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In a new article in the Wall Street Journal, Independent Institute Senior Fellow Richard Vedder and Journal Senior Economics Writer Stephen Moore explain why “Higher Taxes Won’t Reduce the Deficit: History shows that when Congress gets more revenue, the pols spend it”: The draft recommendations of the president’s commission on deficit eduction call for…
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Today, President Obama announced that his administration would freeze the pay of federal employees at their current level for two years. Well, that’s a start, if the following chart from Political Calculations showing the relative pay and benefits of federal workers with respect to the average income earner in the private sector is any…
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As the government of Ireland undergoes scrutiny and criticism for its poorly mismanaged fiscal house, the media risks missing the primary lesson. Poor public sector incentives drive politicians to enact policies that defy the laws of economics. There is no such thing as a free lunch—not even a Keynesian lunch of government issued corn…
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In response to growing public opposition to the gigantic spending by the federal government, President Barack Obama in 2009 called on his Cabinet to identify a combined $100 million dollars in budget cuts compared to the $3.5 trillion federal budget as a whole (not including the $787 “stimulus package” or the $83 billion in…
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How can the government increase the amount of money it collects in taxes without increasing tax rates? Or rather, for politicians looking to remain as blameless as possible when their constituents get their new, higher tax bills, how can they make it look like they’re not increasing taxes when they’re taking more in taxes?…
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In a roundtable discussion on the U.S. Debt Reduction Commission, Nobel Prize laureate and hyper-Keynesian economist Paul Krugman came clean on his view on ABC’s “This Week with Christiane Amanpour,” regarding how to reduce the gigantic federal deficit that he has been so supportive in seeing created: death panels and a national Value Added…
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The New York Times has a wonderful tool for understanding how the recommendations of the presidential deficit commission could work to close the estimated annual budget shortfalls in the future. You simply go through and select spending cuts and tax increases until the budget shortfall is corrected for both in the present and future….
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WTOP FM has pointed out that as reported by Newsweek, seven of the ten richest counties in the United States surround Washington, D.C. The D.C. area makes plenty of Top 10 lists, and this one shows its residents make the big bucks. According to a new report from Newsweek, seven of the nation’s 10…
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In an article at OneNewsNow.com, “I’m going to pay how much in taxes?”, Chris Woodward has recommended the Government Cost Calculator at MyGovCost.org: What is Washington’s spending costing you? A new website aims to answer that question. The website MyGovCost.org is an online calculator where taxpayers can learn what they will pay in taxes…
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In an article in USA Today, “More federal workers’ pay tops $150,000,” Dennis Cauchon reports that: The number of federal workers earning $150,000 or more a year has soared tenfold in the past five years and doubled since President Obama took office, a USA TODAY analysis finds. The fast-growing pay of federal employees has…
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