In the following, insightful, new video, Independent Institute Research Fellow Benjamin Powell reveals “Why Washington only cut $38 billion” recently from federal spending because as public choice economics shows, special interests prevail over the average citizen by utilizing the political process to redistribute wealth and power from the many to the few (and costs…
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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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In a recent commentary titled �Diagnostics and Therapeutics in Political Economy,� I endeavored to show that an analytical understanding of past growth in the government’s size, scope, and power does not permit us to prescribe effective means of stopping or slowing this growth, particularly any simple silver bullet remedy, and I specifically disclaimed any…
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According to an analysis of federal payroll data by USA Today, the federal bureaucracy has flourished during the current recession. The number of Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14 percent to 19 percent of civil servants during the recession’s first 18 months and that’s before overtime pay and bonuses…
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Not everyone has the stomach for perusing the national income and product accounts, but one who does can learn a great deal about what ails the present economy and about its prospects for returning to a healthier condition. (I draw the data I discuss here from Table B-2, Real Gross Domestic Product, 1960-2009, in…
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