According to Michael Munger, the recent proposals by the deficit commission are DAFT. DAFT is short for “deficits are future taxes” and is a useful analogy to counter the political myths about debt and taxation. “With a total debt of more than $13 trillion, our government is in the midst of forcing the largest…
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As the government of Ireland undergoes scrutiny and criticism for its poorly mismanaged fiscal house, the media risks missing the primary lesson. Poor public sector incentives drive politicians to enact policies that defy the laws of economics. There is no such thing as a free lunch�not even a Keynesian lunch of government issued corn…
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The Government Cost Calculator has been recommended by Lee Doren at OpenMarket.org in “How Much Does Government Spending Cost.” With never-ending increases in government spending, citizens are often curious how much government actually costs them. In response to this question, The Independent Institute has launched MyGovCost.org, that features the personal government cost calculator to…
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The Economist provides an interesting video of Robert Rubin, among a panel of finance and economics experts, participating in a simulation of what a US State financial default might look like. HT: Jeff Hummel
In Tribune Media Services, The Washington Examiner and Townhall.com In his weekly, nationally syndicated column this morning, “GOP’s first order: Extend the Tax Cuts,” Cal Thomas encouraged voters to visit MyGovCost for a “handy” way of getting a clearer perspective on the implications that an expiration of the tax cuts will have on an…
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We’ve been digging through the White House’s budget projections for Fiscal Year 2009, which was produced under President Bush’s tenure, and Fiscal Years 2010 and 2011, which were both produced under President Obama’s direction, to compare how much of the U.S. taxpayers’ money each would have planned to spend in the years from 2010…
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Do you remember back in April 2010, when the administration was trumpeting how much better the expected budget deficit for 2010 was going to be? When, magically, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget’s projection of the expected deficit dropped by just over $300 billion U.S. dollars from its originally forecast value of…
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In the new article on runaway spending from the Pentagon, “How Many More Trillion$ for Defense?”, Independent Institute Research Fellow Winslow Wheeler explains the dire need for effective budgetary controls over the Pentagon.� As it stands the Pentagon “is literally ‘unauditable.’” �Since Sept. 11, 2001, Congress and the Defense Department have added more than…
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The Wall Street Journal notes in a new article, “The 2010 Spending Record: In two years, a 21.4% increase”: “Perhaps you missed it, but then so did the Washington press corps. Late last week the Congressional Budget Office released its preliminary budget tallies for fiscal year 2010, and the news is that the U.S….
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In this new article on United States transportation infrastructure and spending, Gabriel Roth explains the� wasteful spending endemic to the central planning approach taken to transportation.� Rather than a leaky bucket, Roth proposes using market forces based on local transportation needs: “President Obama�s recent announcement of a $50 billion ‘up-front investment’ for ‘renewing and…
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