Last night’s NCAA men’s basketball championship capped off a March Madness season full of busted brackets, missed bets, and office pools gone wrong. For most people who put money on the tournament, the final result meant a loss. But under the tax code, even people who break even over time can still owe tax on money they never actually earned. That is because the One Big Beautiful Bill Act limits gambling loss deductions to 90% of losses starting in 2025. A gambler who wins an

The Working Families Tax Cuts made a major pro-growth fix to the tax code by making it easier for businesses to deduct the cost of investment up front instead of dragging those deductions out over years. That matters most for small and family-owned businesses that need cash flow, certainty, and a tax code that rewards expansion instead of penalizing it. The law permanently restored full business expensing for investments purchased in 2025 and onward. It made small business e

A strong 2025 for small businesses is a reminder that when entrepreneurs get breathing room, they tend to use it well. A new “ Small Business Check Up Survey ” from the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council found that 71% of small business owners said their financial performance improved in 2025 compared to 2024, while 84% said performance met or exceeded expectations. That is a welcome sign for the economy, but it is also a policy lesson. Lower taxes and a more stable bu

The U.S. Postal Service is losing money because it is built for a market that is disappearing. As Chris Edwards argues in a recent Cato post, the USPS has lost money every year since 2007, mail volumes have kept falling, and the package business is no longer enough to make up the difference. Congress still acts as if the old postal model can be preserved. Paper mail is fading, private firms are winning more package business, and the case for privatization is getting harder to

The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act fixed a major problem in the U.S. tax code. For years, America’s high corporate tax rate and flawed international rules pushed companies to move overseas on paper, taking profits, headquarters, and long-term investment with them. A new push to raise the corporate rate would risk reopening that wound. Stephen Moore and Committee to Unleash Prosperity recently highlighted what happened after tax reform. As Moore notes, corporate inversions effect

A recent Townhall op-ed by Stephen Moore argues that Republicans can win on healthcare affordability by taking on the interests that profit from a costly and opaque system. That argument deserves attention, especially when paired with fresh evidence showing just how much the biggest health insurers have been making while Washington kept the Obamacare subsidy machine running. The latest chart on insurer operating profits makes the point clearly. UnitedHealth, CVS/Aetna, Cigna

The Working Families Tax Cuts include one of the clearest pro-worker reforms in the law: no tax on tips. Eligible workers can deduct up to $25,000 in qualified tips earned starting in 2025, whether they take the standard deduction or itemize. For millions of Americans in restaurants, hospitality, transportation, and personal service jobs, that means more of their earnings stay in their own pockets. Federal estimates say about 6 million workers report tipped wages, and the ave

Social Security is running out of time. The Social Security trust fund is projected to be depleted in 2032, and Washington has already missed the chance to fix the problem gradually. That failure has consequences. Reform can no longer be delayed, and it can no longer be painless. The real question now is who should bear the burden. Taxpayers should not be forced to send even more money into a broken system. The fairest remaining option is to reduce benefits on a means-tested

Earlier this week, the Center for a Free Economy pointed to economist Mark Perry’s well-known “Chart of the Century” to make a simple point. The prices that have risen fastest in America are not random. They are concentrated in sectors where government plays the biggest role. That pattern is hard to miss. Hospital services, college tuition, child care, and medical care services have all risen far faster than overall inflation since 2000. By contrast, products and services wit