Posted by Daniel J. Mitchell on July 15, 2010
By Daniel J. Mitchell
The White House is claiming that the so-called stimulus created between 2.5 million and 3.6 million jobs even though total employment has dropped by more than 2.3 million since Obama took office. The Administration justifies this legerdemain by asserting that the economy actually would have lost about 5 million jobs without the new government spending.
I’ve [...]
Categories: Budget, Politics, Tax and Budget Policy |
Tags: economics, Government and Politics, government spending, jobs, keynes, Keynesian economics, keynesianism, obama, stimulus, unemployment | 
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Posted by Tad DeHaven on July 15, 2010
By Tad DeHaven
A recent paper by Veronique de Rugy examines how policymakers use various budgeting gimmicks to increase spending and obscure liabilities. One particularly abusive mechanism is the designation of supplemental spending as an “emergency.” The emergency designation makes it easier for policymakers to skirt budgetary rules, particularly “pay-as-you-go” (PAYGO) requirements.
The following chart from the paper shows [...]
Categories: Politics, Tax and Budget Policy |
Tags: Appropriations, debt, deficit, funding, George W. Bush, office of management and budget, Senator Tom Coburn, spending, stimulus, the economy, veronique de rugy | No Comments »
Posted by Daniel J. Mitchell on July 2, 2010
By Daniel J. Mitchell
The fault line in American politics is often not between Republicans and Democrats, but rather between taxpayers and the Washington political elite. Here are two examples that symbolize why economic policy is such a mess:
First, we have President George W. Bush’s former top aide, Karl Rove, making the case in the Wall Street Journal that [...]
Categories: Politics, Tax and Budget Policy |
Tags: debt, deficit, Government and Politics, government spending, jobs, keynes, Keynesian economics, keynesianism, obama, Rove, stimulus, unemployment | No Comments »
Posted by David Boaz on June 29, 2010
By David Boaz
Journalists have been repeating lately that “economists say” that we need yet more government spending now to keep on goosing the economy, even though — to be sure — we will need to cut back on spending at some point in the undefined future, to avoid the fate of Greece. Well, maybe some economists. But [...]
Categories: Politics |
Tags: federal deficits, Finance, Banking & Monetary Policy, fiscal austerity, long run, short run, stimulus | No Comments »
Posted by David Boaz on June 24, 2010
By David Boaz
From ArtsAndScience, the magazine of Vanderbilt University’s College of Arts and Science:
Assistant Professor of Chemistry John McLean has been awarded a $2.7 million Grant Opportunity grant from the National Institutes of Health as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
Categories: Politics, Tax and Budget Policy |
Tags: american recovery and reinvestment act, Government and Politics, stimulus | No Comments »
Posted by Daniel J. Mitchell on June 24, 2010
By Daniel J. Mitchell
Regular readers of this blog know that big corporations often are enemies of free markets and individual liberty. So it is hardly suprising to know that the Business Roundtable, a lobby representing CEOs of major companies, supported the wasteful and ineffective stimulus program in 2009 and the bloated new health care entitlement in 2010. Big [...]
Categories: Politics, Tax and Budget Policy |
Tags: Big Business, big government, Business Roundtable, free markets, Government and Politics, Health, Welfare & Entitlements, lobbyists, Obamacare, stimulus | No Comments »
Posted by Daniel J. Mitchell on June 15, 2010
By Daniel J. Mitchell
Even though the Obama Administration claimed that squandering $800 billion on so-called stimulus would keep the joblessness rate below 8 percent, the unemployment rate today is almost 10 percent. There are many reasons for the economy’s tepid performance, including a larger burden of government spending and the dampening effect of future tax rate increases (tax rates will [...]
Categories: Politics, Tax and Budget Policy |
Tags: Bush, General, Government and Politics, government intervention, jobs, Minimum wage laws, obama, Political Philosophy, Regulatory Studies, stimulus, unemployment, unions | No Comments »
Posted by Andrew J. Coulson on May 19, 2010
By Andrew J. Coulson
The Supreme Court is expected to decide tomorrow whether to summarily overturn a Ninth Circuit Court ruling, hear an appeal of that ruling, or let the Ninth Circuit’s decision stand. The case involves Arizona’s k-12 scholarship tax credit program that helps families afford private schooling, which the Ninth Circuit found last year to violate the First Amendment.
Before [...]
Categories: Politics |
Tags: Arizona, court precedent, Education and Child Policy, First Amendment, General, George Will, k-12, Law and Civil Liberties, ninth circuit, private schooling, school, SCOTUS, stimulus, Supreme Court, tax credit program | No Comments »
