Paul Krugman has told us that awful stories about government-run healthcare in Britain “are false.” I guess this means that the media must be dominated by conservative liars, since we keep getting reports about substandard care and needless deaths (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here). And the Boston Globe and Associated Press must be part of this vast […]
read more...I have a new article for National Review about the fallout from the Supercommittee. Among the points I make are: o We were lucky to dodge a tax hike. o There’s still a threat of a tax hike if big-government Republicans side with the so-called rational left in favor of a tax-increase proposal, such as […]
read more...Most people have a vague understanding that America has a huge long-run fiscal problem. They’re right, though they probably don’t realize the seriousness of that looming crisis. Here’s what you need to know: America’s fiscal crisis is actually a spending crisis, and that spending crisis is driven by entitlements. More specifically, the vast majority of […]
read more...bout a year ago, I spoke at a conference in Europe that attracted a lot of very rich people from all over the continent, as well as a lot of people who manage money for high-net-worth individuals. What made this conference remarkable was not the presentations, though they were generally quite interesting. The stunning part […]
read more...I’ve written about the fiscal implosion in Europe and warned that America faces the same fate if we don’t reform poorly designed entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. But this new video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, narrated by an Italian student and former Cato Institute intern, may be the best explanation […]
read more...Even though the unwashed masses decided that I didn’t win my stimulus debate in New York City, I continue my fight for the hearts and minds of the American people. I’m now taking part in a debate for U.S. News & World Report on “Who Is Handling Its Debt Crisis Better: United States or Europe?” […]
read more...The United Kingdom has one of the most statist healthcare systems in the world. Indeed, my Cato colleague Mike Tanner produced an excellent study showing that the U.K. system is more rigid and centralized than what is found even in nations such as Germany and France. Not surprisingly, this has generated terrible results for the […]
read more...The Census Bureau has just released the 2010 poverty numbers, and the new data is terrible. There are now a record number of poor people in America, and the poverty rate has jumped to 15.1 percent. But I don’t really blame President Obama for these grim numbers. Yes, he’s increased the burden of government, which […]
read more...Governor Rick Perry of Texas is being attacked by two rivals in the GOP presidential race. His sin, if you can believe it, is that he told the truth (as acknowledged by everyone from Paul Krugman to Milton Friedman) about Social Security being a Ponzi scheme. Here’s an excerpt from Philip Klein’s column in the […]
read more...The editors at Bloomberg have decided that condemning younger workers to a more dismal future is the best way to deal with the Social Security program’s giant long-run shortfall. They want workers to pay higher taxes to prop up the bankrupt system. And, in exchange for those higher taxes, they want to give people less […]
read more...