Working in Washington is a frustrating experience for many reasons, but my personal nightmare is that bad ideas refuse to die. Keynesian economics is a perfect example. It doesn’t matter that Keynesian deficit spending didn’t work for Hoover and Roosevelt. It doesn’t…
Daily Analysis
Taxpayers vs Bureaucrats, the Foreign Edition
If misery loves company, we can be very happy with these two stories about over-compensated bureaucrats from outside our borders. The first comes from Europe, where the Daily Telegraph reports that pension costs are skyrocketing for bureaucrats with the European…
Great Moments in Government Stupidity and Incompetence
For those who favor truth in labeling, the housing meltdown and related financial crisis and economic downturn should be brightly stamped with the phrase, “Made in Washington.” Here are two good pieces of evidence. First, this paper from the American Enterprise…
America’s Greediest State and Local Governments
I ran across two interesting lists showing how politicians at the state and local level are often just as bad as the ones in Washington, DC. First, Forbes has an article identifying the 10 states with the highest income tax rates. The top rate is a big deterrent to…
Reaganomics, Obamanomics, and Carternomics
National Review captures a key difference between Reagan and Obama, writing that Reagan was willing to incur short-run political pain to make America healthier and stronger. Obama, by contrast, has pursued the free-lunch Keynesian approach. Only time will tell…
Congressional Budget Office Says We Can Maximize Long-Run Economic Output with 100 Percent Tax Rates
I hope the title of this post is an exaggeration, but it’s certainly a logical conclusion based on what is written in the Congressional Budget Office’s updated Economic and Budget Outlook. The Capitol Hill bureaucracy basically has a deficit-über-alles view of fiscal…
It’s Not a Smart Move to Link Obama Tax Hikes to Nazi Invasion
A reader has asked me to weigh in on the mini-controversy that was triggered when a Wall Street financier said fighting Obama’s tax hikes was like a war and that the battle was “like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.” While it seems clear that Stephen Schwarzman was…
Hurricane Katrina’s Huge Silver Lining
This video from Reason TV about school choice in New Orleans is a perfect example of something good resulting from a bad event. Lemonade out of lemons!
Don’t Be Afraid of the Chinese Economic Tiger
The news that China has surpassed Japan as the world’s second-largest economy has generated a lot of attention. It shouldn’t. There are roughly 10 times as many people in China as there are in Japan, so the fact that total gross domestic product in China is now bigger…
“I Wish Republicans Had a Secret Plan for Personal Accounts”
Here’s my debate on Larry Kudlow’s show about Social Security personal retirement accounts.