Free Republic

"The trouble with the world is not that people know too little, but that they know so many things that aren't true."--attributed to Mark TwainEasy answers are seldom correct ones. That principle seems to be at work as the nation struggles to discover the causes of the financial crisis now rocking the economy. Looking for a simple and politically convenient villain, many politicians have blamed deregulation by the Bush Administration.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, for instance, stated last month that "the Bush Administration's eight long years of failed deregulation policies have resulted in our nation's largest bailout ever, leaving the American...

The United States Constitution declares in Article I, Section 2 that "representation and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers." To accomplish this foundation for proportional government, Article 1 tasked federal authorities with "actual enumeration" within three years of the first meeting of Congress and then every ten years thereafter. The first Census was carried out in 1790 with Thomas Jefferson the nominal supervisor as Secretary of State. In fact, the first Census-takers were actually Federal Marshals deputized by each of the US Judicial Districts.That...

According to President Obama, the $62 billion in new taxes this year imposed as part of the fiscal-cliff deal will have no effect on economic growth. In fact, the president believes that he can safely impose another $58 billion in tax increases to replace spending cuts from the upcoming sequester. And, of course, Obamacare’s almost $42 billion in new taxes (and regulations) in 2013 don’t have any impact on hiring or investment. But, the president says, the $44 billion in cuts this year resulting from the sequester will throw the U.S. economy back into recession. The president seems to labor...

Luke looking for terrorists? By Ralph R. Reiland Monday, October 15, 2007 Where would Pittsburgh's anti-terrorism van have been that August night if the mayor hadn't taken it to the Toby Keith concert? Riding around Brookline looking for al-Qaida? Checking out Ali Baba in Oakland? I'd say that Luke Ravenstahl got it right that night, whether by design or chance, in terms of national security. The Department of Homeland Security, seeing Pittsburgh as a potential target of Islamic fundamentalists, gave us the GMC Yukon for surveillance, to identify potential terrorism targets, and for intelligence gathering -- to ride around and...

This year, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security bought Edward Koorse a new Ford pickup truck. If terrorists attack somewhere near Cattaraugus County, where Mr. Koorse is the director of emergency services, he will use the $27,000 truck to haul a huge trailer full of the decontamination equipment that the state bought him last year. But that scenario doesn’t seem very likely in the quiet farmland of southwestern New York State. So in the meantime, Mr. Koorse uses the pickup to drive to work. "I went no frills," he said of his vehicle. "It doesn’t have the fancy-schmancy stuff." Since...

Americans' view of the economy rebounded in early August from the worst level in several years to the best since June 2015, according to the IBD/TIPP Economic Optimism Index. The subgauge of the six-month economic outlook jumped to a still-dreary 44.7 from July's 36.7, which had matched the worst level since October 2013. The reading below the neutral 50 level still reflects a modestly pessimistic outlook. The improved sentiment comes amid news of higher wages... Separately, the National Federation of Independent Business reported on Tuesday that its Small Business Optimism Index rose slightly in July but remained on the soft...

Why won’t people who love to make zero-sum arguments about the economy apply their own lessons to government spending? Anyone who has expended energy arguing for free trade, market competition, and the open exchange of ideas has repeatedly encountered the same obstacle: zero-sum assumptions misapplied to dynamic, nonlinear phenomena. Almost anywhere you see statism advancing— in economic policy, national security, even the basic conditions for free speech—you can bet that underneath there’s a faulty zero-sum argument. All complicated matters of life, according to this way of thinking, can be reduced to a simple binary scale: Press your thumb down on...

David R. Henderson David R. Henderson is a research fellow with the Hoover Institution and an associate professor of economics at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He was previously the senior economist for energy policy and health policy with President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers. He is the editor of The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. Americans May be Losing Faith in Free Markets" reads the title of a July 16 "news analysis" by Los Angeles Times reporter Peter G. Gosselin. "Wave Goodbye to the Invisible Hand" is the title of an August 1 article by Pulitzer Prize–winning Washington...

Red GeorgeJul 3rd 2003 From The Economist print edition Meet America's most profligate president since the Vietnam war MOST people only have to see the word Medicare and they turn the page. Please resist, just this once. There are few better ways of understanding America's emerging Republican establishment than studying the two Medicare bills that are currently working their way through Congress. These bills point to two conclusions that are worth pondering by people who don't give a fig about co-payments. The first is that the Republicans are mighty shrewd when it comes to short-term political manoeuvring. The second is...

It's that time of the year again when we find out how deep in the red our country is thanks to the 2018 edition of the Mercatus Center State Fiscal Rankings. The study authors, Eileen Norcross and Olivia Gonzalez, find that when you rank states by their fiscal health, you can identify the best and worst state. But the scariest finding is that no state is really fiscally healthy. Norcross and Gonzalez are very transparent about each decision behind the study methodology. They use states' own audited financial data to create five different indices (cash solvency, budget solvency, long-term solvency,...

