 2006 at 5:20pm
Given the size of the trade deficit, it is hard to believe there are significant tariffs and quotas left. Any data would be appreciated.
On agriculture would country of origin labels be feasible? I’m not sure I want to buy food from Iran or North Korea.
Limiting the discussion to federal spending is annoying. My wife is a professor at a private university, and I might be able to consume at a higher level if she weren’t competing against subsidized state universities
Mr. Econotarian
Sep 14 2006 at 5:05am
It would be nice if someone would link a list like this with relevant supporting research references!
liberty
Sep 14 2006 at 1:22pm
Why is Medicare/Medicaid not in the privatization list? I would also like to see welfare in there, though I appreciate the “all job training and workforce assistance programs” bit.
These should be permanent lists that we refer to every year before compiling the budget, each time moving closer to completely privatizing and liberalizing these areas before allocating any taxpayer money to any area.
Comments are closed.