“My fellow Americans, I come to you today with a heavy heart. We have a crisis on our hands. It is one of our own making. And it is one that leaves us with no good choices. For many years, our nation’s government has lived beyond its means…We have not faced the hard reality…
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Over at Reason Magazine, Veronique de Rugy illuminates the State Pension problem by drawing attention to the differences in accounting rules applied by the market and the government. As de Rugy notes, states are not required to pony up regular contributions to pension systems and they systematically underestimate the liabilities in pension funds. State…
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San Jose City Councilman Pete Constant wants to answer his office phone but the City Hall employees’ union says he should not be allowed to do so. The union has taken the Councilman to court, attempting to force him to hire someone else to be his administrative assistant and answer phones for $70,000 a…
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A wonderful graphic by Third Way is available here showing the path of Social Security towards insolvency. Jim Kessler and David Kendall advocate: “a ‘Savings-Led’ Social Security reform plan that actually increases the program’s progressivity. Our plan makes roughly two dollars in benefit reductions for every one dollar in revenue increases, and achieves solvency…
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In a characteristically informed and appropriately scathing attack on the welfare state, Walter Williams asserts a cautiously optimistic view of the recent trend in political discourse as it has become more popular to call for limits on the arbitrary powers of the state. “For the first time in my lifetime—and I’m approaching 75 years…
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Yesterday The New York Times published the results of a poll on how to cut the national deficit. Interestingly, a majority of people think necessary action is needed, the deficit can be reduced without increasing taxes, and it is necessary to cut back on programs they benefit from. Cause for optimism? I think not….
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Governor Jerry Brown is proposing measures to balance the California state budget, including cutting $12.5 billion in spending and extending $12 billion in expiring taxes. The politically ambitious move from the new governor involves a sequencing of three legislative parts. The legislature would pass spending cuts, voters would then be able to vote in…
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Over at Economix, Casey Mulligan has a nice illustration of Austan Goolsbee’s approach to economic planning. In essence, targeted means of stimulating investment (say, with New Homebuyer tax credits) don’t work to increase investment, and thereby employment, in the short-run. Rather these types of subsidies have drive up prices for current asset owners—constituting windfall…
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On Fox Business News, Judge Andrew Napolitano, host of “Freedom Watch,” discusses the record-breaking national debt of more than $14 trillion, encouraging Congress to say no to more spending. And below (at the 11:00 minute mark) the Judge talks with economics professor Dan D’Amico about the possibility of government seizing private retirement and pension…
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In a great post over at Economix, Ed Glaeser makes the point that the absence of disastrous housing regulation explains why states like Arizona and Texas have the highest growth rates in population. “The future shape of America is being driven not by quality of life or economic success but by the obscure rules…
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