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Daily Archives: January 7, 2015

Subsidizing Traffic Congestion: The Multibillion-Dollar Tax Subsidy That’s Making Your Commute Worse

“The commuter parking benefit results in $7.3 billion in forgone revenue annually while also increasing traffic congestion in our most congested cities, according to a new report, Subsidizing Traffic Congestion: The Multibillion-Dollar Tax Subsidy That’s Making Your Commute Worse, released by the civic organizations TransitCenter and Frontier Group. The report also found that the $1.3 billion public transportation benefit removes only about a tenth of the roughly 820,000 cars added to the road by the parking subsidy…Currently, employees who drive to work may receive up to $250 a month tax-free for employer-paid or employer-provided parking through reimbursements, vouchers or free parking if it has market value. Typically, these subsidies deliver the greatest benefit to the wealthy and people who work in dense employment centers, such as downtown areas that are already prone to traffic congestion during the morning and evening rush hours… The high toll of the parking benefit is further exacerbated by the fact that it touches on such a small portion of the U.S. workforce: while one third of U.S. workers receive parking benefits, only 2 percent receive transit benefits. In spite of its detrimental effects on the transportation system, the parking benefit was created with no transportation purpose whatsoever. In order to align tax policy with the nation’s transportation goals, TransitCenter and Frontier Group recommend that the federal government:

  • Eliminate the parking benefit;
  • At least restore parity between parking and transit benefits; and
  • Explore improvements to the current transit benefits – such as refundable tax credits for household transit expenditures – that deliver financial support to a broader range of transit users.”

The Decoupling Effect of Digital Disruptors

The Decoupling Effect of Digital Disruptors by Thales S. Teixeira and Peter Jamieson, November 21, 2014. Harvard Business School Working Paper. “While the Internet’s first wave of disruption was marked by the unbundling of digital content, the second wave, decoupling, promises to generate more casualties in an even broader array of industries. Digital start-ups are disrupting… Continue Reading

Contract as Automaton: The Computational Representation of Financial Agreements

Flood, Mark D. and Goodenough, Oliver R., Contract as Automaton: The Computational Representation of Financial Agreements (December 16, 2014). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2538224 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2538224 “We show that the fundamental legal structure of a well written financial contract follows a state-transition logic that can be formalized mathematically as a finite-state machine (a.k.a. finite-state automaton). The automaton… Continue Reading

Minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee, December 16-17, 2014

“The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) authorizes the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to conduct a series of overnight reverse repurchase operations involving U.S. government securities for the purpose of further assessing the appropriate structure of such operations in supporting the implementation of monetary policy during normalization. The reverse repurchase operations authorized by this resolution shall be (i) conducted at an offering rate that… Continue Reading

DHS IG Report – Border Patrol Use of Drones Ineffective

U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Unmanned Aircraft System Program Does Not Achieve Intended Results or Recognize All Costs of Operations, December 24, 2014 OIG-15-17. “Although CBP’s Unmanned Aircraft System program contributes to border security, after 8 years, CBP cannot prove that the program is effective because it has not developed performance measures. The program has also not achieved the expected results. Specifically, the unmanned aircraft… Continue Reading

Freedom on the Net 2014

Freedom on the Net 2014 – the fifth annual comprehensive study of internet freedom around the globe, covering developments in 65 countries that occurred between May 2013 and May 2014 –finds internet freedom around the world in decline for the fourth consecutive year, with 36 out of 65 countries assessed in the report experiencing a negative… Continue Reading

FTC Chair Warns About Risks of Connected Devices

EPIC: “In a speech at the CES conference this week, FTC Chair Edith Ramirez warned of the privacy risks of connected home devices. “In the not-too-distant future, many, if not most, aspects of our everyday lives will be digitally observed and stored,” Ramirez said. EPIC has written extensively on interconnected devices, known as the “Internet… Continue Reading

Improved Search and QuickFacts Enhance Census Bureau’s Website

“As a direct result of customer feedback, the U.S. Census Bureau recently updated two key tools oncensus.gov with new features to make accessing statistics easier than ever before. With an improved search feature generating better results on census.gov, users can discover a wealth of information and visualizations just by typing key words, such as “median income,”… Continue Reading