Obama’s Fuzzy Stimulus Math

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  September 8th at 08:50 PM  | 

Let’s forget the fact that Obama’s entire Stimulus 10.0 is a counterintuitive proposal that doubles down on the very failures that precipitated this speech.  Let’s also disregard the fact that enshrining unemployment insurance as a permanent handout will perpetuate unemployment.  And more union-induced, short-term money drops on infrastructure will do nothing but stimulate traffic jams.  Let’s focus purely on the very numbers that the administration | Read More »

OK, Obama, Repeal the Entire Payroll Tax..But Save Social Security

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  August 29th at 01:00 PM  | 

After Labor Day, Obama plans to unveil his highly unanticipated jobs plan.  Much like his first jobs plan, this one will include massive stimulus handouts to special interests, prodigal infrastructure spending (as much as $556 billion), unprecedented extensions of unemployment benefits, and more welfare transfer payments.  Concurrently, he will inveigh against “rich” job creators and offer a healthy dose of vapid rhetoric regarding regulatory reform.  | Read More »

CBO’s Latest Budget and Economic Outlook is Unrealistic

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  August 24th at 12:31 PM  | 

The latest CBO budget and economic outlook is using baseline assumptions that are as realistic as flying unicorns.  Although they project a decade of mediocre growth and moderate deficits, even such a dismal projection is a pretentious view of reality. On the budget side, CBO’s baseline outlook portends a $1.284 trillion deficit this year, and $3.487 worth of deficits over the ten-year budget frame, from | Read More »

$500,000 of Green for Green Jobs, Red for the Rest of Us

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  August 23rd at 02:02 PM  | 

It certainly pays to go green.  Well, at least until the greenbacks stop flowing – and bankruptcy kicks in. Last year, the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Chris Horner estimated that the $30 billion green handout in the stimulus bill cost taxpayers roughly $475,000 per job created.  According to the Wall Street Journal, that’s quadruple the cost of creating a job in a nonsubsidized private firm.  It | Read More »

The Entitlement Leviathan in Numbers

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  August 22nd at 12:32 PM  | 

Immediately prior to breaking for the August recess, Congress passed a bipartisan agreement to cut spending.  Well, sort of. Leaders in both parties got together to do something evil and stupid; they agreed to the largest increase in the debt ceiling, without solving our debt problem.  They cut discretionary spending by $6.67 billion for FY 2012, from $1.0497 trillion to $1.043 trillion.  That’s a bit | Read More »

Let’s Replace EPA With Employment Protection Agency

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  August 12th at 12:01 PM  | 

When members of Congress return to Washington in September, they must confront the next budget challenge; a Continuing Resolution for FY 2012.  While the top line discretionary spending level has already been agreed upon through the debt ceiling agreement, the specific levels of funding for each department and agency are still up for debate (or closed-door negotiations, in this case).  Unfortunately, instead of prudently analyzing | Read More »

It’s Time for a Balanced Approach to Deficits and Green Energy

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  August 8th at 10:58 AM  | 

The Democrats think the American people are stupid.  Throughout the debt ceiling imbroglio, Obama and every single elected Democrat have regurgitated their talking points about a balanced solution to the debt crisis.  They have insulted the intelligence of every voter by intimating that the budget can be balanced by eliminating a few tax credits.  No, they don’t want to talk about the tens of trillions | Read More »

The Debt Rises, The Economy Sinks

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  August 4th at 11:04 AM  | 

Despite being dispirited by the one-sided nature of the debt ceiling deal, most of us were looking forward to reaping the rewards from its only ancillary benefit; the impending stock market rally.  Much to our chagrin, the Dow dropped precipitously, losing over 800 points since the opening bell on Monday.  After the initial euphoria from the debt ceiling hangover began to subside, people have been | Read More »

There Are No Spending Cuts Without Downsizing Government

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  July 21st at 01:27 PM  | 

Republicans and conservatives have correctly asserted that the federal government doesn’t have a revenue problem; it has a spending problem.  However, a more trenchant summation of our public policy vices would go something like this: we don’t have a spending problem, per se; we have a big government problem. While such a characterization might sound redundant, the Orwellian language used to describe spending cuts throughout | Read More »

Time to End Bipartisan Profligacy of Transportation Spending

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  July 18th at 08:35 AM  | 

One of the preferred methods liberals use to tax and spend is to create special “trust funds” for particular expenditures, with the intent of hiding the funds within the Treasury’s general fund.  The system goes something like this: levy a tax that is supposedly earmarked for a specific expense and impounded in a trust fund (lock box); gradually purloin the fund by using it for | Read More »

Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land on this Independence Day

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  July 4th at 04:13 PM  | 

As Benjamin Franklin left Independence Hall after the Constitutional Convention, he was reportedly asked by a lady, “well doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”  He famously replied, “a republic, if you can keep it.” Today, more than ever before, is a time to celebrate the roots of our founding – and resolve to preserve this republic as a paragon of liberty | Read More »

Obama’s Sinking Economic Ship

By: Brad Jackson (Diary)  |  June 24th at 10:14 AM  | 

Download Podcast | iTunes | Podcast Feed On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss the Congressional Budget Office’s scathing report on the debt, Ben Bernanke and Timothy Geithner’s call for higher business taxes. We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you | Read More »

Time to Opt Out of the Social Security Ponzi Scheme

By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary)  |  June 16th at 02:30 PM  | 

The Social Security Ponzi scheme is perhaps the most consequential government infringement upon our lives.  Conservatives are justifiably outraged that Obama egregiously mandated that we purchase health insurance.  However, the individual mandate is not nearly as meddlesome and tyrannical as the government’s complete control over our retirement security.  The only reason why these two programs are regarded differently by the public, is because Social Security | Read More »

The Infamous, Updated, Romer-Bernstein Chart.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  June 7th at 09:00 AM  | 

Via James Pethokoukis comes an updated version of the graph (originally created by Obama’s economic advisers Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein) that has been succinctly countering (for years) any and all attempts to argue that the misnamed ‘stimulus’ worked: For those without access to the picture: it’s a modified version of this graph, which was used to sell the idea that with a stimulus, unemployment | Read More »

The #1 Threat to Our National Security is Not What You Think

By: David Bossie (Diary)  |  June 1st at 04:29 PM  | 

Promoted from the diaries. – ed. Our crushing $14 trillion national debt is as much a national security threat as it is an economic disaster.  According to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen, “The most significant threat to our national security is our debt.” Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has said, “We can’t have a strong military if we have a weak economy.” Even | Read More »