I wrote yesterday about the shocking case of a millionaire collecting food stamps. Today, I have an equally disgusting story of government waste. The Social Security program is actuarially bankrupt, with unfunded liabilities of several trillion dollars. Our topic today deals with the disability portion of Social Security, which is in especially poor shape, with […]

There’s a lot of buzz about a Wall Street Journal interview with Stanley Druckenmiller, in which he argues that a temporary delay in making payments on U.S. government debt (which technically would be a default) would be a small price to pay if it resulted in the long-term spending reforms that are needed to save […]

I got a few cranky emails after my post suggesting the United States should copy the Baltic nations and implement genuine spending cuts. These less-than-friendly pen pals were upset that I favorably commented on the fiscal discipline of Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia while failing to reveal that these nations were suffering from high unemployment. From […]

I’m often torn between optimism and pessimism about the future. In my cheerful moments, I marvel at the American system and cheer the private sector’s ability to adapt and survive even the stupidest government interventions. But at other times, I fret that those interventions are eroding American exceptionalism and condemning the nation to irreversible decline. […]

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 additional reason for us to be upset. …their ranks soared from the 805 with annualized salaries […]

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 slow growth by diverting labor and capital from more productive […]

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 productive sector of the economy rather […]

Martin Feldstein’s on a roll, but not in a good way. Earlier this week in the Wall Street Journal, he advocated throwing in the towel on reforming Social Security into a system of personal retirement accounts. Today, in the New York Times, he endorses big tax increases. Rather odd positions for someone who served as […]

As I have explained elsewhere, tax increases are a bad idea – unless you favor bigger government. And I’ve already added my two cents to the tax debate between Senator Coburn and Grover Norquist regarding the desirability of higher taxes. So it won’t surprise anyone to know that I fully agree with this new video […]

It’s not too surprising to learn that spending money on “high-speed” rail is foolish. And it’s hardly a revelation to learn that politicians over-promise and under-deliver when they push through these boondoggles. My Cato colleague, Randall O’Toole, has written extensively about these money-losing white-elephant projects. But it’s not exactly shocking news that libertarians would resist […]