Free Republic

Has the Federal Reserve run out of bullets? that implication could be drawn from the recently released minutes of the Fed's last Open Market Committee meeting, during which the federal funds rate was cut from 2.25% to 2%. The Fed hinted that no more rate cuts are in store and that the economic horizon is becoming cloudier. (The reason our central bank can't reduce interest rates further is that the inflation picture is getting uglier.) Stocks tanked on this news. However, the Fed has yet to use its most effective artillery: strengthening the value of the U.S. dollar.

Is Treasury Chief Hank Paulson the financial equivalent of Civil War General George B. McClellan? The "Young Napoleon" brilliantly organized and trained Union armies in the first year and a half of the Civil War. His problem: He couldn't bring himself to actually engage the enemy, always proffering excuses as to why he couldn't take decisive action. An exasperated Abraham Lincoln finally fired him. Mr. Paulson repeatedly says he wants a strong U.S. dollar. Last month he told Reuters: "I've been as consistent as anyone that you've ever heard in saying that the strong dollar [is] in our nation's interest."...

Ann Coulter wasn't invited to CPAC this year but she's still giving a speech 50 yards away. The speech is only open to 500 attendees but you can watch it live here -- courtesy of uStream. (VIDEO)

This past weekend on the business show, Forbes On Fox, Steve Forbes essentially endorsed John McCain. Steve Forbes, the main force behind the Flat Tax proposal several years ago in the Republican presidential race of 2000, and generally considered a deeply conservative Republican, came out in favor of illegal aliens, or what he referred to as illegal immigrants, being given amnesty.

Steve Forbes, the editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine and himself a former presidential candidate, announced his endorsement Saturday of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for president. Forbes had campaigned hard in Florida for former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who dropped out after Tuesday’s primary. Two other high-profile Giuliani backers — Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former Solicitor General Theodore Olson — also have switched to McCain. The backing by Forbes is the latest in a cascade of signs that a once-reluctant Republican establishment is embracing McCain, who could wrap up the party’s presidential nomination in three days on Super Tuesday.

When Rudy Giuliani left the race and threw his support behind John McCain, people wondered whether it would have much effect on the race. After all, the Mayor had faded badly in the Republican primaries after utilizing a strategy that made him largely irrelevant in the national media. However, Rudy brought two other endorsements that could help build bridges with disaffected conservatives if McCain wins the nomination. First came Ted Olson to provide reassurance on judicial nominations, and today Steve Forbes endorsed McCain, perhaps addressing his self-professed weakness on economics: U.S. Senator John McCain's presidential campaign today announced that Steve...

Barry Bonds is being shafted by the legal system. His case is, sadly, part of a pattern of judicial abuse, the stretching of the law like rubber to allow prosecutors to go after unpopular figures in business, politics and, now, sports. The indictment recently returned against him could have been rendered years ago. Why now? Because this season Bonds, an ill-tempered, arrogant, disliked athlete, broke the record for lifetime home runs. Had he not set a new record or had he been a friendly figure beloved by the fans, prosecutors would never have touched him...

Gigot: Well, Fred Thompson has his flat tax, and Mike Huckabee has his fair tax. But who's got the better idea, and what are the other GOP presidential hopefuls proposing? Here with a closer look at the candidates' tax plans, Wall Street Journal columnist and deputy editor Dan Henninger, assistant editor James Freeman, Washington columnist Kim Strassel and senior economics writer Steve Moore. So, Steve, Fred Thompson has embraced this so-called voluntary flat tax plan. You like it, I kind of like it. Tell our viewers why. Moore: Well, the flat tax is happening all over the world. There are...

Rudy Giuliani would make a superb president. He combines Reaganesque vision with extraordinary attention to detail. He is strong on national security and also has the principles and policies to strengthen the economy. He is a tax cutter and a foe of the federal income tax's complexity. Rudy Giuliani is not afraid of trying to do Big Things. He successfully tackled the welfare mess in New York City, even before the welfare reform act of 1996. By the time he was through, welfare rolls had been cut nearly 60%. In short, he is not afraid to pursue major structural changes,...

Rudy Giuliani would make a superb president. he combines Reaganesque vision with extraordinary attention to detail. He is strong on national security and also has the principles and policies to strengthen the economy. He is a tax cutter and a foe of the federal income tax's complexity. He is a fervent free trader, much needed, as global protectionist pressures are rising. He has also demonstrated an antipathy toward unnecessary regulation. If Sarbanes-Oxley hasn't been amended by the time Giuliani takes office, he will push hard to remove its counterproductive elements. While I disagree with him in certain areas--I am pro-life,...

