Government Spending
Business & Economics
California’s High-Tax, Big-Government Comedown
Anyone who has ever watched Animal Planet should be familiar with migrations. Geese do it, wildebeests and whales do it, turtles do it and, yes, people do it too. To migrate is a natural phenomenon. What’s interesting about most migrations is their purposes are generally positive: sex, food, sun and ...
Commentary
If no changes, no Medicare
Medicare has two more years to live than previously thought. The program’s trustees recently estimated that the “depletion date for the trust fund is 2026, two years later than was shown in last year’s report.” But that conclusion is less a vote of confidence than a two-year stay of execution. ...
Business & Economics
Corporate Laffer Curve: Column
A corporate tax cut would produce higher revenues for Dems and lower rates for GOP. Democrats and Republicans in Washington are at loggerheads over what to do about the deficit, the national debt, and the automatic spending cuts, which took effect last week. Those on the left seek a hike ...
Commentary
Congress should put Medicare out of its misery now
As Republican leaders in Congress prepare to negotiate over the federal budget with their Democratic counterparts in the aftermath of the election, its time for everyone to face a hard truth we must end Medicare as we know it. The entitlement is bleeding to death. Without major changes, it ...
Business & Economics
Economists argue about sequestration’s effect on jobs
As a prominent analyst of the local economy, Stephen S. Fuller of George Mason Universitys Center for Regional Analysis attracted plenty of attention when he estimated that the mandatory budget cuts coming in January could cost more than 2 million jobs nationwide, including nearly 450,000 in the District, Maryland and ...
Business & Economics
The Policy Value Gap, Part 1: A Fiscal Perspective
In the spirit of Jimmy Carter, an economic malaise plagues the country. Rather than being the product of a fundamental flaw in our economic system, though, the current stagnation is mainly the result of the nations misguided economic policies. The federal governments response to the financial crisis of 2008 was ...
Business & Economics
Governor should ground tax proposal
Gov. Jerry Brown wants to increase sales and income taxes in a quest to “find another $10 billion” in revenue. He will have to craft a plan soon to get it on the 2012 ballot. To help California’s struggling economy, any tax proposals should be rooted in sound economics, which ...
Business & Economics
Our federal financial nightmares revealed … and how to fix them
During this week’s GOP presidential debate, Michele Bachmann twice said the federal government is spending about “40 percent more” than what it takes in. If only we were in such good shape. The federal government has actually been spending about 75 percent more than what it takes in. For every ...
Government Spending
The deficit ‘super committee’ and health care
The federal debt-reduction super committee recently held its third meeting to explore changes in the tax code. The 12-member bipartisan panel must find $1.5 trillion in federal savings by Thanksgiving. Committee members have gone to great lengths to emphasize their differences, but there is still room for agreement. The committee ...
California
Heed Your Libertarian Impulse, Gov. Brown
It’s time for Gov. Jerry Brown to release his inner libertarian. I know. This sounds nuts, or born of wishful thinking. The governor has spent his first months in office advocating more government spending and protecting the ravenous public-sector unions that helped elect him to office. But deep down – ...
California’s High-Tax, Big-Government Comedown
Anyone who has ever watched Animal Planet should be familiar with migrations. Geese do it, wildebeests and whales do it, turtles do it and, yes, people do it too. To migrate is a natural phenomenon. What’s interesting about most migrations is their purposes are generally positive: sex, food, sun and ...
If no changes, no Medicare
Medicare has two more years to live than previously thought. The program’s trustees recently estimated that the “depletion date for the trust fund is 2026, two years later than was shown in last year’s report.” But that conclusion is less a vote of confidence than a two-year stay of execution. ...
Corporate Laffer Curve: Column
A corporate tax cut would produce higher revenues for Dems and lower rates for GOP. Democrats and Republicans in Washington are at loggerheads over what to do about the deficit, the national debt, and the automatic spending cuts, which took effect last week. Those on the left seek a hike ...
Congress should put Medicare out of its misery now
As Republican leaders in Congress prepare to negotiate over the federal budget with their Democratic counterparts in the aftermath of the election, its time for everyone to face a hard truth we must end Medicare as we know it. The entitlement is bleeding to death. Without major changes, it ...
Economists argue about sequestration’s effect on jobs
As a prominent analyst of the local economy, Stephen S. Fuller of George Mason Universitys Center for Regional Analysis attracted plenty of attention when he estimated that the mandatory budget cuts coming in January could cost more than 2 million jobs nationwide, including nearly 450,000 in the District, Maryland and ...
The Policy Value Gap, Part 1: A Fiscal Perspective
In the spirit of Jimmy Carter, an economic malaise plagues the country. Rather than being the product of a fundamental flaw in our economic system, though, the current stagnation is mainly the result of the nations misguided economic policies. The federal governments response to the financial crisis of 2008 was ...
Governor should ground tax proposal
Gov. Jerry Brown wants to increase sales and income taxes in a quest to “find another $10 billion” in revenue. He will have to craft a plan soon to get it on the 2012 ballot. To help California’s struggling economy, any tax proposals should be rooted in sound economics, which ...
Our federal financial nightmares revealed … and how to fix them
During this week’s GOP presidential debate, Michele Bachmann twice said the federal government is spending about “40 percent more” than what it takes in. If only we were in such good shape. The federal government has actually been spending about 75 percent more than what it takes in. For every ...
The deficit ‘super committee’ and health care
The federal debt-reduction super committee recently held its third meeting to explore changes in the tax code. The 12-member bipartisan panel must find $1.5 trillion in federal savings by Thanksgiving. Committee members have gone to great lengths to emphasize their differences, but there is still room for agreement. The committee ...
Heed Your Libertarian Impulse, Gov. Brown
It’s time for Gov. Jerry Brown to release his inner libertarian. I know. This sounds nuts, or born of wishful thinking. The governor has spent his first months in office advocating more government spending and protecting the ravenous public-sector unions that helped elect him to office. But deep down – ...
