Will we even need central bankers in a few more years? More |
House Republicans, both in the budget committee and in the Republican Study Committee, have outlined potential cuts that will bring spending back down to 2008 pre-recession levels. However, all Washington negotiators can do is talk about raising taxes, or not, and how much revenue can come from limiting deductions on one hand and economic growth on the other. It appears that discussion of spending cuts is so poisonous,... More |
Localities should worry less about Washington’s spending cuts than about how their own state governments handle them. More |
In the first couple weeks of any survey course in the principles of economics, students are taught that prices are determined by the interactions of consumers (demand) and producers (supply). Prices for many things, such as oil, or of common stocks, constantly change with the frequent shifts... More |
According to a new study by the Pew Center on the States released on Thursday, the general economic slowdown that would result from an estimated $600 billion of tax increases and spending cuts taking hold next Jan. 2 would significantly affect state economic activity and indirectly undercut many state budgets. |
The Port Authority of NY & NJ has mortgaged itself to the hilt to rebuild the World Trade Center, leaving few resources for its real mission. More |
About 20 states require some form of binding arbitration during contract negotiations on their local governments, despite studies showing that the system is often biased against taxpayers and frequently results in much bigger pay awards than government workers earn in places without arbitration. Even as reformers seek ways to cut local-government costs during the ongoing fiscal crisis, binding... More |
Is federal debt really nothing more than money ‘we owe to ourselves’? No. It frays the political fabric, and we are feeling its effects already. More |
The root cause of most failures to make government lean is actually a lack of commitment from the top. Lean is a different way of thinking about and managing work. More |
The United States consistently neglects investments designed to control the extent of damage from extreme weather events. More |
Federal law, as it stands now, is chock full of tax increases for earners both rich and poor. President Obama and Republicans in Congress have stressed their desire not to raise taxes on the middle class, but unless they can find a compromise on a broad range of issues, you should prepare to see your take-home pay drop in the new year. |
What states should build instead of ObamaCare. More |
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is one of many recent Democratic chief executives who have, with varying levels of enthusiasm and success, tried to confront government employee unions in an effort to control costs. More |
Despite a bleak decade for air travel—the result of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the post-2008 economic downturn—local governments, aided by Washington, have been pouring billions of dollars into airport development and expansion. They claim that these expensive, debt-laden facilities will spur growth in economically precarious locales by attracting businesses that want more air connections. But from St. Louis to... More |
In 1959 Jim Morgan of Time magazine argued that “simple justice” demanded a leveling of the playing field between the passenger train and its competitors. Today, after four decades of per-passenger-mile subsidies to Amtrak that are many times greater than subsidies to airlines or highways, simple justice to Amtrak’s competitors and to taxpayers demands an end to those subsidies. More |
Gov. Cuomo kicked off the third week of Sandy by getting everyone fixated on a number: $30 billion. That’s what the governor figures New York has lost — and what he thinks would be “fair” for Congress and President Obama to give it. But if Sandy is supposed to make us re-think everything, maybe we should rethink the post-9/11, post-Katrina approach to disaster funding. More |
Our poverty programs — once justified and defended as a safety net for Americans truly in need — exist, increasingly, to make life more comfortable for the middle class. More |
San Bernardino's decades-long journey from prosperous, middle-class community to bankrupt, crime-ridden, foreclosure-blighted basket case is straightforward — and alarmingly similar to the path traveled by many municipalities around America's largest state. San Bernardino succumbed to a vicious circle of self-interests among city workers, local politicians and state pension overseers More |
The latest energy boondoggle on the table involves the natural gas industry which is looking for nearly $4 billion in subsidies from Washington. More |
More than anything, the humanitarian crisis left in Superstorm Sandy’s wake can be traced to one major headache: a widespread lack of electricity. And what paved the way, in large part, for that ? Decades of politics-as-usual cravenness. As Andrew Cuomo said of the Long Island Power Authority, “I believe they were unprepared.”But LIPA is a state authority, with the governor in charge of naming 9 of 15... More |
California would be hit especially hard if America goes over the fiscal cliff, losing some 230,000 jobs. More |
The combination of productivity gains, which produce higher wages, and declining costs of food and manufactured goods means that people have a great deal more disposable income. Some of it goes to buying more food and physical stuff, but much of it goes to buying services and enjoying culture, which people couldn’t afford before. More |
The moment it became clear that Hurricane Sandy would likely batter the Northeast, swarms of speculators descended into markets there. They stormed into supermarkets, hardware stores and gasoline stations. You’d think that the politicians and pundits who reliably and boisterously criticize speculators would have condemned this pre-Sandy speculation. But oddly, they did not. In fact, they actively encouraged it! I heard... More |
What’s the big deal with the last four years or the four years to come. Is it really so bad? Why are those of us who claim to love liberty so concerned about the path of the country? Most of us have a good life here and that is another reason to be pretty cheerful. Or do we? More |
Only a powerful economic recovery can save indebted states and localities from “the new normal.” More |
The reaction to the Fukishima reactor accident by anti-nuclear campaigners and many Western publics put a fine point on the gross misperception of risk that informs so much anti-nuclear fear. Nuclear remains the only proven technology capable of reliably generating zero-carbon energy at a scale that can have any impact on global warming, writes three environmentalists. More |
The economic downturn is pressing more employers to reduce pension benefits and significantly delaying when people launch their careers, darkening the already bleak picture that young workers face in saving for retirement. More |
The road back for a broken company has always been long and hard. But today it is longer and harder than ever. What’s needed is serious regulatory relief and some very big, very long overdue tort reform. More |
Shrinking spending reduces deficits without harming the economy—unlike tax hikes. More |
Antitrust law protects consumers by protecting the competitive process — not individual competitors. More |
Once government spending rises, often to address an emergency at home or abroad, the spending doesn’t recede. High water becomes the new normal, until the next emergency, when a second rise comes, as an economist named M. Slade Kendrick noticed as far back as 1955. More |
As the focus shifts from emergency response to long-term recovery after Hurricane Sandy, state and local officials in New York will find themselves grappling with budgetary challenges in some ways even more daunting and complex than those created by the destruction of the World Trade Center. More |
Although Hurricane Sandy is considered this election’s October surprise, there is another one: The national housing crisis, which has defined the national economy for the past half-decade, is over. That’s not an automatic boon for President Obama, though. Instead, it’s an illustration that politicians can’t fix everything. Some problems need time — and free-market... More |