I’ve shared some remarkable data showing that bureaucrats get paid more than people in the private sector. I’ve also dug into the Department of Labor’s JOLTS data to debunk those who argue bureaucrats aren’t overpaid. I’ve even showed that they work fewer hours…
Daily Analysis
Even Scandinavian Welfare States Realize Too Much Dependency and Too Many Handouts Are Destructive
We’re making a tiny bit of progress in the battle against the welfare state. No, policy hasn’t changed yet, but at least there’s growing recognition that maybe, just maybe, it’s not a good idea to pay people not to work. Particularly when you trap them in lives of…
Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, Barack Obama (Surprisingly) Is Not the Biggest Spender of All
I got involved in a bit of a controversy last year about presidential profligacy. Some guy named Rex Nutting put together some data on government spending and claimed that Barack Obama was the most frugal President in recent history. I pointed out that Mr. Nutting’s…
Least. Surprising. Headline. Ever.
As illustrated by this chart, economists are lousy forecasters. To be more specific, economists are no better than fortune tellers when trying to make short-run macroeconomic forecasts. Heck, if we actually knew what was going to happen over the next 12 months, we’d…
Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, Which States Provide the Most Handouts of All?
About two years ago, I shared a map put together by a pro-statism organization that supposedly showed that welfare benefits were very miserly and not sufficiently generous to lift people out of poverty. My gut instinct was to reject the findings. As I wrote at the…
Very Good News: The Tea Party Has Altered the Spending Trajectory in Washington
Why does the Tea Party attract such vitriolic opposition, whether from Obama’s IRS or big-government Republicans like Karl Rove? The answer is simple. People in Washington don’t like the Tea Party because this citizen uprising is making it difficult to engage in…
Should Detroit’s Bankruptcy Be an Early-Warning Sign for Washington?
In an interview last week about Detroit’s bankruptcy, I explained that the city got in trouble because of growing dependency and an ever-rising burden of government spending. I also warned that the federal government faces the same challenge. Washington is in trouble…
Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, Which State Is Headed in the Wrong Direction at the Fastest Rate of All?
There are all sorts of ways to measure the burden of government spending. The most obvious approach is to look at the share of economic output consumed by the public sector. That’s what I did, for instance, when comparing fiscal policy in France and Switzerland. And…
Atlas Shrugs in Detroit
About two weeks ago, while making an important point about the Laffer Curve, here’s what I wrote about the fiscal disaster in Detroit. Detroit’s problems are the completely predictable result of excessive government. Just as statism explains the problems of Greece….
Which State Has the Most Self-Reliant People?
Back in 2010, I put together a “Moocher Index” as a rough measure of which states had the highest levels of welfare dependency after adjusting for poverty rates. My goal was to answer this question. Is there a greater willingness to sign up for income redistribution…