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…
Daily Analysis
The “Stupid Party” Strikes Again: Congressional Republicans Poised to Give Up Sequester Victory
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…
Special Interest Cronies Join Forces to Fight Sequester
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…
Paul Krugman Is (Sort of) Right about a Plot against France
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…
Big Government Redistributes Money from Ordinary Americans to Benefit Washington’s Gilded Class
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…
Will Paul Ryan and GOP Budget Negotiators Snatch Defeat from the Jaws of Victory?!?
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…
The Rise (and Upcoming Fall) of the Welfare State in the Western World
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…
CF&P Joins Coalition Warning Against Reversing Sequester Cuts
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…
The European Crisis (and American Future?) of Too Many Over-Compensated Bureaucrats
The only sustainable way of achieving more prosperity and higher living standards is to increase the quality and quantity of labor and capital in the economy. This may sound like boring econo-speak, but labor and capital are the two “factors of production” and our…
Iceland, Switzerland, and the Golden Rule of Fiscal Policy
Being a glass-half-full kind of guy, I look for kernels of good news when examining economic policy around the world. I once even managed to find something to praise about French tax policy. And I can assure you that’s not a very easy task. I particularly try to find…