Government Spending

Reports last week that the recession is draining Social Security and Medicare funds were just one more reminder that the United States needs to fix its finances. For inspiration, why not look to Canada? Long derided by American conservatives as “socialist” and praised by the left for its generous government ...

America’s economy remains in terrible shape and federal lawmakers are trying to kick-start a recovery by spending money. A better strategy would be to reform the country’s inefficient tort system, which is failing to promptly compensate true victims. Instead, meritless lawsuits clog courtrooms while outsized monetary awards cripple businesses and ...

Robert Murphy demonstrates in this excellent book a penetrating ability to explain the essence of fallacious economic doctrines. As he notes, three theories offer competing explanations of the Great Depression: the Keynesian account, which stresses a lack of aggregate demand; Milton Friedman’s monetarism, which ascribes the severity of the early ...

Recently Congress took a break from nationalizing corporations and discussed the Waxman-Markey “cap and trade” bill in which the federal government would auction off permits to businesses giving them legal permission to emit carbon dioxide. During the four days of hearings, one of the most contentious issues was how much ...

Docket Case: Pennsylvania Tort Reform Advocates V. Critics, No. 052009, P.A. (2009). Questions: Is Pennsylvania tort reform necessary? Will the suggested tort reforms offered by the advocates save money, encourage business, and stimulate the economy? Plaintiffs’ (Advocates’) Opening Statement, Exhibits Resting on its laurels. Allowing society to shoulder excessive costs. ...

As Canada’s experience in the 1990s showed, the path to economic growth lies in shrinking government, not growing it This past weekend, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty encouraged the G20 countries to rapidly implement their stimulus packages, highlighting that his government provided a greater stimulus budget than the G20 countries agreed ...

Since late 2007, more and more commentators have drawn parallels between our current financial crisis and the Great Depression. Nobel laureates and presidential advisorsDownload PDF confidently proclaim that it was Herbert Hoover’s laissez-faire penny pinching that exacerbated the Depression, and that the American economy was saved only when FDR boldly ...

As the United States, Canada and other countries unleash trillions of dollars of economic stimulus packages on the world’s teetering financial system, it may be helpful to recall that the last time governments tried to “fix” the economy with mountains of borrowed money, it ended up making the problem worse. ...