Perhaps for the first time in living memory, if not ever, the outgoing Chair of the Federal Reserve Janet Yellen expressed concern about the size of the U.S. national debt. CNBC‘s Jeff Cox has the story: With Congress wrestling over a tax reform plan that critics say would explode the government budget deficit, Federal…
Read More »
Amazon made its reputation as the world’s largest online retailer by making it possible for anyone anywhere to buy consumer products. But has anybody considered what the company itself is capable of buying when it becomes the consumer? In September 2017, Amazon announced that it was seeking to establish a second headquarters in the…
Read More »
Gene Steuerle, a fellow at the Urban Institute who specializes in national debt and tax policy matters, was among 40 notable individuals asked to respond to the question “Has the world been fitted with a debt straightjacket?” by the publishers of The International Economy last spring. His response provided the following gem that summarizes…
Read More »
Among U.S. states, Connecticut competes with Illinois for the title of being the most fiscally distressed as a result of the policies its politicians have implemented over the years, where the two states frequently trade off between each other for being in the worst shape. This fall, both states showed some progress toward resolving…
Read More »
Since 1995, the U.S. Congress has given the most badly behaving of its members and its employees an unusual, secret taxpayer-funded perk. Writing at The Hill, Jennie Beth Martin explains how a law, the Congressional Accountability Act (CAA), that was meant to compel members of the U.S. Congress to live under the terms of…
Read More »
Two days ago, the news recently broke that the nation of Venezuela officially defaulted on its debt. Writing at Forbes, Frances Coppola reports on the straw that broke the camel’s back for what had been one of the richest nations in South America. Venezuela has defaulted on two of its US dollar-denominated sovereign bond…
Read More »
Last week, the Congressional Budget Office issued its first estimate of how the U.S. national debt would change over the next 10 years as a result of the tax cut legislation now making its way through Congress. That estimate came in the form of a November 8, 2017 letter from CBO Director Keith Hall…
Read More »
It’s no surprise that the U.S. federal government does lots of stupid things. Sometimes, those things are meant to save money but, surprise surprise, those things really do the opposite and drive up costs instead. A good example of this unintended effect can be found in Medicare’s Direct and Indirect Remuneration (DIR) fees on…
Read More »
If someone wanted to stop the U.S. government from wasting so much money, a very good place to begin would be to end the power that bureaucrats have to award multi-million dollar contracts without seeking any form of competition among the businesses they will rely upon to deliver results for U.S. taxpayers. Writing in…
Read More »
Have you ever wondered what it is like to work for a failing enterprise, when that enterprise is a government? Diana Sroka Rickert recently had that experience after she accepted a high-level position with Illinois’ state governor’s office. She would go on to leave that job after just a matter of weeks of growing…
Read More »
 |
 |
 |