Grousing about the GOP’s timidity in the battle against big government will probably become an ongoing theme over the next few months, and  let’s start with two items that don’t bode well for fiscal discipline. First, it appears that Republicans didn’t really mean it when they promised to cut $100 billion of so-called discretionary spending […]

The news is going from bad to worse for Ireland.

I’ve already commented on Ireland’s woes, and opined about similar problems afflicting the rest of Europe, but the continuing deterioration of the Emerald Isle deserves further analysis so that American policy makers hopefully grasp the right lessons. Here are five things we should learn from the mess in Ireland.

Even if we had a giant budget surplus, federal subsidies for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be misguided and improper. In an environment where excessive federal spending is strangling growth and threatening the nation’s solvency, the argument to defund PBS and NPR is even stronger – particularly when private funding easily could replace the […]

The mid-term elections were a rejection of President Obama’s big-government agenda, but those results don’t necessarily mean better policy. We should not forget, after all, that Democrats rammed through Obamacare even after losing the special election to replace Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts.

Similarly, GOP control of the House of Representatives does not automatically mean less government and more freedom. Here are five possible bad policies for 2011, most of which the Obama White House can implement by using executive power.

Since I’m involuntarily forced to finance National Public Radio, I guess I should be happy that free-market views occasionally are allowed on air. Click here to listen to a segment where I talk about earmarks, “phonemarks,” and special interest corruption in Washington. The risky part of a pre-recorded interview is that you never know what […]

Here are a few predictions for next year. It will be hot in Dallas in July, it will be cold in Stockholm in February, and Governor Jerry Brown of California will ask Uncle Sam for some sort of bailout. I’m actually not sure about the first two predictions, but I think the last one is […]

Appearing on Bloomberg TV, I pontificate about the good, the bad, and the ugly in the recent tax deal. I also make what I hope are good points about the Laffer Curve and the meaning of deficits. The video won’t embed, but just click here and you can watch it on youtube. As always, feedback […]

There’s a lot of attention being paid to yesterday’s landslide vote in the House to prevent a big tax increase next year. If you’re a glass-half-full optimist, you will be celebrating the good news for taxpayers. If you’re a glass-half empty pessimist, you will be angry because the bill also contains provisions to increase the […]

I have a piece in this morning’s New York Post, and I did not try to be polite. Commenting on the end-of-year orgy on Capitol Hill, I slam corrupt deal making that leads to ever-bigger government. Here’s part of what I say about the “omnibus” spending bill. The weeks since Election Day have provided nauseating […]

When big-spending politicians in Washington pontificate about “deficit reduction,” taxpayers should be very wary. Crocodile tears about red ink almost always are a tactic that the political class uses to make tax increases more palatable. The way it works is that the crowd in DC increases spending, which leads to more red ink, which allows […]