In the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown, Congress enacted an almost $800 billion stimulus bill in the assumption that an artificial increase in consumer demand could propel the nation into recovery. The rationale was pure Keynesian economics—in times of crisis, the government should borrow, spend and boost demand to generate growth. Two years later, it’s clear that the stimulus didn’t work. Unemployment is still | Read More »
President Barack Obama urged legislators this week to “seize the moment,” saying that they had “a chance to stabilize America’s finances for a decade, for fifteen or twenty years.” He is reportedly still pushing Republicans for a “big deal” that would include $4 trillion in deficit reduction over the next ten years. But why should we believe that he is serious about cutting spending now? | Read More »
Remember when then Senator Barack Obama said in 2008 that electricity rates would “necessarily skyrocket” as a result of his cap and trade system? He predicted at the time that he would also bankrupt the coal industry. So if someone wants to build a coal power plant, they can, it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they are going to be charged a huge | Read More »
There’s a proposal out there to split the state of California in half. The fifty-first state would be named South California and encompass the city of San Diego and conservative countries whereas Los Angeles, San Francisco and the more liberal northern parts of the state would continue to be governed from Sacramento. The proposed fifty-first state would be the fifth largest by population in the | Read More »
Writing for The Washington Post, E.J. Dionne argues that the debate about government spending in America is distracting people from the question how public and private resources can best be brought to bear in an effort to enhance the nation’s competitiveness. Other countries, he believes, are way ahead of the curve. While the United States is not even sure we should have gone halfway toward | Read More »
n his latest New York Times column, economist Paul Krugman criticizes the “pain caucus” in Europe, notably the European Central Bank (ECB), for insisting that sound money and balanced budgets will somehow fix all of the continent’s fiscal woes. Austerity, he argues, is failing and American policy makers would be ill advised to repeat it in their own country. Krugman’s column is unfortunately so filled | Read More »
President Barack Obama announced earlier this year to undertake a grand review of economic regulation in the United States and get rid of rules that “are not worth the cost, or that are just plain dumb.” Today, the first plans are in and you can review them here. There is a lot of sensible stuff among the different proposals. Red tape has been rising under | Read More »
What will it take for the government to admit that it’s utterly and inherently incapable of efficiently providing “affordable” housing? A comprehensive investigation undertaken by The Washington Post uncovered nothing but waste and fraud and suffering for the scores of neighborhoods and tens of thousands of people who were supposed to benefit from the efforts of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The | Read More »
A recent Gallup poll found that more American seniors support Paul Ryan’s reform plan for Medicare than they do the president’s. 48 percent of those over the age of 65 favor the Wisconsin congressman’s approach that would privatize the program and entitle people to “premium support” or vouchers with which to buy health insurance on the private market. 42 percent support Barack Obama who has | Read More »
“I’m rooting for everybody to get rich,” President Barack Obama said last week, speaking at a town hall meeting in Reno, Nevada. “But I believe that we can’t ask everybody to sacrifice and then tell the wealthiest among us, well, you can just relax and go count your money, and don’t worry about it. We’re not going to ask anything of you.” The president urged | Read More »
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