A new study released earlier this year adds more evidence to the mountains of evidence that policymakers trying to solve the overdose crisis have been aiming at the wrong target.

Researchers from the Dartmouth University School of Medicine recently published in the Annals of Surgery the results of a prospective clinical trial of 221 opioid naïve surgical patients prescribed opioids at discharge and followed for one year after surgery. Eighty-eight percent of the patients had cancer-related operations. Their surgeons prescribed opioids for pain control when they discharged them home from the hospital. The researchers accessed the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) to monitor the patients’ long-term opioid use.

Their findings: 15.3 percent filled opioid prescriptions 3–12 months after their initial surgery. Six percent of the time, it was because of pain related to the initial (“index”) operation, but 51 percent of the time, it was due to a new painful condition, and 40 percent from undergoing another surgery. The remaining 2.3 percent (five patients) filled opioid prescriptions one year later because of chronic pain due to recurrent cancer (two), a new medical condition (two), and a chronic abscess (one). Only one patient filled an opioid prescription 12 months post-hospital discharge for no specific reason. The researchers noted that patients disposed of their leftover opioids at a high rate. They concluded:

In a group of prospectively studied opioid-naïve surgical patients discharged with guideline-directed opioid rxs and who achieved high rates of excess opioid disposal, no patients became persistent opioid users solely as a result of the opioid rx given after their index surgery. Long-term opioid use did occur for other, well-defined, medical or surgical reasons.

This latest study adds to a January 2018 study in BMJ by researchers at Harvard and Johns Hopkins that examined 568,000 opioid naïve patients prescribed opioids for acute and postoperative pain from 2008 to 2016. The researchers found a total “misuse” rate (all “misuse” diagnostic codes) of just 0.6 percent.

It also supports the result of a prospective study of emergency room patients sent home with prescription opioids for pain and followed for six months, published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine in May 2020. That study found that one percent (five patients) met the criteria for persistent opioid use by the end of the follow-up period. Four of the five patients still had moderate or severe pain in the affected body part six months after release from the emergency department.

As I and my co-authors reported in the Journal of Pain Research in January 2019, there is no correlation between opioid prescription volume and the non-medical use of or addiction to prescription opioids. And data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health shows that the addiction rate among persons aged 18 and above has remained essentially unchanged throughout the 21^st century, with the percentage addicted to prescription painkillers hovering at around 0.7 percent from 2002 through 2014, despite prescription rates surging to record highs in the early 2000s and then, after 2012, dropping more than 60 percent.

It seems that no amount of evidence will convince policymakers to abandon the false narrative that doctors treating their patients’ pain caused the overdose crisis. This refusal causes many patients to needlessly suffer while driving non-medical users of diverted black-market prescription pain pills to illicit fentanyl.

Lawmakers and policymakers, blind to the evidence that drug prohibition is the primary cause of the overdose crisis, have given us the worst of both worlds: patients inadequately treated for pain while overdose deaths soar.

In this, the third year of his presidential term, President Joe Biden is clearly not making trade—much less trade liberalization—a priority. For the most part, his trade policy is a less strident echo of that of his predecessor, Donald Trump, and, in trade, his has been, as I have previously described it, the reign of polite protectionism. To the extent that he and his administration are negotiating on trade at all, they are negotiating trade deals that cannot truly be called trade deals. Witness the recent announcement of a supply chain coordination agreement with 13 other countries as the first tangible result of the administration’s initiative for an Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF). Coordinating operations to safeguard against supply chain disruptions is clearly desirable. So, too, are the administration’s professed goals of making trade, as U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai puts it, promote “sustainability, resiliency and inclusiveness.” But what of the goal of making more trade? This does not seem to be among the president’s goals. Yet, doing so could help attain the administration’s stated goals while also creating economic gains for the American people that will not otherwise be made.

Not surprisingly, a large coalition of prominent US business groups have expressed their reservations about a purported trade deal in IPEF that does not lower existing barriers to trade by cutting tariffs, streamlining regulatory standards, or providing new protections for the intellectual property that is a huge part of the value of the goods and services exported by the United States. Fearful of Congressional opposition to a trade deal that would reduce U.S. tariff “protections”, and fearful, too, of the possible political consequences of the obvious Asia-Pacific solution for the United States of simply re-joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the president and his advisers are trying, in trade, to make something out of not much more than nothing. What they describe as a “new” approach to trade is not one that makes a priority of lowering barriers to trade. Indeed, based on the evidence so far, the Biden administration seems bent on maintaining and increasing the protectionist barriers erected by the United States that constrain the growth of trade.

