The United States is supposed to be enjoying a recovery. Indeed, we’re now supposedly in the fifth year of an expanding economy. Many Americans must wonder why it doesn’t feel that way. In part, that’s because growth has been very anemic. Indeed, this is the weakest recovery since the Great Depression. But it’s also because the […]

It’s sometimes difficult to make fun of Keynesian economics. But this isn’t because Keynesian theory is airtight. It’s easy, after all, to mock a school of thought that is predicated on the notion that you can make yourself richer by taking money from your right pocket and putting it in your left pocket. The problem […]

In recent weeks, I’ve pontificated on Obama’s spendthrift budget, Congressman Dave Camp’s timid tax reform plan, and the corrupt cronyism of Washington. I got to elaborate on all these topics – and more – in this interview with Professor Glenn Reynolds, more widely known as Instapundit. If there was an overall theme, it’s that President Obama’s statist agenda is not […]

If you look at measures (such as the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World index) of what makes a nation competitive and prosperous, you’ll find some obvious variables such as fiscal policy, trade openness, regulatory burden, and monetary policy. But in addition to those policy levers, you’ll find that it’s equally important that a nation does a good job […]

Obamacare may not be good news for taxpayers or consumers, but let’s look at the bright side. At least the law has generated some superb political humor, including funny videos. *The head of the National Socialist Workers Party finds out he can’t keep his health plan. *A creepy version of Uncle Sam wants to know about your sex life. *Young people discover that they’re […]

The President’s new budget has been unveiled. There are lots of provisions that deserve detailed attention, but I always look first at the overall trends. Most specifically, I want to see what’s happening with the burden of government spending. And you probably won’t be surprised to see that Obama isn’t imposing any fiscal restraint. He wants spending to […]

No matter how much I pontificate about Washington corruption, there’s no way I can get across the true extent of the DC establishment’s self-serving behavior. Washington is rich because government is big and the beneficiaries of this system are enjoying their status as America’s new gilded class. It’s even gotten to the point where children and other family members also put […]

On several occasions, I’ve observed that the poverty rate in America was steadily falling, but that progress came to a halt in the mid-1960s when the government declared a War on Poverty. And I almost always included a chart showing the annual poverty rate over several decades. Moreover, I posted graphs showing how government programs trap people in dependency because of very high implicit […]