All the talk of spending cuts in Washington is fictitious. Even the House Republican Study Committee budget allows spending to increase, on average, by 1.7 percent each year for the next decade. The Ryan budget, which critics deride for its “savage” cuts, allows…
Daily Analysis
Talking about the Debt Limit at a Tea Party Press Conference
I spoke yesterday at a press event put together by some of the Tea Party groups. Here’s what I said about the debt limit. I debunked the notion that a higher debt limit was needed to avoid default and explained that the problem is too much spending and that deficits…
With a Few More “Successes” Like the GM Bailout, We’ll Be Greece in Record Time
Most of us have probably heard the joke about the moronic salesman who admitted to losing money on each sale but was hoping to make it up with higher volume. E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post is taking this financial approach to a new level. His column today asserts…
How Will You Celebrate Europe Day?
You probably didn’t realize that May 9th was Europe Day. Yes indeed, this is the day that you celebrate European unity, at least according to the bureaucrats of the European Union, who get to celebrate every day since they unify themselves with the tax dollars of…
Robert Murphy of San Francisco Is a Despicable Thief
I’ve never met Robert Murphy, but he is a reprehensible person. I don’t know if he’s as bad as Michael Wolfensohn, but he’s definitely a sorry excuse for a human being. For all I know, Mr. Murphy goes to church every day, volunteers at a homeless shelter, reads books…
From East Coast to West Coast, Bureaucrats Are Ripping Off Taxpayers
Let’s start in Washington, where USA Today reports that there are “at least 17,828 federal employees whose annualized salaries totaled $180,000 or more in September 2010.” That’s rather distressing news for taxpayers, but these excerpts from the story provide…
States Show Tax Competition in Action
We often look at how tax competition affects nations, but the same concept applies to U.S. states as well. Two recent reports demonstrate what happens when politicians fail to understand just how tax competition works. In a report from the Maine Heritage Policy…
Do Budget Deficits Threaten American Competitiveness? Dan Mitchell vs. the Establishment
I recently took part in a symposium on “The Budget Deficit and U.S. Competitiveness.” Put together by the Council on Foreign Relations, five of us were asked to concisely explain our thoughts on the issue. Here’s some of what I wrote: Excessive government spending can…
New Job Numbers Are a Mixed Bag for the Economy, but Bad News for Obama
The Labor Department released its latest job numbers today and they remind me of Clint Eastwood’s 1966 classic, “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” The good news is that the economy created 244,000 new jobs, the biggest gain in almost one year. And the jobs were in the…
Let’s Make Fun of Germany and France…But Then Learn from their Mistakes
We have two completely unrelated topics from Germany and France, but both fit in the broader theme of Europe’s gradual, self-inflicted suicide. Let’s start with the Germans. I’m not a big fan of the country’s Chancellor, Angela Merkel. She is supposedly a…