For what I think the United States should be seeking globally in trade, see my new Cato Policy Analysis, “The Future of the WTO: Multilateral or Plurilateral?”.

After years of planning and preparation, the Vineyard Wind project is swinging into high gear. Wind turbine monopiles recently arrived from Spain have been loaded onto a specialized vessel that is now installing them off the coast of Massachusetts. When that job is complete it will return to port for another batch. But these back-and-forth trips don’t involve a nearby Massachusetts port, or any U.S. port for that matter. Rather, thanks to the protectionist Jones Act the hub of this activity is Halifax, Nova Scotia over 400 miles away from the future wind farm.

Passed in 1920, the Jones Act restricts the waterborne transportation of “merchandise” between two U.S. “points” to vessels that are U.S.-registered, U.S.-built and mostly U.S.-crewed and owned. In the offshore wind context, U.S. points include both the port that vessels depart from as well as the installation site, while wind turbine components—including foundations (monopiles)—constitute merchandise. As no U.S.-flagged and built installation vessels currently exist to transport monopiles from a U.S. port to the Vineyard Wind site, the only viable option is the use of a foreign installation vessel operating out of a foreign port—in this case Halifax.

Operating out of more distant ports brings added complications. In 2020—again because of the Jones Act—Halifax was used as the staging ground for installing a pair of wind turbines 800 miles away off the coast of Virginia instead of a closer U.S. port. The New York Times described the 1920 law as the project manager’s biggest problem, contributing to the installation effort lasting a full year rather than the matter of weeks it would have taken in Europe.

Three years later, the Vineyard Wind project finds itself in a similar position. Thankfully, the round-trip from Halifax to the installation site near Martha’s Vineyard is significantly shorter. But the number of wind turbines involved is also far greater at 62, necessitating at least 11 round trips from Nova Scotia compared to six for the Virginia project.

Help—of sorts—is on the way. The first wind turbine installation vessel that fully complies with the Jones Act is slated to be delivered by a Texas shipyard later this year (although whether this happens as scheduled remains to be seen—of two ships ordered from the shipyard in 2017 for a 2020 delivery, one wasn’t delivered until July 2022 while the other still has yet to be delivered). Once in operation, the vessel will allow for turbine components to be loaded in U.S. ports rather than using less efficient Jones Act workarounds.

The bad news is that the $500 million vessel—an amount that exceeds the international price for such vessels by approximately $170 million—appears set to see its price further balloon at least partly due to the shipyard’s inexperience in building such vessels. Furthermore, no more such vessels are currently in the pipeline. And with prices estimated to have now climbed to $800 million, it’s unclear whether any ever will be.

It’s not just the installation vessels that feature eye-popping prices either. As a recent report from consulting firm Intelatus Global Partners points out, U.S.-built service operation vessels used to maintain offshore wind farms after they are built are estimated to have prices 40 to 140 percent greater than those constructed overseas. Given prices that exceed $50 million for such vessels overseas, that’s potentially tens of millions of dollars in added cost per vessel. With some analysts projecting that up to 15 such vessels will be required to meet U.S. offshore wind needs, the toll exacted by U.S. protectionism will not be cheap.

Unfortunately, the problems may not end there.

Rather than seeking to relieve the burden posed by protectionist U.S. laws, some in Congress are advancing legislation that would impose further restrictions on the offshore energy sector’s use of foreign vessels and mariners. Such legislation comes despite the fact that, beyond a lack of specialized vessels, the U.S. maritime industry is also suffering from a shortage of U.S. mariners—particularly those with offshore wind experience. Unsurprisingly, the offshore wind industry is fiercely opposed.

It’s beyond the scope of this blog post to assess whether offshore wind energy is sensible or not. If the development of this industry is to be pursued, however, it should be done in the most efficient and cost-effective manner possible. U.S. maritime protectionism—like all protectionism—only guarantees inefficiency, higher costs, and waste. If President Biden truly believes that climate change is a “clear and present danger to the United States” and that offshore wind should play a key role in mitigating this threat, then he—and other policymakers who share such convictions—should urgently push for the removal or relaxation of Jones Act restrictions.

