College Degrees, Ethanol, and Gift Baskets

College Degrees

Many Americans with college degrees have jobs that don’t require their degrees.

Senior Counsel Hans Bader talks about college tuition and the “college debt bubble.”

“We wrote earlier about the college debt bubble, and how greedy, government-subsidized college administrators are charging obscene amounts of money for largely useless and ideologically-slanted ‘educations.’ (100 colleges now charge $50,000 or more in tuition, compared to just 5 colleges in 2008-09, and federal financial-aid subsidies effectively reward colleges for increasing tuition to levels that would evoke outrage in other civilized countries.)”

Ethanol

Even Republicans who argue for lower taxes are kowtowing to the corn lobby when it comes to ethanol subsidies.

Adjunct Scholar Fran Smith urges lameduck congressmen to let ethanol tariffs and subsidies expire.

“Support for continuing the ethanol subsidy and tariff seems to be the ‘business as usual’ state of affairs just a month after game-changing elections that will bring some avowed government cost-cutters to Congress in the next session. Even saving that $25-$30 billion in new deficit spending over five years doesn’t seem to affect this Congress. Right now, it still looks like special interests may trump the public interest, unless the lame ducks grow some backbone.”

Gift Baskets

New York State law bans the sale of wine and spirits in a store that also sells food. This law ostensibly bans the sale of wine-and-cheese gift baskets.

Director of Risk and Environmental Policy Angela Logomasini says that laws like these are protecting a small subset of the market.

“In reality, these laws are designed to provide special-interest protections for existing wine retailers. To ensure liquor stores get all the profits, you must go to the supermarket for your food and make a separate stop at the liquor store (if you can find one) for your wine or spirits. And you must assemble your gift baskets at home.”