Michael Gerson is upset that the GOP budget would trim some money from the foreign aid budget. In his Washington Post column, he regurgitates Obama Administration talking points, claiming that less foreign aid will kill tens of thousands of poor children in Africa. USAID estimates that reductions proposed in the 2011 House Republican budget would […]

Just days after the introduction of a very good plan by the Chairman of the House Budget Committee, leaders from the Republican Study Committee in the House of Representatives have introduced an even better plan. In a previous post, I compared spending levels from the Obama budget and the Ryan budget and showed that the […]

I’ve been writing too much about the Ryan budget, the government shutdown, and other fiscal policy issues. Time for some wholesome politician bashing. But I’m not going to pick on the U.S. Congress, which is one of my favorite targets. Instead, we’re going to cross the ocean and mock the political elite of the European […]

Washington is filled with groups that piously express their devotion to balanced budgets and fiscal responsibility, so it is rather revealing that some of these groups have less-than-friendly responses to Congressman Ryan’s budget plan. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, for instance, portrays itself as a bunch of deficit hawks. So you would think […]

Forget all this talk about giant “spending cuts” of $6.2 trillion in Congressman Ryan’s budget plan. That’s music to my ears, but it’s also based on Washington’s bizarre budget math – i.e., the screwy system where politicians can increase spending but say they’re cutting spending because the budget could have grown even faster. What really […]

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 long run. But, as Margaret Thatcher famously […]

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 on so-called discretionary spending, limits on excessive pay for federal bureaucrats, and […]

This Thursday, April 7, Senator Corker of Tennessee will be the opening speaker at the Cato Institute’s conference on “The Economic Impact of Government Spending” (an event that is free and open to the public, so register here if you want to attend). The Senator will be discussing his proposal to cap and then gradually […]

A new study from the Adam Smith Institute in the United Kingdom provides overwhelming evidence that class-warfare tax policy is grossly misguided and self-destructive. The authors examine the likely impact of the 10-percentage point increase in the top income tax rate, which was imposed as an election-year stunt by former  Gordon Brown and then kept […]

I don’t like it when politicians pass laws that undermine the freedom and prosperity of the American people. But I really hate it when politicians pass those laws and exempt themselves. Years ago, as a lowly Senate staffer, I recall watching a debate about whether politicians were going to increase fuel economy regulations and thus […]