The federal government will spend $6.3 trillion in 2023, 27 percent is discretionary and 73 percent is mandatory. Discretionary spending refers to federal programs that receive funding through annual appropriations. Less than half of discretionary spending is for defense. More than half is for nondefense activities including education, infrastructure, scientific research, and other programs. If Congress does not pass annual appropriations bills before October 1^st (the beginning of the federal fiscal year), the government undergoes a partial “shutdown” where non-essential functions are halted until Congress enacts new funding bills. Congress may also enact a continuing resolution (CR) which temporarily continues the previous fiscal year’s level of funding. In contrast, mandatory spending refers to federal programs that are funded outside of annual appropriations, including Social Security, Medicare, and food stamps (SNAP). Mandatory program spending is typically ongoing, continuing from year to year, unless Congress changes the law. This fact sheet lays out key details legislators and the public should know about discretionary spending.

• Discretionary spending accounts for less than one third of all federal spending, that’s $1.7 trillion in 2023 or 6.6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

  • Discretionary spending will reach $2.4 trillion or 6 percent of GDP by 2033 according to projections by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

  • Discretionary spending will consume one quarter of the U.S. government’s projected $9.8 trillion total budget in 2033.

  • Discretionary spending is declining as a share of the overall budget, primarily due to the growth of major mandatory entitlement spending like Social Security and Medicare.

  • Between 1973 and 2023, discretionary spending’s budgetary share fell from 53 percent to 28 percent of total federal spending.

  • Compared to the size of the economy, discretionary spending is declining from 9.6 percent of GDP in 1973 to 6 percent of the GDP in 2023.

  • For every American household, the United States will spend about $13,000 in discretionary spending in 2023.

• Discretionary spending can be divided into two main categories: defense and nondefense.

  • Discretionary spending is allocated as budget authority and disbursed as outlays. Timing differences explain discrepancies between annual budget authority and discretionary outlays or spending.

  • The federal government will spend $792 billion on defense discretionary programs in 2023.

  • Nondefense includes everything from transportation to education to agriculture. See the graph below for a breakdown of nondefense spending in fiscal year 2023.

  • The United States will spend $919 billion on nondefense discretionary programs in 2023.

  • Since 1973, nondefense discretionary spending has grown 75 percent faster than defense.

  • As a share of the United States’ economic output, defense spending has fallen from 9 percent of GDP in 1962 to 3 percent of GDP in 2023. Nondefense spending has grown from 3 percent of GDP to 4 percent of GDP over the same period.

  • By 2033, the United States is projected to spend $1.1 trillion on defense and $1.3 trillion on nondefense.

  • Congress also distributes added funds through supplemental appropriations. Supplemental appropriations are in addition to regular discretionary appropriations and distinct from mandatory spending. Supplemental appropriations are not subject to discretionary spending limits.

  • Over the last five years, Congress has spent $1 trillion through supplemental discretionary appropriations. If mandatory spending provisions were included, pandemic-related legislation cost many trillions more.

• Discretionary spending limits encourage budgetary discipline.

  • The Budget Control Act of 2011 capped discretionary spending between 2012 and 2021.

  • For the first six years, discretionary spending declined and then remained flat in real terms.

  • Since then, discretionary spending has risen significantly, largely due to emergency spending in response to COVID-19 which was not subject to the top-line spending cap.

  • The Fiscal Responsibility Act limits discretionary spending for two years, at $1,590 billion for FY24 and $1,606 billion for FY25.

  • Because the discretionary budget is annual, funding priorities are more sensitive to recent political trends and national events. Interest groups and matters that catch constituents’ attention influence short-term legislative outcomes.

  • Republican conferences in the House and Senate banned parochial funding requests (earmarks or so-called congressionally directed spending) in early 2011.

  • Earmarks bypass merit-based formulas and competitive award processes, in favor of politically directed spending and are more likely to lead to a misallocation of resources. Rent seeking from interest groups also consumes legislators’ time and taxpayer dollars.

  • Earmark spending increased from $9 billion in 2022 to $15 billion in 2023.

