I was excited when I saw that Professor Martin Feldstein of Harvard University had a column in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal entitled, “Private Accounts Can Save Social Security.” This is great, I thought, another person advocating the kind of pro-growth,…
Daily Analysis
New York Leads the List of the Five Biggest Moocher States…and Utah Tops the List of the Five Most Self-Reliant States
I may have to stop being a New York Yankees fan. The state of my birth is a national embarrassment. People in the Empire State are national champions in the contest to rip off their fellow citizens according to analysis from USA Today. West Virginia, however, is the…
Obama Embraces Another Class Warfare Proposal – “Tax the Rich” Is the Universal Cure!
Under current law, Social Security is supposed to be an “earned benefit,” where taxes are akin to insurance premiums that finance retirement benefits for workers. And because there is a cap on retirement benefits, this means there also is a “wage-base cap” on the…
Would You Prefer Privatization or a Death Panel?
Republicans are understandably nervous about polling data showing considerable opposition to the Ryan plan’s Medicare proposal – particularly since they just voted for a budget resolution in the House of Representatives that includes such a reform. Their unease is…
This Cartoon Is Very Funny, but also Does a Great Job of Teaching Economics
Economists often do a crummy job of teaching people about the impact of fiscal policy on the labor force, largely because we put people to sleep with boring discussions about “labor supply” decisions (my blog post from last year perhaps being an example of this…
If Paul Ryan’s Reforms Are Not Enacted, We’ll Soon See Stories Like This in America
The left already is wailing about the Medicare and Medicaid reforms in Congressman Paul Ryan’s budget. They don’t have any solutions of their own for these bankrupt programs, but they hope to scare voters in the short run and don’t seem to care about the nation in the…
Congressman Ryan’s Budget Is a Big Step in the Right Direction
The Chairman of the House Budget Committee, Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, will be unveiling his FY2012 budget tomorrow. Not all the details are public information, but what we do know is very encouraging. Ryan’s plan is a broad reform package, including limits…
George W. Cameron Wants to Repeal Partial Social Security Privatization in the United Kingdom
People periodically ask me why I’m so down on David Cameron, the Prime Minster of the United Kingdom. I’ve already pointed out that his pre-election agenda was big government. And I’ve pointed out that his post-election record is more spending. (and you can read more…
How Appropriate: Politicians and Statists Celebrate Charles Ponzi’s Birthday by Demanding No Changes to Social Security
Yesterday was the 129th anniversary of Charles Ponzi’s birthday. Normal people don’t celebrate the birth of con artists, but a tediously left-wing columnist at the Washington Post, Eugene Robinson, must be a big admirer of Charles Ponzi, because he seems very happy…
A Rather Depressing Article about the Human Cost of the Welfare State
This story from the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal makes the point, excerpted below, that the welfare state subsidizes dysfunctional behavior. But read the story to understand how big government destroys lives, ruins families, and creates inter-generational…