What is the best way to reduce a government’s budget deficit? A new working paper by European Central Bank economist Maria Grazia Attinasi and International Monetary Fund economist Alexander Klemm once again confirms what we’ve long argued: when it comes to preserving the prospects for economic growth, cutting government spending is a much more…
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With all the excitement in Ukraine, the Middle East, and Central America, a key domestic development has failed to draw the attention it deserves. The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has joined the IRS in a cover-up of illegal activity. As the Daily Caller notes, when former IRS official Lois Lerner worked at the FEC’s…
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Did you know that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has paid over $34 million to grow soybeans in Afghanistan since 2009? The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) just delivered a report of their review of the program, finding evidence that the entire initiative is a multi-million dollar waste of time, money, and…
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Rep. Jared Polis recently went on record stating that DEA boss Michele Leonhard “is a terrible agency head.” The liberal Colorado Democrat has a strong case, but there’s more to it than that. Sen. Mitch McConnell, a conservative Kentucky Republican, blasted the DEA for wasting limited resources by impounding hemp seeds destined for research…
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Earlier this week, we looked at who has accumulated the biggest piles of debt issued by the U.S. federal government. But which of these players do you suppose is loaning the U.S. government the most money today? Political Calculations found some surprising results: Even though the Federal Reserve has been reducing its purchases of…
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Every five years, the federal departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services convene the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. The DGAC mission is to make sound nutritional recommendations based on the best scientific research. Unfortunately as Independent Institute Research Fellow Ernest Pasour notes, in recent years, the DGAC has conscripted nutritional concerns in the…
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Michael Botticelli, the federal “drug czar” and adviser to Barack Obama, wants to spend $25 billion next year to fight drugs. A report to Congress from the drug czar’s office said, “we must seek to avoid oversimplified debates between the idea of a war on drugs and the notion of legalization as a panacea.”…
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Who are the major holders of debt issued by the U.S. federal government going into the summer of 2014? The answers are revealed in the chart below! Political Calculations observes: On the whole, there haven’t been many changes since our previous edition. We see that the debt reported to be held by Belgium is…
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The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has issued its Long-Term Budget Outlook for 2014. Compared to previous reports, it projects a slightly worse outlook for the nation’s fiscal situation, which results from the CBO’s new assessment that the U.S. economy’s potential for stronger economic growth in the future is lacking. The Washington Examiner‘s Joseph Lawler…
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The California Coastal Commission (CCC) is an unelected body that overrides the elected governments of coastal counties and cities on land use and property rights issues. The Commission wields enormous clout, but for more than 30 years it has lobbied for the power to levy fines directly, instead of going through the courts. As…
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