Further reading:

• How a Better Budget Control Act Would Limit Spending and Control Debt “Congress should consider a Better Budget Control Act at the debt limit this year to reduce inflationary pressures and take steps toward avoiding a future fiscal crisis.”
• Dollar‐​for‐​Dollar, Parity, and Negotiating at the Debt Limit “Congress should budget based on fiscal realities and in accordance with national priorities, instead of basing decisions on catchy, yet misguided, tag lines.”

Download a printable PDF version of this fact sheet here.

A six-mile extension to the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system would have a minimal impact on personal vehicle emissions according to data in a federal travel forecast. Further, because the federal analysis is based on pre-pandemic socioeconomic forecasts and travel patterns, it greatly overestimates future ridership on the subway extension, which has a $9.3 billion estimated cost.

A Federal Transit Administration (FTA) profile of the project shows that the BART extension would provide 32,900 passenger trips per weekday, or just over 9.5 million trips per year in 2040. The annual estimate is about 290 times the daily figure reflecting the fact that weekend ridership is a fraction of weekday utilization (in an average year there are 251 weekdays and 104 weekend days).

But most of the new BART passengers would be switching from buses and light rail vehicles already serving the area. The detailed travel forecast report, obtained from the FTA via a Freedom of Information Act request, shows that only 10,700 (about a third of) the BART riders will be new to transit. The report does not show how many of these new riders would walk or bike in the absence of the new BART service, but it is reasonable to assume that the vast majority would otherwise drive.

Generously assuming that all the new riders switch from cars, the projected annual reduction in passenger vehicle trips would be about 3.1 million. This compares to a total of 860 million automobile trips in San Jose reported by Google’s Environmental Insights Explorer yielding a projected reduction of just 0.4%.

So, the $9.3 billion subway project would put only a small dent in San Jose’s greenhouse gas emissions once it is fully built out. Further reducing the net climate benefits of this project is the fact that it will add greenhouse gas emissions during the construction phase given its need for steel and concrete. Further, many if not most of the automobile trips it will replace will be from electric vehicles. In Santa Clara County, which encompasses San Jose, Zero Emission Vehicles accounted for 37.5% of all new vehicle sales during the first quarter of 2023. California plans to prohibit gasoline-powered vehicle sales in 2035, the year after the San Jose subway extension is supposed to be completed.

So, an analysis of official data shows that the BART extension is an inefficient climate solution. But it gets worse when one considers the assumptions underlying some of the numbers. The federal travel results forecast mentioned above was based on transit utilization patterns from 2019, before COVID-19 deeply cut into transit ridership. Recently, BART ridership has been running at just 40% of 2019 levels. Second, the projection assumes “population and employment in the model area are expected to grow by about 29% and 26% respectively between 2019 and 2040”. This seems unlikely since San Jose’s population has been falling in recent years. The most recent US Census estimates show that the city’s population declined from 1,013,221 is 2020 to 971,223 in 2022.

As I discussed in a previous post, public transit is usually not a great climate solution. The projections for the San Jose BART extension are consistent with this conclusion. The Biden Administration’s FY 2024 budget includes $500 million for this project. Congress should take a hard look at the numbers before approving this expenditure.

Hong Kong, once one of the freest jurisdictions in the world, with a rule of law that protected freedom of speech and assembly as fundamental human rights, is now under the direct hand of Beijing after the passage of the National Security Law (NSL) in July 2020. One of the victims of that law is Jimmy Lai, founder of Next magazine and Apple Daily, two of Hong Kong’s most popular and free-market publications.

His strong criticism of the NSL, and his support of mass protests against it, led to the shutdown of both publications and Lai’s imprisonment for “subversion.” By speaking out against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its cronies in Hong Kong and defending the rule of law and freedom, Lai now faces the possibility of life in prison. Like many others before him, he is a prisoner of the state.

In honor of his valiant effort to uphold the principles that made Hong Kong a bastion of freedom and his courage in standing up to Beijing’s suppression of liberal principles in Hong Kong, the Cato Institute awarded him this year’s Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty. Sebastian Lai accepted the award on his father’s behalf.

Jimmy Lai, like other prisoners of the state, understands the key role a free market in ideas plays for both economic and personal freedom. In a recent documentary produced by the Acton Institute, he stated: “Information is choice and choice freedom.” When the free flow of information is crushed by the state, there can be no criticism of current institutions and leaders: wrong ideas persist and good ideas are suppressed. Consequently, both economic development and personal freedom suffer (see Zhang 2015).

