A new video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity gives four reasons why big government is bad fiscal policy. I particularly like the explanation of how government spending undermines growth by diverting labor and capital from the productive sector of the…
Daily Analysis
Comparing Reaganomics and Obamanomics with Minneapolis Fed Data
Ronald Reagan would have been 100 years old on February 6, so let’s celebrate his life by comparing the success of his pro-market policies with the failure of Barack Obama’s policies (which are basically a continuation of George W. Bush’s policies, so this is not a…
Greetings from Italy
I’m in Milan, at the office of the Institute Bruno Leoni, which overlooks the famous Castle Sforza and is almost within shouting distance of the remarkable cathedral. This evening, I’ll be talking about how Italy should balance its budget by limiting the size of…
With Apologies to Dickens, One was the Best of Senators, One was the Worst of Senators.
The title of this post doesn’t quite roll off the tongue like “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” But what can you expect when you compare politicians to the opening line of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. That’s what came to my mind, though,…
Time to Shut Down the Department of Housing and Urban Development
Very few things that happen in Washington are legitimate functions of the federal government. I’ve already posted about the need to dismantle the Department of Transportation and send it back to the states, but some things shouldn’t even be handled by state and local…
New CBO Numbers Re-Confirm that Balancing the Budget Is Simple with Modest Fiscal Restraint
Many of the politicians in Washington, including President Obama during his State-of-the-Union address, piously tell us that there is no way to balance the budget without tax increases. Trying to get rid of red ink without higher taxes, they tell us, would require…
Obama’s State-of-the-Union Speech: Maybe New Rhetoric, Definitely Old Ideas
I’m disappointed, but not surprised, to read in the Washington Post that President Obama has decided against any changes to restrain Social Security spending. He’ll still probably subject us to pious and insincere rhetoric about fighting red ink in tonight’s…
All Libertarians and Conservatives Should Agree to End Federal Abortion Subsidies
Regardless of what one thinks about abortion, it is preposterous for the federal government to be subsidizing the procedure. Yet that is what happens thanks to annual subsidies of as much as $363 million for Planned Parenthood. Defenders of Planned Parenthood…
Even Studies from the European Central Bank Show Spending Restraint Is Key to Controlling Red Ink
I’m not a big fan of central banks, and I definitely don’t like multilateral bureaucracies, so I almost feel guilty about publicizing two recent studies published by the European Central Bank. But when such an institution puts out research that unambiguously makes the…
Animal House, John Galt, the Laffer Curve, and the Race to Commit Fiscal Suicide in Illinois
There is a very bizarre race happening in Illinois. The Governor and the leaders of the State Senate and General Assembly are trying to figure out how to ram through a massive tax increase, but they’re trying to make it happen before new state lawmakers take office…