Tomorrow, August 12, will be a wonderful day. Based on calculations from Americans for Tax Reform, we will have finally worked long enough to finance the total cost of government for 2011. This means the money we earn for the rest of the year will be for the benefit…
Daily Analysis
U.S. Needs to Ditch the OECD
This past week Standard and Poor’s lowered their credit rating for the U.S. for the first time ever amidst debt ceiling debates over the growing federal deficit. Our leaders have nearly all acknowledged that to get the credit rating back to AAA there will need…
Easy Money from the Federal Reserve Is Not the Solution for America’s Economic Problems
Allen Meltzer, an economist at Carnegie Mellon University, writes today in the Wall Street Journal about the Fed’s worrisome announcement that it will continue the easy-money policy of artificially low interest rates. Professor Meltzer’s key point (at least to me) is…
Debt, Entitlements, Downgrades, Unfunded Liabilities, and the Europeanization of America
I cover a wide range of issues in this interview for Bloomberg Asia. My main theme, not surprisingly, is that government is too big. And I specifically warn about the looming explosion of entitlement spending as the baby boom generation retires.
Obama’s Failed Response to the Downgrade and the Outlook for Fixing America’s Spending Crisis
President Obama just spoke about the downgrade and his remarks were very disappointing. He uttered some empty platitudes, offered no plan, (amazingly) called for more government spending, and continued his advocacy of class-warfare taxation. So what does this mean?…
To Be Fair, Obama’s Responsibility for the Downgrade Is only 15 Percent
It was a strange experience to read the comments and emails generated by yesterday’s post on the “Obama downgrade.” Democrats and liberals were upset that I blamed Obama for the downgrade, as you might expect. Republicans and conservatives, however, were agitated that…
What Are the Consequencs of the Obama Downgrade?
Even though I predicted it had to happen at some point because of the Bush-Obama spending binge and America’s giant long-run entitlement crisis, I confess that I’m somewhat surprised that the United States has suffered a debt downgrade for the first time. That being…
The Two Obama Job Disasters
We all know about the wretched failure of Obama’s stimulus, and we can update the chart showing that the joblessness rate is two-and-one-half percentage points higher than the White House claimed it would be at this point if we flushed $800 billion down the Washington…
2.8 Cheers for House Republicans
Before we get wrapped up in the next fiscal fights, it’s time to step back and give House Republicans a bit of love and affection. While I criticize them for some tactical blunders and needless compromises, the most important thing is whether they are willing – when…
The Clown Prince of Europe
If Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama are neck-and-neck competitors in the contest to be the public face of incompetent statism in America, then the competition in Europe is between Herman van Rompuy and Olga Stefou. But since I’ve already crowned Ms. Stefou as the Queen…