Peter Bauer (1957: 113), the first recipient of the Friedman Prize in 2002, held that “the principal objective and criterion of economic development” is to widen “the range of effective alternatives open to people.” Restricting the flow of information and free speech limits the range of choices open to people, impedes the market discovery process, and weakens the moral fabric of society.

China’s Attack on the Free Flow of Information

When Deng Xiaoping began to open China to the outside world in 1978, there was both an economic liberalization and an opening of the market for ideas. However, preserving the CCP’s monopoly on power has always come first. Although freedom of speech is now embedded in the PRC’s Constitution (Art. 35), the state has the upper hand, as expressed in Art. 51: “Citizens of the People’s Republic of China, in exercising their freedoms and rights, may not infringe upon the interests of the State.” Those interests are wide-ranging and offer no guarantee of free speech or other fundamental human rights.

The Tiananmen crackdown in 1989 stalled liberalization until Deng’s Southern Tour in 1992. One of the many casualties of that crackdown was Zhao Ziyang, then Party General Secretary and a firm proponent of liberalization. When he spoke out in favor of a peaceful settlement with the protesters, he was purged from his position and put under house arrest for the remainder of his life.

Although Zhao’s voice was silenced, his posthumous book, Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang (2009) became a New York Times bestseller. In that book, he argued that, if China wants to fully develop, it must move toward a parliamentary democracy with a genuine rule of law and a free press (pp. 270–71).

Another enemy of the Chinese state was Liu Xiaobo, one of the drafters of Charter 08. He was charged with “speech crimes” for “inciting subversion of state power” and imprisoned. In 2010, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his strong support of democracy and human rights—especially free speech. The empty chair at the Nobel ceremony symbolized the struggle for truth against power.

In a statement released on December 23, 2009, Liu wrote: “Freedom of expression is the foundation of human rights, the source of humanity, and the mother of truth. To strangle freedom of speech is to trample on human rights, stifle humanity, and suppress truth.” Jimmy Lai would undoubtedly agree

Since Xi Jinping took over in 2012 as General Secretary of the CCP, there has been a carefully managed campaign to squash dissent within the Party and establish Xi as the paramount leader. Now the most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, Xi has silenced all critics, including those in Hong Kong.

In January 2017, the cyber police in Beijing shut down the website of China’s leading private, market-liberal, think tank—the Unirule Institute of Economics—as well as the personal websites of its scholars. The director of Unirule, Sheng Hong, in a memorandum dated January 24, 2017, pointed to the hypocrisy of Xi Jinping, who paid lip service to free trade in his remarks at The World Economic Forum, while cracking down on free speech at home. According to Hong, “As ideas are more valuable than commodities, anyone who truly defend[s] the freedom of trade will defend freedom of expression” (quoted from a personal copy of the memorandum). The Unirule Institute was permanently banned in August 2019, and the voice of its co-founder, Mao Yushi, who received the Friedman Prize in 2012, has been silenced.

Today, access to economic and financial data is being restricted in the name of national security, making it difficult for foreign firms and scholars to gather information necessary to conduct business in China and to understand policy changes (see Wei, Kubota, and Strumpf 2023). Without a free market for ideas and access to relevant databases, it will be difficult to make informed decisions and develop China’s financial markets.

China’s Future Development

In 2015, Zhang Weiying, a pioneer in China’s transition from plan to market, predicted: “The future of China’s reform will depend on the kind of ideas and leadership the new leaders, particularly General Secretary Xi Jinping, have. To succeed in a peaceful transition to a liberal society, China must get rid of the wrong ideas” (Zhang 2015: 13). The most serious wrong idea is that economic and social harmony come from top-down planning—not from the spontaneous order of free markets and free people bounded by a rule of law that protects persons and property.

Continuous improvement in people’s lives comes from taking advantage of new opportunities to exchange goods and ideas. In that endeavor, there must be competition in all markets, including the market for ideas. China’s one-party system and the lack of free speech are impediments to future development. That is why Ronald Coase and Ning Wang have emphasized that, “when the market for goods and the market for ideas are together in full swing, each supporting, augmenting, and strengthening the other, human creativity and happiness stand the best chance to prevail” (Coase and Wang 2012: 207).

