"We should be humble all the time," says Veronique de Rugy of her study of economics. "There's always something I realize that I didn't understand."

In this episode, we discuss the rigorous questions economists need to ask themselves when analyzing the likely impacts of public policies: Questions rarely asked by politicians and others in the public square. We look at the perils of cronyism, the shortcomings of the Ex-Im Bank, growing federal budget deficits, and the unfairness of the highly complex U.S. tax system.

Veronique is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. She writes a syndicated column looking at economics from a free market, libertarian perspective.

Stifle that yawn. Infrastructure just got exciting again.

President Biden announced a $2 trillion plan to rebuild roads and rails, repair bridges, modernize airports and seaports, create hundreds of thousands of union jobs in the solar and wind power industries, boost housing, expand broadband access to regions that are poorly served, and speed-up the transition to a climate-friendly economy. Total spending on his proposals could be as much as $4 trillion over the next decade.

We explain the President's ambitious plan, which amounts to the biggest spending initiatives in decades, and look at how to pay for it with one of the nation's top experts on the budget and taxes — Maya MacGuineas, President of the non-partisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.