While We Wait for Details about “The Deal,” Here’s Some Debt Limit Entertainment

Two of my rules for fiscal policy are: 1) The details of any budget agreement will be to the left of what is first announced, and, 2) The “spending cuts” in any budget agreement will evaporate within two years. With this in mind, I’m not expecting to be overjoyed when we get the details of [...]

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Is Pentagon Waste Even More Egregious than Welfare-State Waste?

I realize that national defense is one of the few legitimate functions of the federal government, but that doesn’t mean the Pentagon budget isn’t riddled with waste, fraud, and abuse. Here’s a jaw-dropping example reported by Bloomberg. A U.S. contractor in Iraq overbilled the Pentagon by at least $4.4 million for spare parts and equipment, [...]

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Just in Case You Need One More Reason Why the Department of Housing and Urban Development Should Be Abolished…

Welcome Instapundit readers. If you want to get even more upset, here’s a big list of posts about waste, fraud, and abuse, including one about Social Security bureaucrats enjoying a $700,000 junket and another about a lawyer getting $25,000 of “stimulus” money for writing a two-sentence memo. ===================================================== While I’ve been somewhat critical of Senator [...]

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Basic Economics for Financial Journalists and Other Dummies

While driving home last night, I had the miserable experience of listening to a financial journalist being interviewed about the anemic growth numbers that were just released. I wasn’t unhappy because the interview was biased to the left. From what I could tell, both the host and the guest were straight shooters. Indeed, they spent [...]

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Atlas Shrugged Comes to Detroit

In a perverse way, I’m glad that there are places such as Greece and Illinois. These profligate jurisdictions are useful examples of the dangers of bloated government and reckless statism. There also are some cities that serve as reverse role models. Detroit is a miserable case study of big government run amok, so I enjoyed [...]

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Needless Budget Drama in Congress, Time Machines, and some Debt Limit Humor

In the spirit of the budget battle, readers have to eat their peas (i.e., endure my analysis) before getting to the dessert menu of jokes from the late-night comics. The big news today is that Speaker Boehner had to cancel a vote on his “Budget Control Act” last night. But other than the political-drama angle, [...]

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Notwithstanding Paul Krugman’s Assurances, the United Kingdom Announces More Healthcare Rationing

A couple of years ago, Paul Krugman assured us that government-run healthcare was a good idea, writing that “In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We’ve all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false.” Well, if the stories are false, the British press must [...]

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Does the Boehner Plan Include a Tax Increase Trap?

In an ideal world, GOPers would hold firm and not pass any debt limit until Democrats agreed to enact something like the Ryan plan/Cut-Cap-Balance. But I’ve never thought that was a realistic strategy. When we got to the drop-dead point, Obama would have Geithner or Bernanke give an inflammatory speech designed to panic financial markets [...]

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Debunking the Left’s Tax Burden Deception

I testified earlier today before the Joint Economic Committee about budget process reform. As part of the Q&A session after the testimony, one of the Democratic members made a big deal about the fact that federal tax revenues today are “only” consuming about 15 percent of GDP. And since the long-run average is about 18 [...]

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A Message from Soros: Regulation for Thee, but Not for Me

I think it may be time to update the dictionary definition of irony. George Soros, the billionaire who finances statist organizations and causes in order to promote more government, has decided that he doesn’t want to deal with some of the new regulatory burdens resulting from the Dodd-Frank bailout legislation. Consider this blurb from the [...]

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You Should Support a Value-Added Tax…if You Want Bigger Government and More Debt

I testified before the House Ways & Means Committee earlier today. As always, my trip inside the belly of the beast was an interesting adventure. The tax-writing committee was holding a hearing on the value-added tax. I was on a panel with five other witnesses, and all of the other people testifying were sympathetic to [...]

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Obama’s Policies Are Bad News for Black America

I don’t have my finger on the pulse of black America, and I don’t pretend to understand the emotional and symbolic value of a black President to the African-American community. But I do know that the big-government policies of the Obama Administration have not been good news for blacks. Here’s an excerpt from a new [...]

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Republicans Should Copy the Bill Clinton Approach on Federal Spending

I’ve pointed out on several occasions that the burden of federal spending fell significantly during the Clinton years. Indeed, if we did nothing other than bring federal spending back down to 18.2 percent of GDP (where it was when Clinton left office), we’d have a budget surplus before the end of the decade (even with [...]

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The Short-Term Problem Is Obama’s Ideological Stubborness, the Long-Term Problem Is American Decline

As a Washington policy wonk somewhat involved in the current debt-limit fight, I will confess that it is very frustrating that the White House has never produced a deficit-reduction plan. I’d much prefer a spending-restraint plan, of course, but I’m flummoxed that Obama has gotten away with doing nothing other than deliver some speeches filled [...]

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Is Obama a Conservative?

Welcome Instapundit readers. I also have written about whether Obama is a socialist, which is a good companion to this post. ========================================================= That seems like a joke question, but it’s an apparently serious belief of Bruce Bartlett, a former supply-sider and Bush Administration official who has flipped sides and joined the left. I’ve known Bruce [...]

