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…
Daily Analysis
Assessing President Obama’s Economic Agenda
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…
A Fiscal Lesson from Germany
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…
Obama’s New Budget: Burden of Government Spending Rises More than Twice as Fast as Inflation
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…
Cronyism, Corruption, and D.C. Nepotism
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…
The War on Poverty Has Made a Difference…but the Wrong Kind
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…
Long-Term Growth and the Corrosive Impact of Obamanomics
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,…
The Missing Data in Krugman’s German Austerity Narrative
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…
White House Stimulus Report Based on “Keynesian Fairy Dust”
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…
Big Government and Tipping Points: Is America Is Doomed to Become a Failed European-Style Welfare State?
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…