That's David Leonhardt's position in this column. Here's how it starts: The Republican health care bill now sneaking its way through the Senate has a good chance of becoming law, even though it would do miserable damage. And it has a good chance partly because some of the bill’s most influential opponents have not had the […]
Author Archives: Brian Wolfman
Go here to read the op-ed by law prof. Eric Segall, A couple questions for our readers: Would you have liked to watch the argument in the Fair Debt Collection Act just decided by the Supreme Court, Henson v. Santandar Consumer USA, live on the Internet? Would you like to watch it now? Well, you couldn't watch […]
Announced by Department of Education head Betsy DeVos. Read the AP story and the New York Times story.
For our readers who are following the many suits against Trump and are civil procedure buffs: We've previously posted (here and here) about an unfair competition suit by a D.C. wine bar against Trump in his personal capacity and his new D.C. hotel. The suit was filed in local court in D.C. (the D.C. Superior Court). The […]
That's the name of this article by Nelson Schwartz. It describes the concierge doctors and high-frills medical care available, without significant wait times, to very wealthy people willing to pay steep prices. It contrasts that with what the non-rich get. (For instance, wait times for doctor appointments have been going up in recent years in most places.)
That's the topic of Fighting Fines & Fees: Borrowing from Consumer Law to Combat Criminal Justice Debt Abuses by law prof Neil Sobol. Here is the abstract: Although media and academic sources often describe mass incarceration as the primary challenge facing the American criminal justice system, the imposition of criminal justice debt may be a more pervasive […]
A company called Magellan Diagnostics touts itself as "the most trusted name in lead testing." But the Food and Drug Administration disagrees, saying that many of the company's products are inaccurate. The problem may go all the way back to 2014. And the problem appears to be false negatives — some of the company's lead […]
The non-partisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has released this analysis of Trump's budget. Listed below are the Committee's five key findings. The first three seek simply to state what the Trump Administration says is coming, including the Administration's predictions of enormous economic and political success. The last two are the Committee's attempts to deal with […]
Many of our readers have no doubt heard news reports of Trump's recent interview with The Economist. If you read this blog, you are probably interested in consumer policy, and, in turn, may be interested in economic policy. If so, read the interview. The interview goes beyond the Trump lies (or gross ignorance) that you've been reading […]
That's the name of this article by law prof Daniel Hemel. Here's the abstract: Breaking from a decades-old norm of presidential tax transparency, Donald Trump has refused to make his federal income tax returns available for public inspection. Congressional leaders have blocked bipartisan legislation that would compel the President to disclose his returns. New York State, however, […]