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Inside the Debt-Limit Negotiations, a Love Song from Obama to Boehner

I hope the Speaker resists this siren song and says no to higher taxes.

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The Transatlantic Government-Incompetence-and-Stupidity Contest: The U.S v. U.K.

Last week, we compared a bone-headed display of incompetence by the German government with a perverse form of harassment by a local government in the United States. We have another America-v-Europe contest, but the roles are reversed. This time, the buffoons in Washington get dinged for a spectacular screw-up, and it is a local government [...]

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Political Jokes from the Late-Night Comics

Jay Leno and Jimmy Fallon have the best ones this week. From Jay Leno: President Obama’s motorcade was fined $16 for traffic it caused while in the United Kingdom. Typical for Obama, he said, “My grandkids will pay for it. Texas Gov. Rick Perry says God is calling on him to run for president, and [...]

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Republicans May Win the Debt-Limit Fight? I Won’t Believe It ’til I See It…and I’m Not Sure It Would Matter

There are rumors that Obama may do a bit Clinton-era triangulation and agree to a GOP-friendly increase in the debt limit. That means no tax increases and as much as $3 trillion of so-called spending cuts. I’m skeptical, and even if it happens, I suspect that most of the spending cuts will be ephemeral (like [...]

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Senator Kent Conrad: Is He a Clown, Hack, or Demagogue?

Actually, the answer is all of the above. He pontificates about debt, but he voted for the fake stimulus and budget-busting Obamacare legislation. He’s a preening self-styled deficit hawk, but the nation’s four largest deficits have occurred since he became Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. As Chairman of the Budget Committee, with a bloated [...]

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A New Miracle Drug – Better than Viagra According to Politicians

Kudos to the Concerned Women for America, not only for this clever video, but also for putting the focus on the burden of government spending rather than the symptom of too much red ink.

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Bureaucracy Humor, Probably Created by Somebody at Homeland Security or HUD

I’ve shared ant-related humor before with this modern version of the fable of the ant and the grasshopper. Now our six-legged friend makes an appearance in a joke that I received from an increasingly famous libertarian on the left coast. It’s very amusing, so long as you’re willing to laugh at bureaucracy’s expansion and America’s [...]

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The Never-Ending Government Fraud Racket

Here’s a great example of family values, but only if you think it’s noble for a husband, wife, and daughter to conspire together to rip off taxpayers. I guess the family that steals together, stays together. Here are some of the details from the Daily Caller expose. A special investigation by The Daily Caller has [...]

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Looking at Europe’s Self-Inflicted Economic Disaster (and Getting a Glimpse of America’s Obamanian Future)

Allister Heath is one of the best economic columnists in Europe and his analysis of Europe’s fiscal situation is rather grim. But Americans can’t be smug. This is where the Bush-Obama policies, combined with demographics, are leading America. Here’s Allister’s analysis of where things stand in Europe. Gold hit £1,000 an ounce today for the [...]

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The Gang of Six Is Back from the Dead: Contemplating the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in their Budget Plan

The on-again, off-again “Gang of Six” has come back on the scene and is offering a “Bipartisan Plan to Reduce Our Nation’s Deficits.” The proposal is quite similar to the one put forth by the President’s Simpson-Bowles Commission, which isn’t too surprising since some of the same people are involved. At this stage, all I’ve [...]

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Exaggerating Poverty for Political Gain

Is America filled with tens of millions of people suffering from harsh material deprivation? That’s what the pro-redistribution crowd wants you to think, but a new report from the Heritage Foundation demolishes that stereotype. Here are some of the most remarkable findings in the study. For most Americans, the word “poverty” suggests destitution: an inability [...]

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The Debt-Limit Fight, “Cut, Cap, and Balance,” and Rescuing America from Greek-Style Fiscal Collapse

Here’s a new video from the Cato Institute, featuring my pearls of wisdom, along with equally sage commentary from my colleague Chris Edwards. We make two simple points. First, America faces a Greek-style fiscal crisis if we leave the federal budget on autopilot (actually, it will be worse since we won’t get a bailout from [...]

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The Federal Government Has Been Bailing Out Romneycare, but Who Will Be Available to Bail Out Obamacare?

The Beacon Hill Institute in Massachusetts has just released a very good – but very depressing study. The research finds that costs have jumped under Romneycare, but that’s not surprising. After all, politicians always underestimate the cost of new entitlements. The important revelation in this new research is the degree to which the system has [...]

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So Long as He Gets What He Wants, Obama Is Flexible in the Budget Negotiations

Welcome Instapundit readers. Check out this post for additional info on Obama’s disingenuous rhetoric. ===================================================== Appearing on Freedom Watch, I explain that the White House is very flexible. The President will be happy if GOPers cut their own wrists and agree to a tax increase. That means Obama can tax and spend. But he’ll also [...]

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We Are the Champions

With apologies to Freddy Mercury, the Bungalow Exporters are now the champions of the Arlington County Tuesday night softball league, sweeping our way through the tournament with four straight victories. We clinched the title yesterday with two mercy-rule victories, showing that even the leftists on the team don’t believe in redistribution when push comes to [...]

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