A Lesson in Irony – Take the Food Stamp program November 23, 2012By Harvey Miller This year the Food Stamp Program (SNAP) administered by the U.S.Department of Agriculture is proud to be distributing the greatest amount of free meals and food stamps ever – to 47 million people.Meanwhile, the National Park Service administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior asks us “Please Do Not Feed the Animals” because animals will grow dependent on handouts and will not learn to take care of themselves… Animals that are fed by people become dependent on human food, and may lose their natural...

Last week, President Trump's announced sweeping tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports into the United States: 25 percent on American buyers of imported steel-mill products and 10 percent on American buyers of imported aluminum-mill products. Trump has favored strong tariffs for years, and some of his most prominent economic advisors are supplying him with arguments in service of his policy. Those arguments are all wrong. Here are the facts about some of the favorite arguments made by protectionists. For the sake of simplification, I will mostly focus on the steel tariffs. Argument 1: Trump's tariffs are necessary because our...

Friday, February 26, 2010 Re: Obama Appoints SEIU's Stern to Debt Panel [Veronique de Rugy] Look at this chart. It shows that in 2009, for the first time ever, more public-sector employees (7.9 million) belonged to a union than did private-sector employees (7.4 million) despite there being five times more wage and salary workers in the private sector. [Chart in URL] So now, with a union boss on the debt commission and these many public employees unionized, with 33 percent of the education industry unionized and 31 percent of union members belonging to the education industry, what do you think...

One of the assets of the American economic model is a relatively flexible labor market, especially when compared with labor markets in many European countries. It explains some of the consistently lower U.S. unemployment rates and higher economic growth. Unfortunately, this flexibility is increasingly threatened by government policies that would increase the cost of employing workers. These policies include the Department of Labor's recent overtime rules, the call for employer-paid family leave and a minimum wage increase. Some of these calls are driven by pure politics and self-interest. The typical union business model, for instance, is built on the notions...

Wednesday, November 25, 2009 Obesity Is Caused by Low Minimum Wage by Veronique de Rugy Before you embark on this fun weekend of overeating (I know I am), you might be happy to know that whatever weight you put on won't be your fault. It is the fault of our low real minimum wage. This recent study by David Meltzer at the University of Chicago and Zhuo Chen of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds that low inflation-adjusted minimum wages are partly to blame for increased obesity. Here is why: People are fatter. That's because they eat too...

Veronique de Rugy, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center, writes in the National review’s blog that the Obamanomics job estimate is based on an economic fallacy: that government spending creates more economic activity than it consumes, thereby transforming each dollar government takes in into $2.50. De Rugy notes that history shows just the reverse effect: A dollar given to the government actually reduces GDP, due to the waste, inefficiency and dead-weight tax loss of removing money from productive ... The Washington Post reports that The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in an open letter, accused the Obama administration of...

The good news is that there's a debate in Washington about how to make the tax code less destructive. The bad news is that lawmakers will be able to achieve much less than they otherwise could because of bad policy priorities. It's obvious that Congress and the White House are unwilling to cut or even restrain spending to pay for tax reform. Indeed, the budget resolution that passed the Senate calls for a tax reform bill that would increase the deficit by $1.5 trillion over ten years with no savings worth mentioning. As a result, there's little leeway to mix...

Editor's Note: The following column is by Veronique de Rugy. Have you noticed that everyone in the top tier of Republican presidential candidates -- Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Scott Walker and Jeb Bush -- has gone on record against a small New Deal-era crony agency called the Export-Import Bank of the United States? In fact, Sen. Rubio recently came out with all guns blazing against the bank, arguing that it picks winners and losers and shouldn't be reauthorized once its charter expires June 30. Maybe their commitment to end Ex-Im cronyism and corruption will rub off on their...

House, Senate Agree on Bioterror Legislation Pilots Refused Right to Keep Guns in Cockpit O'Neill, Bono Tour Africa, Speak on Development House, Senate Agree on Bioterror Legislation House and Senate negotiators agreed yesterday on the final version of legislation meant to ensure a sustained, comprehensive effort to shore up the nation's defenses against a bioterror attack, according to The Washington Post. The bill, likely to win swift approval from Congress and prompt signature by President Bush, includes provisions calling for the stockpiling of drugs and vaccines and other initiatives to help prevent, detect and treat terrorism-related health threats. In "America...

The Senate stimulus bill should only stimulate taxpayer anger How bad is the stimulus bill just passed by the Senate? Well, at least as bad as the one passed last week by the House of Representatives, but probably not as bad as the final bill that will land on President Barack Obama’s desk, possibly as soon as the end of this week. Don't take my word for it. In a report to Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) laid out in plain English—well, economic language—that the Senate bill would eventually cause not a stimulus but...