The new unemployment numbers show a joblessness rate of 8.3 percent. From a political perspective, this is good news for the White House. Even though the Obama Administration projected that the unemployment rate today would be about 2-percentage points lower if the…
Daily Analysis
One Year Later, Another Look at Obamanomics vs. Reaganomics
On this day last year, I posted two charts that I developed using the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank’s interactive website. Those two charts showed that the current recovery was very weak compared to the boom of the early 1980s. But perhaps that was an unfair…
Don Boudreaux Debunks Robert Reich
I’ve debated Robert Reich on issues such as tax havens, class warfare, and oil companies. Those interactions apparently aren’t enough, though, since several people have asked me to debunk this Reich video. But I had no desire to address Reich’s demagoguery, in part…
Debating at U.S. News & World Report, I Explain Double Taxation to the Economic Heathens
Never let it be said I back down from a fight, even when it’s the other team’s game, played by the other team’s rules, and for the benefit of the wrong person. And that definitely went through my mind when U.S. News & World Report asked me to contribute to their…
Lasting Economies Are Not Built
During his State of the Union speech, President Obama expressed his desire for an “economy built to last,” an oxymoron emblematic of the President’s embrace of Keynesianism and other failed economic philosophies. Simply put, strong economies are not…
Dan Mitchell’s State-of-the-Union Tax Analysis
I’ve already posted the Cato Institute’s overnight response to the President’s state-of-the-Union speech. Here’s the Dan Mitchell pre-SOTU speech to congressional staffers. I’ve already had people ask me for the charts I used in the speech. Here’s the double taxation…
Since Obama’s Class-Warfare Tax Policy Is Failing in Illinois, Why Does He Think It Will Work for the Entire Country?
President Obama’s two biggest “achievements” since taking office are the so-called stimulus and government-run healthcare. But neither one of those policies are popular, so the President largely ignored them during his state-of-the-union address and instead focused on…
The Laffer Curve Works, Even in France
One year ago, I wrote about how the French government was getting unexpected additional revenues following the implementation of lower tax rates. This is the Laffer Curve in action, and it’s happening again in France, only this time because the government reduced the…
Should the Fiscal Pyromaniacs at the IMF Get another $500 Billion so They Can Advocate Keynesian Spending and Class-Warfare Tax Hikes?
Perhaps the title of this post is a bit unfair since the International Monetary Fund is good on some issues, such as reducing subsidies. And some of the economists at the IMF even produce good research. But I can’t help but get agitated that this behemoth global…
Deconstructing Jonathan Alter’s “Five Myths about Barack Obama” in the Washington Post
The Washington Post is a left-wing newspaper, so I’m never surprised to find examples of biased reporting. Last month, for instance, I made fun of the Post for asserting that Germany was “fiscally conservative.” I also mocked the Post last March, when a reporter…