It’s sometimes difficult to make fun of Keynesian economics. But this isn’t because Keynesian theory is airtight. It’s easy, after all, to mock a school of thought that is predicated on the notion that you can make yourself richer by taking money from your right pocket and putting it in your left pocket. The problem […]
read more...In recent weeks, I’ve pontificated on Obama’s spendthrift budget, Congressman Dave Camp’s timid tax reform plan, and the corrupt cronyism of Washington. I got to elaborate on all these topics – and more – in this interview with Professor Glenn Reynolds, more widely known as Instapundit. If there was an overall theme, it’s that President Obama’s statist agenda is not […]
read more...Germany isn’t exactly a fiscal role model. Tax rates are too onerous and government spending consumes about 44 percent of economic output. That’s even higher than it is in the United States, where politicians at the federal, state, and local levels divert about 39 percent of GDP into the public sector. Germany also has too much red […]
read more...The President’s new budget has been unveiled. There are lots of provisions that deserve detailed attention, but I always look first at the overall trends. Most specifically, I want to see what’s happening with the burden of government spending. And you probably won’t be surprised to see that Obama isn’t imposing any fiscal restraint. He wants spending to […]
read more...No matter how much I pontificate about Washington corruption, there’s no way I can get across the true extent of the DC establishment’s self-serving behavior. Washington is rich because government is big and the beneficiaries of this system are enjoying their status as America’s new gilded class. It’s even gotten to the point where children and other family members also put […]
read more...On several occasions, I’ve observed that the poverty rate in America was steadily falling, but that progress came to a halt in the mid-1960s when the government declared a War on Poverty. And I almost always included a chart showing the annual poverty rate over several decades. Moreover, I posted graphs showing how government programs trap people in dependency because of very high implicit […]
read more...One of my goals is to convince people that even small differences in long-run growth can have a powerful impact on living standards and societal prosperity. In other words, the economy is not a fixed pie. The right policies, such as free markets and small government, can create a better life for everybody. And bad policy, […]
read more...There’s an ongoing debate about Keynesian economics, stimulus spending, and various versions of fiscal austerity, and regular readers know I do everything possible to explain that you can promote added prosperity by reducing the burden of government spending. Simply stated, we get more jobs, output, and growth when resources are allocated by competitive markets. But when resources are allocated […]
read more...Did you sing Happy Birthday? The nation just “celebrated” the fifth anniversary of the signing of the so-called American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, more commonly referred to as the “stimulus.” This experiment in Keynesian economics was controversial when it was enacted and it’s still controversial today. The Obama Administration is telling us that the law was […]
read more...When I give speeches around the country, I often get asked whether it’s time to give up. More specifically, has America reached a tipping point, with too many people riding in the wagon of government dependency and too few people creating wealth and pulling the wagon in the right direction? These questions don’t surprise me, […]
read more...