In 2009, Americans reported nearly $34.9 billion worth of donations to private charities serving the public interest on their federal tax forms, as they claimed the federal government’s tax deduction for charitable contributions on their taxes. Of all these donations, $19.14 billion, or 54.9%, were made by taxpayer households that reported $200,000 or more…
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I stumbled across an old article in our archive from 2 years ago that caught my eye. Research Fellow Randall G. Holcombe in “Transforming America: The Bush-Obama Stimulus Programs” discusses harmful policies and warns us of their implications. George W. Bush�s and Barack Obama�s �stimulus� programs will permanently transform the American economy. The market-based…
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Article ran in�The Atlantic and was�co authored with David Skarbek: In the last two weeks, a 5.9-magnitude earthquake and Hurricane Irene both rocked the East Coast. Immediately, politicians began touting the crucial role that FEMA would play in rebuilding these communities and the need for federal disaster response. However, these presumptions are largely based…
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The New York Times has a wonderful info-graphic depicting the costs of 9/11 by Shan Carter and Amanda Cox. As the author’s point out, the United States has spent an estimated $7 million for every dollar Al Qaeda spent planning and executing the attacks – approximately one-fifth of the current national debt. Notably, these…
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The Independent Institute’s Senior Fellow Robert Higgs has been taking on the so-called conventional wisdom that the U.S. economy continues to be in recessionary or near-recessionary conditions because “consumers are not spending”. On Friday, Dr. Higgs issued a challenge to readers of the Independent Institute’s blog The Beacon, as well as commentators and pundits,…
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In a very timely new article in The Weekly Standard, “The Ultimate Stimulus? World War Two and Economic Growth,” Arthur Herman refutes the Keynesian economics myth that Big Government spending during World War II ended the Great Depression. In so doing, he bases his analysis on the path-breaking work of Independent Institute Senior Fellow…
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In an article by Tad DeHaven called “The Stimulus: The Government Job Creation Myth”�discusses how in 2009 the president’s economists claimed that their $862 billion “stimulus” package was the jump start the economy needed. We were told that its passage would keep unemployment from going above 8 percent. Instead, unemployment has remained close to…
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The White House released its long-delayed mid-session fiscal budget review on 1 September 2011. We’re taking our first look at what they’re now forecasting for GDP this year and next. The Obama administration is now predicting that GDP will grow at 1.7% during Fiscal Year 2011 (FY2011), down from the 2.7% it projected in…
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In a recent Gallup Poll, Americans were asked their sentiment on the various business sectors.��For the first year the federal government rated LAST on the list with a positive view at 17%, leaving 63% disgruntled. Gallup explains the results: The sectors Americans view most negatively have all had well-publicized problems in recent years. The…
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Gary Becker, University of Chicago Nobel Laureate in economics, has a must read article in today’s Wall Street Journal. The article echos much of what we here at MGC have been arguing – government failure as a cause of the recession, failure of stimulus and monetary policy to boost economic recovery, the necessity of…
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