The welfare state is a nightmare. Programs such as Medicaid are fiscal catastrophes. The food stamp program is riddled with waste. The EITC is easily defrauded, even sending checks to prisoners. And housing subsidies are a recipe for the worst forms of social engineering. The entire system should be tossed in the trash. But what’s […]
read more...When you work in Washington (and assuming you haven’t been corrupted), you run the risk of being endlessly outraged about all the waste. But not all waste is created equal. Some examples are so absurd that they deserve special attention. Forcing taxpayers to pay millions of dollars for pro-Obamacare and pro-IRS propaganda. Doing interviews – at a per-person […]
read more...How Disappointing, but how predictable. Politicians approved legislation in 2011 that was supposed to impose a modest bit of spending restraint over the next 10 years. It wasn’t much. The enforcement mechanism, known as sequestration, merely was supposed to guarantee that spending climbed by $2.3 trillion rather than $2.4 trillion over the 10-year period. But […]
read more...There’s a saying in the sports world about how last-minute comebacks are examples of “snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.” I don’t like that phrase because it reminds me of the painful way my beloved Georgia Bulldogs were defeated a couple of weeks ago by Auburn. But I also don’t like the saying because […]
read more...The sequester was a victory for advocates of small government and a major defeat for the Obama administration. It was also a defeat for the special interest bottom feeders who leech off the American taxpayer. But they’re not going down quietly: The defense aerospace industry gave 60 percent of its donations to Republicans during the […]
read more...Every so often, when the temptation is too great, I’ll comment on something written by Paul Krugman. When he botched his analysis of Estonia, for instance, I joined that nation’s President in correcting some egregious errors. And I periodically remind people that Krugman was wildly wrong to deny the scandalous shortcomings of the government-run health […]
read more...Regular readers know I complain about the army of overpaid bureaucrats in Washington, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The larger problem is that Washington also is filled with hundreds of thousands of other people who get rich thanks to big government. And these politicians, lobbyists, crony capitalists, interest groups, contractors, and influence […]
read more...There’s a joke in Washington that Democrats are the evil party and Republicans are the stupid party. Except this joke isn’t very funny since a lot of bad policy occurs when gullible GOPers get lured into “bipartisan” deals that expand government. Consider, for example, all the tax-hiking budget deals – such as the “read my […]
read more...I routinely (some would say repetitively) argue that the burden of government spending is a drag on the economy because labor and capital are being misallocated via the political process. My message is that we need to reduce the size of the public sector, even if we do it in a very gradual way by […]
read more...Last week the Center for Freedom & Prosperity joined with the National Taxpayers Union and 17 other groups to warn Republican leaders against making the mistake of undoing the sequester cuts. The letter notes: The BCA established limits on discretionary spending through FY 2021 including a cap of $967 billion for FY 2014. While the […]
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