In a speech to the Libertarian Party in Indianapolis, Michael Munger gives three things the government has to do to deal with the debt crisis: 1. Cut defense spending by by at least 15%. More than 15% — even better! 2. Sell US bonds in the Social Security trust fund. Also raise the Social…
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No, I am not referring to the Allied Leaders in WWI, college basketball, or the top accounting firms in the U.S. The BIG FOUR of the Budget are Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and Defense. Together they make up around 65% of non-discretionary spending. Today, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal are running…
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Edward P. Lazear (former Chairman, President’s Council of Economic Advisors; Jack Steele Parker Professor of Human Resources Management and Economics, Stanford University; Morris Arnold Cox Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution) proposes significant spending cuts, no tax increases, and most importantly—adoption of rule-based constraints on future government spending. What do you think—is limiting growth in government…
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FreedomWorks has produced a very timely new video, “We Won Wisconsin—But the Fight Goes On,” on the very serious, looming crises for state government across the U.S., as a result of the unsustainable entitlements, government employee union costs, and other spending and debt.
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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If you want to quickly see how President Barack Obama and the Congressional Democrats’ federal government spending proposal for 2011 stacks up against what Congressional Republicans have in mind, shown against a background illustrating the trend in U.S. federal government spending since 1967, here you go! References 1 Obama, Barack. The State of the…
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Independent Institute Senior Fellow Richard K. Vedder, a member of the Council of Economic Advisors for the Institute’s Government Cost Calculator, was interviewed by International PressTV on January 12th. In the interview, Dr. Vedder explains that President Obama has done nothing to rectify either the U.S. or international debt crisis. Indeed, under the Obama…
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Michael Snyder reports on seventeen statistics on the unsustainable nature of reckless U.S. government spending and debt. 1. As of December 28th, 2010, the U.S. national debt was $13,877,230,355,933.00. 2. If the federal government began right at this moment to repay the U.S. national debt at a rate of one dollar per second, it…
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In a new article in the Wall Street Journal, “Why the Spending Stimulus Failed: New economic research shows why lower tax rates do far more to spur growth,” Stanford University economist Michael Boskin examines how and why the U.S.’s $814 billion economic stimulus has failed. For many years now, Independent Institute Senior Fellow Robert…
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