Since I’ve spent the past 25 years analyzing government, I’m used to spectacular levels of waste and incompetence. Examples of pork such as “$27 light bulbs” and the “turtle tunnel” barely cause me to raise an eyebrow. It takes something really amazing to grab my attention, so I’m almost grateful to Ike Leggett, the head […]
read more...A new video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity gives four reasons why big government is bad fiscal policy. I particularly like the explanation of how government spending undermines growth by diverting labor and capital from the productive sector of the economy. Some cynics, though, say that it is futile to make arguments for […]
read more...In the latest “Economics 101” video released today by the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation (CF&P), Blayne Bennett of Students for Liberty explains why big government doesn’t work. The video, entitled “Four Reasons Why Big Government Is Bad Government,” provides the necessary foundation for understanding the problems created by big government, and why we need to shrink the size and scope of the federal government.
read more...This Economics 101 video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity explains that excessive government spending undermines prosperity by diverting resources from the productive sector of the economy. Moreover, the two main ways of financing government – taxes and borrowing – cause additional economic damage.
read more...Iain Murray of the Competitive Enterprise Institute has put together a very depressing column for National Review. To put it bluntly, he exposes the true size of the federal workforce, which has 5.5 hidden employees for every official bureaucrat. Officially, as of 2009, the federal government employed 2.8 million individuals out of a total U.S. […]
read more...I’m in Milan, at the office of the Institute Bruno Leoni, which overlooks the famous Castle Sforza and is almost within shouting distance of the remarkable cathedral. This evening, I’ll be talking about how Italy should balance its budget by limiting the size of government, and my message will be identical to the one I […]
read more...Johnny Munkhammar is a member of the Swedish Parliament and a committed supporter of economic liberalization. He has a column in the Wall Street Journal Europe that does a great job of explaining how Sweden became rich when it was a small-government, pro-market nation. He then notes that his country veered off track in the […]
read more...Hello from the Most Serene Republic of San Marino, a 24-square mile enclave centered around Monte Titano in eastern Italy. I’m here for a conference on “Competition and Alliances among States.” Like many other so-called tax havens, San Marino has been bludgeoned in recent years by politicians from high-tax nations, who resent the flow of […]
read more...I’m disappointed, but not surprised, to read in the Washington Post that President Obama has decided against any changes to restrain Social Security spending. He’ll still probably subject us to pious and insincere rhetoric about fighting red ink in tonight’s State-of-the-Union address, but it is very revealing that the President is rejecting even the recommendations […]
read more...Regardless of what one thinks about abortion, it is preposterous for the federal government to be subsidizing the procedure. Yet that is what happens thanks to annual subsidies of as much as $363 million for Planned Parenthood. Defenders of Planned Parenthood sometimes claim that federal money doesn’t actually pay for abortions, but that’s a silly […]
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