President Obama made a much-hyped pivot-to-the-economy speech yesterday in Chattanooga, Tennessee. I already explained, immediately following the speech, why his “grand bargain” on corporate taxes was not a good deal because of all the hidden taxes on new investment and international competitiveness. But I also had a chance to dissect the President’s overall track record […]
read more...In his latest pivot to jobs and the economy, the President spoke earlier today in Tennessee. Much of his speech was tax-spend-and-regulate boilerplate, but he did repackage some of his ideas into a so-called grand bargain. He said he’s willing to cut the corporate tax rate in exchange for a bunch of new spending on […]
read more...Earlier this year, I had some fun when it was revealed that the President’s new Treasury Secretary had a lot of money in the Cayman Islands. After all, leftists want us to believe tax havens are rogue regimes that should be eliminated. Some of them even want military intervention against these low-tax jurisdictions! Much to my […]
read more...I’m not a very exciting guy. It’s Saturday afternoon and I’m perusing the Budget and Economic Outlook from the Congressional Budget Office. But sometimes it pays to be a nerd because I just found an interesting tidbit of information. Here’s what CBO says about the anemic economic output we’re experiencing compared to the growth we […]
read more...When the monthly job numbers are released, most people focus on the unemployment rate. On many occasions, I’ve cited that number, usually to point out that the unemployment rate is far higher than the Obama Administration promised it would be if the so-called stimulus was enacted. That episode should be additional proof that Keynesian economics […]
read more...Are we about to see a new kinder-and-gentler Obama? Has the tax-and-spend President of the past four years been replaced by a fiscal moderate? That’s certainly the spin we’re getting from the White House about the President’s new budget. Let’s look at this theme, predictably regurgitated in a Washington Post report. President Obama will release […]
read more...One of the great things about federalism, above and beyond the fact that it both constrains the power of governments and is faithful to the Constitution, is that is turns every state into an experiment. We can learn what works best (though the President seems incapable of learning the right lesson). We know, for instance, […]
read more...The Obama Administration is proposing to once again put the economy at risk by subsidizing banks to give mortgages to people with poor credit, even though we’re still dealing with the economic and fiscal damage caused by the last episode of government housing subsidies!
read more...The statist agenda of ever-growing government requires more money going to Washington, which is why I think that proponents of limited government should do everything they can to block tax increases. This is the “starve the beast” theory, and I’ve previously explained why I think it is a necessary part of any long-run strategy to […]
read more...I shared a couple of amusing sequester cartoons the other day, and I’ve previously written about the absurdity of anti-sequester hysteria in Washington when all it means is that the federal budget will grow by $2.4 trillion over the next 10 years rather than $2.5 trillion. This Nate Beeler cartoon effectively captures the mindset of […]
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