Courtesy of Michael Tanner: One of the most important changes of the Clinton-era reform law was replacing the individual entitlement to welfare with a block grant to the states. In the old system, the more people a state signed up for welfare, the more money it got from Washington. The block grant broke this link, creating an incentive for states to help people become self-supporting. | Read More »
He brings the snark and the serious. The latter, of course, is especially worth reading, as it lays out an efficient and responsible bank reorganization process. But far be it from me to denigrate snark directed at big-government advocates of Keynesian stimulus, who in advocating their position, have abandoned all trappings of reality.
It involves him getting thrown into the gladiatorial pit: Last week Giulio Tremonti, Italy’s finance minister and Mr. Geithner’s host for the weekend, gave a tart review of the Obama administration’s stimulus in a local newspaper here. “If the problem is an excess of debt, the cure is not adding more debt, whether that debt is public or private,” he wrote in the Corriere della | Read More »
In a perfect world it would have been nice to have had more time to process it. –Ilan Kayatsky, a spokesman for Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), discussing the fact that the stimulus package was drafted in haste and read not at all before it was voted on.
My thoughts over at the Arena. Concerning the Gregg issue, Andrew Sullivan–in his inimitable way–is claiming that the Gregg withdrawal is proof that the Republicans have “declared war” on Obama. Never mind the fact that other Cabinet nominees–at least, the ones that don’t have to withdraw from consideration because of obstacles like tax cheating–have been receiving overwhelming support from both parties in Senate confirmation votes. | Read More »
With the stimulus package foundering, the President is now out to terrify the populace into rallying behind it: President Barack Obama warned on Thursday that failure to act on an economic recovery package could plunge the nation into a long-lasting recession that might prove irreversible, a fresh call to a recalcitrant Congress to move quickly. In an op-ed piece in The Washington Post, the president | Read More »
Courtesy of Will Wilkinson, who ought to be listened to in full by Republicans in Congress since there is little to no chance whatsoever that he will be listened to by the Obama Administration or by Democrats. The fact that infrastructure repairs are not shovel-ready, as Wilkinson points out, and the fact that any kind of massive public works program will indeed be subject to | Read More »
It bears remembering that prior to hitching their stars to the Obama wagon, the economic advisers the President-elect chose took direct issue with many of the items in the expected stimulus package the incoming Administration is going to try to pass through Congress: For example, giving more federal aid to states, one of Obama’s proposals, falls in the “medium” range of cost-effectiveness and carries much | Read More »
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