I think Rudy Giuliani will be a superb president. There are many reasons I support Mayor Giuliani's candidacy – his leadership after September 11th, his turning around of New York City and his fight against crime – but what I most admire is his record of fiscal conservatism. As Mayor, Rudy Giuliani cut taxes 23 times while turning a $2.3 billion dollar deficit into a $2.9 billion surplus. He saved taxpayers more than $11 billion by controlling the projected growth of city-funded spending, and he created a smaller, more efficient government by cutting the number of full-time city-funded jobs by...

The great economic debate of the twentieth century was between collectivists and free-marketers. In one sense, the free-marketers won: When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, it was widely acknowledged that Soviet socialism had been a catastrophic, not to say murderous, failure. But in another sense, the debate continues. Democratic capitalism still has not vanquished the idea of collectivism. Far from it. At the beginning of the last century, free markets seemed to be on the ascendancy everywhere. But two events gave collectivism its lease on life. The first was World War I. In addition to the slaughter—and to breeding...

Publisher Steve Forbes is using an Iowa campaign trip to criticize President George W. Bush's handling of Social Security and the Iraq war. During a Des Moines stop Saturday for Secretary of Agriculture candidate Mark Leonard, Forbes said Bush has been his own worst enemy in his decline in the polls. Forbes said Bush failed to get the Social Security changes he wanted because his plan was too vague and people feared what might happen to their older relatives. In handling the Iraq war, Forbes said Bush again failed to give the public specific information on what was happening there.

Listen While You Freep! Five channels, five programs every day and each one playing for 24 hours and on weekends so tune in when it’s convenient for YOU! Call In Number - 866-884-TALK (8255) Heating the EDGE of a New Media! 1pm est- The Right Hour : Remember back to those thrilling days of yesteryear – the “hippy days.” Remember when everyone in Sociology 101 got an A, except you! You got a D because you were naïve. You didn’t realize that you were taking a course in Marxist studies. You weren’t 100 percent certain that the Vietnam War was...

Ted Koppel: Mr. Forbes, I assume you've read this so-called "fictional" account of the Repubican Primary? Steve Forbes: Yes, I have, Ted. Ted Koppel: Then, I assume you're familiar with this passage: [ text appears on screen ] "Millionaire Teve Torbes was a maverick candidate who had Washington insiders running scared. He also had an undeniable animal magnetism that drove the ladies crazy. It was clear Teve Torbes had it goin' on." Since this portrays you in such a positive light, Mr. Forbes, many people have suggested that you are the author of the book. Steve Forbes: [ smiling ]...

The Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal is grotesque, but it is not unprecedented in Washington history. Before the Civil War most Americans' only contact with the federal government was through the Post Office. Now contact occurs ubiquitously. The scandals that tarnished Ulysses S. Grant's presidency over 130 years ago were a sign of things to come. As more money flowed through Washington and as Washington's power to regulate our lives grew, opportunities and temptations for graft, influence peddling and cutting corners grew exponentially. Power breeds corruption. And this will not be the last such case as long as our central government...

The Talk Shows Sunday, January 15th, 2006 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; Reps. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., John Boehner, R-Ohio, and John Shadegg, R-Ariz., candidates in the upcoming House majority leader race; Harry Johnson, president, Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation. MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Paul Bremer, former U.S. administrator in Iraq; Taylor Branch, civil rights author and historian; Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow John McWhorter; Children's Defense Fund President Marian Wright Edelman. FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and...

Mushrooming Crisis Iran's soon-to-be successful push for atomic weapons, not the Iraq war, will be the global hot potato of 2006. All diplomatic efforts to dissuade Tehran from going nuclear have predictably failed. Russia is not going to pull this radioactive chestnut out of the fire, either, even though members of the Bush Administration still pretend it will. The prospect of Iran's having a nuclear capability is especially frightening because its new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is lethally delusional. He is obsessed with the Mahdi (who is to return just before Judgment Day) and believes he must prepare the way for...

RECORD oil prices this week were evidence of a speculative market bubble that was set to burst in the next 12 months and make the hi-tech crash of 2000 "look like a picnic", US business publisher Steve Forbes said today. The price of light sweet crude topped $US70 a barrel yesterday as Hurricane Katrina headed for the US Gulf Coast, which accounts for about a quarter of US oil output. Mr Forbes, editor-in-chief of the influential Forbes business magazine, said inflation and increased demand from China and India only accounted for a small part of the price raise from $US25...

Indeed, the Brussels-based Center for a New Europe notes that none of the countries that have adopted the flat tax are seriously contemplating any retreat from it. Flat-tax pioneer Estonia is even reducing its rate by two percentage points a year until it drops to 20% in 2007. Since the tax's inception in 1994, Estonia has had an average growth of 5.2% a year, and now also ranks fourth (out of 155 countries) in the Index of Economic Freedom, published by The Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation. After being mired in stagnation for years, in 2001 Russia implemented...