One of the easiest ways to balance a budget is simply to predict savings that may or may not ever come to pass.

A new approach to cutting health care costs may end up transferring medical risk to consumers.

Booze flows freely on New Orleans' anything-goes Bourbon Street, where the only lewd behavior the cops seem to get fussy about is peeing in public. Relief is on the way, though, both for drinkers who can't hold it in and for residents who are tired of seeing their streets and alleys used as a urinal.

At their best, condo and homeowner associations are an effective form of local government that raises property values and imposes a healthy degree of order on communities.

The problem in putting a price tag on government is that costs are deferred--buried in borrowed money and out of voters' sight.