public policy commentary

Social scientists have long noted the excessive consumerism in the United States. Consumerism can be defined as a society’s preoccupation with acquiring consumer goods. According to United Nations data, the United States ranks third behind only Bermuda and Switzerland, with household consumption expenditures per capita of $43,959. As the table below shows, those expenditures far exceed the expenditures for households in almost all other “First World” countries. Source: Households and NPISHs Final consumption expenditure per capita (constant 2015 US$) |…

Following up on our earlier post discussing the need for a small, simple set of policy principles that every new policy must meet, our second proposed principle relates to economic inequality: No policy shall be adopted that increases income inequality or wealth inequality. Measuring economic inequality In discussing economic inequality, one must always be clear about both the type of inequality and the measure of that inequality. Common types of economic inequality include pre-tax income inequality, post-tax income inequality, wealth…

Following up on our post discussing the need for Americans to drive smaller cars, we provide a list of the most popular U.S. passenger vehicles in 2025 ranked from least to most considerate, based on vehicle size and fuel efficiency. We ranked all 94 passenger vehicles with more than 50,000 reported U.S. sales in 2025. Manufacturers report only aggregate sales for all configurations of each vehicle. We tried to consider the most popular configuration for each vehicle, while also trying…

Following up on our earlier post discussing the need for a small, simple set of policy principles that every new policy must meet, our first proposed principle relates to government debt: Except to address an emergency, no policy shall be adopted that increases the ratio of the national debt held by the public (which we refer to as “public debt”) to GDP. Causes of the current debt In 2001, the federal government had a budget surplus of $127 billion, had…

Since the 1960s, policy professionals have used policy analysis criteria to analyze proposed public policies. Those criteria have evolved over time and there is still not a universally agreed list. Kraft and Furlong provide a fairly typical list of the following eight criteria: effectiveness, efficiency, equity, liberty/freedom, political feasibility, social acceptability, administrative feasibility, and technical feasibility. It has become increasingly apparent that these criteria, while helpful, are not sufficient to protect us from bad policies. In particular, there is no…

Even more so than with houses, American cars have gotten larger over the past several decades. Many online articles have explained and analyzed that trend and we won’t repeat that analysis here. The EPA’s Automotive Trends Data page provides data on vehicle weights since 1975 and shows that two factors have contributed: increasing production of SUVs and trucks as compared with cars and station wagons and increasing average weights of vehicles in all classes. So, Americans are buying more SUVs and…

For several decades starting in about 1950, American families got smaller, while new houses built in the United States got larger. We have started to correct those contradictory trends, with the mean family size stabilizing at about 3.13 people per family since 2012 and the mean new house size decreasing from 2,687 square feet in 2015 to 2,364 square feet in 2024. As a result, the mean new house size per person has decreased from 856 in 2015 to 755…