Tag Archives : government spending
Somebody Tell Michael Gerson that Coercion Isn’t Charity
Michael Gerson is upset that the GOP budget would trim some money from the foreign aid budget. In his Washington Post column, he regurgitates Obama Administration talking points, claiming that less foreign aid will kill tens of thousands of poor children in Africa. USAID estimates that reductions proposed in the 2011 House Republican budget would […]
read more...New Budget Plan from Conservative House Members Would Do Best Job of Shrinking the Burden of Federal Spending
Just days after the introduction of a very good plan by the Chairman of the House Budget Committee, leaders from the Republican Study Committee in the House of Representatives have introduced an even better plan. In a previous post, I compared spending levels from the Obama budget and the Ryan budget and showed that the […]
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Phony Deficit Hawks Criticize the Ryan Budget
Washington is filled with groups that piously express their devotion to balanced budgets and fiscal responsibility, so it is rather revealing that some of these groups have less-than-friendly responses to Congressman Ryan’s budget plan. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, for instance, portrays itself as a bunch of deficit hawks. So you would think […]
read more...In One Chart, Everything You Wanted to Know about Ryan vs. Obama
Forget all this talk about giant “spending cuts” of $6.2 trillion in Congressman Ryan’s budget plan. That’s music to my ears, but it’s also based on Washington’s bizarre budget math – i.e., the screwy system where politicians can increase spending but say they’re cutting spending because the budget could have grown even faster. What really […]
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If Paul Ryan’s Reforms Are Not Enacted, We’ll Soon See Stories Like This in America
The left already is wailing about the Medicare and Medicaid reforms in Congressman Paul Ryan’s budget. They don’t have any solutions of their own for these bankrupt programs, but they hope to scare voters in the short run and don’t seem to care about the nation in the long run. But, as Margaret Thatcher famously […]
read more...Congressman Ryan’s Budget Is a Big Step in the Right Direction
The Chairman of the House Budget Committee, Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, will be unveiling his FY2012 budget tomorrow. Not all the details are public information, but what we do know is very encouraging. Ryan’s plan is a broad reform package, including limits on so-called discretionary spending, limits on excessive pay for federal bureaucrats, and […]
read more...Senator Corker’s CAP Act: A Better Version of Gramm-Rudman to Reduce the Burden of Government
This Thursday, April 7, Senator Corker of Tennessee will be the opening speaker at the Cato Institute’s conference on “The Economic Impact of Government Spending” (an event that is free and open to the public, so register here if you want to attend). The Senator will be discussing his proposal to cap and then gradually […]
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Government Employee Pensions Are a Budget Issue, but Also a Growth and Fairness Issue
Eli Lehrer of the Heartland Institute has an article in the Weekly Standard claiming that underfunded pension plans are not the problem with state budgets. This paragraph is a good summary of his article. In the end, many states facing very large current budget gaps—New York, Florida, Texas, and Wisconsin among them—have pension systems that […]
read more...English Riots, Faux Austerity, and Krugman’s Fairy Tale
London was just hit by heavy riots as part of a protest against the “deep” and “savage” budget cuts of the Cameron government. This is not the first time the U.K. has endured riots. The welfare lobby, bureaucrats, and other recipients of taxpayer largesse are becoming increasingly agitated that their gravy train may be derailed. […]
read more...If the Obama-GOP Budget Deal Is a Kiss-Your-Sister Agreement, Claudia Schiffer Ain’t My Sibling
Press reports indicate that there is a tentative agreement between Republicans and Democrats to trim $33 billion of spending for the remainder of the current fiscal year. Here are a few blurbs from a story in The Hill. A source familiar with the talks said members of the Senate and House Appropriations panels are working […]
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