Globalization and trade liberalization help bolster the free market for ideas and widen the range of choices open to people, thus increasing the wealth of nations. Crude nationalism and protectionism do the opposite. Politicizing trade and blocking the free flow of information risks losing the gains from globalization and marketization that have benefited both China and its trading partners.

Conclusion

Hong Kong’s turn from the principles that made it a great society—namely, the rule of law, nonintervention, and a free market for ideas—has made successful entrepreneurs and advocates of freedom like Jimmy Lai enemies of the state. By silencing critics—under the guise of national security—both Hong Kong and China have sacrificed liberty in the name of “stability.” Reversing that trend is the biggest challenge they face in achieving social and economic harmony.

The House Ways and Means Committee Republicans recently released legislation to retaliate against individuals and businesses based in countries that impose extraterritorial taxes on American companies. The proposal is a reaction to ongoing efforts by the OECD to coordinate a global tax increase on large multinational companies.

Instead of raising taxes, Congress should stop funding the OECD and focus on making the United States the most attractive place to do business.

The Republican proposal would have Treasury identify extraterritorial and discriminatory taxes levied by other countries on U.S. companies. Individuals and corporations based in the offending countries would then face higher tax rates on their U.S. income. The legislation specifically targets the OECD’s under‐​taxed profits rule (UTPR) and digital services taxes (DST). UTPR allows foreign countries to tax profits earned outside their borders if effective tax rates are lower than 15 percent. UTPR is one of five OECD-proposed rules that will enforce its proposed global minimum tax.

Biden Boxes Congress In

By working with the OECD to develop their Two‐​Pillar plan to increase global corporate taxes and then agreeing to the proposed outline for the new rules, the Administration has given Congress few options to reassert their legislative powers and protect American businesses from higher taxes. The Two‐​Pillar proposal is intended to more comprehensively tax the profits of multinational businesses by raising effective tax rates and reallocating taxing rights away from some countries and toward others.

The Ways and Means proposal is thus a predictable reaction to the Biden Administration using the OECD as an extra-legislative venue to advance policies that do not have congressional buy-in. The Administration has disregarded Congress’ constitutional tax-writing powers and unilaterally acquiesced to upending decades of international tax norms by giving other countries taxing rights to profits earned elsewhere.

The Republican proposal is a strong signal to other countries that the United States Congress is not ready to follow the Administration’s lead in outsourcing international tax rules to OECD bureaucrats in Paris. Sending this message is important, but Congress should focus on cutting taxes rather than raising them.

The tit-for-tat tax scheme concedes too much. The problem is more than UTPR and the possibility of new DSTs. The issue is the last two decades of OECD tax work to harmonize international tax law and end international tax competition. The OECD’s tax work no longer primarily coordinates tax systems to eliminate double taxation. Instead, it now proposes ever more complicated new tax systems and reporting requirements to raise taxes on multinational businesses. This is a recipe for increasing taxes, reducing tax competition to benefit high-tax governments, and reducing global investment by making international business operations more expensive.

Thanks to the OECD work, multinational businesses are now more likely to face higher effective tax rates, more tax uncertainty, and new forms of double taxation.

A Better Path

The OECD has proven it no longer serves the interests of the United States and has abandoned its founding mission to promote international economic growth. Therefore, Congress should stop financially supporting the OECD and reform our domestic tax laws.

First, Congress should follow through on the proposal of 10 House Republicans who asked the Appropriations Committee to prohibit any U.S. funding for the OECD in next year’s budget. The United States currently funds almost 20 percent of the organization’s budget.

Second, Congress should make America the most attractive place to do business in the world. The Tax Foundation ranks the United States 22nd out of 38 countries on international corporate tax competitiveness. Even after the 2017 tax cut, the United States still has an above-average corporate income tax rate, and key investment rules are in the process of expiring. Lowering or eliminating the corporate income tax and making full expensing for new U.S. investments permanent would both benefit American workers and undercut the OECD project. Congress could also increase financial privacy protections, prohibit the automatic exchange of taxpayer information with other countries, and cut the capital gains tax rate.

The most powerful message Congress could send is if it played the game the OECD is trying to stop. Making the United States an international tax haven would be a tit-for-tat game that benefits everyone.