Washington’s Action Plan for Ebola: Squalid Waste and Pork-Barrel Spending by the CDC and NIH, Seasoned with Corruption at HHS

Years ago, I shared a very funny poster that suggests that more government is hardly ever the right answer to any question. Yet in Washington, the standard response to any screwup by government is to make government even bigger. Sort of Mitchell’s Law on steroids. And that’s exactly what’s happening with the Ebola crisis. The […]

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Another Reason for Spending Caps

The United States needs a constitutional spending cap, sort of like the “debt brake” that has been producing positive results in Switzerland for the past two decades. Imposing a limit on annual spending increases would be a much-needed way of stopping politicians from saddling the nation with “Goldfish Government.” The best-case scenario is that a […]

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Sunk Costs, Inertia, and the Burden of Government Spending

Back in 2009 and 2010, when I had less gray hair, I narrated a four-part series on the economic burden of government spending. Here’s Part II, which discusses the theoretical reasons why big government reduces prosperity. I provide eight examples to illustrate how and why government spending can hinder economic growth. The last item is […]

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Swamp-Creature Republicans Think They Can Atone for a Spending Binge with a Hollow (and Sure-to-Lose) Vote for the Wrong Version of a Constitutional Amendment

My major long-run project during Obama’s presidency was to educate Republicans in Washington about the need for genuine entitlement reform. I explained to them that the United States was doomed, largely because of demographics, to suffer a Greek-style fiscal future if we left policy on autopilot. Needless to say, I didn’t expect any positive reforms […]

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Least Surprising Headline Ever – another Giant Cost Overrun and Huge Delay for a Pork-Barrel Infrastructure Project

When politicians create programs and announce projects, they routinely lie about the real costs. Their primary goal is to get initial approval for various boondoggles and they figure it will be too late to reverse path once it becomes apparent that something will cost for more than the initial low-ball estimates. Obamacare is a classic […]

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The Penny Plan Is a Spending-Cap Formula to Make the Trump Tax Cuts Feasible

I don’t like election years because the policy debate tends to revolve around the various proposals put forth by candidates. And since those ideas generally don’t make much sense, it’s a frustrating period. But the silver lining to that dark cloud is that it does create opportunities to comment on what the candidates are saying…and […]

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New Obama Budget: The Usual Reckless Spending Hikes…and a Big New Tax on American Energy Consumers

We have good news and bad news. The good news is that President Obama has unveiled his final budget. The bad news is that it’s a roadmap for an ever-growing burden of government spending. Here are the relevant details. The President wants the federal budget to climb by nearly $1.2 trillion over the next five […]

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Wasteful Spending, Cost Overruns, and the Never-Ending Victimization of America’s Taxpayers

Here’s a simple rule. When a politicians says a new program will cost X, hide your wallet because it actually will cost three or four times as much. Or even more. Obamacare is a particularly painful example from recent history. Simply stated, politicians and bureaucrats routinely under-estimate costs because they figure once a project or […]

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Maintaining and Enforcing Spending Caps Is a Huge Test of GOP Credibility on Fiscal Policy

Let’s celebrate some good news. When politicians can be convinced (or pressured) to exercise even a modest bit of spending restraint, it’s remarkably simple to get positive results. Here’s some of what I wrote earlier this year. …one of the few recent victories for fiscal responsibility was the 2011 Budget Control Act (BCA), which only […]

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“Cromnibus” Spending Bill Is a Victory and a Defeat

So what should libertarians, Reagan conservatives, and other advocates of smaller government think of the “cromnibus” spending bill? The answer depends on your benchmark. If you dislike insider deals, pork-barrel spending, and you think the federal government should be limited to the enumerated powers put in the Constitution by our Founding Fathers, then the cromnibus […]

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Everything You Need to Know about the Harmful Effects of FEMA and Federal Disaster Relief

With Florence about to hit, it’s time to preemptively explain how the federal government makes damage more likely and why post-hurricane efforts will make future damage more likely. There are just two principles you need to understand. When Washington subsidizes something, you get more of it, and the federal government subsidizes building – and living […]

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Just Because Democrats Are Terrible, that Doesn’t Mean Republicans Are Good

Howie Rich has a very good column at Townhall.com. He asks whether Republicans have learned any lessons during their time in the minority, specifically whether they recognize that bloated and wasteful spending under Republicans is just as bad as bloated and wasteful spending under Democrats: The GOP’s new revisionist message was summed up in a […]

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Least Surprising Headline of All Time

I periodically use “Least Surprising Headline” to call attention to articles citing very predictable outcomes. Pandemic spending being a magnet for fraud. European politicians finding another excuse to expand government. Bailouts not solving problems. Cost overruns on government infrastructure. I’m going to add to that list today, but first let’s refresh our understanding of how […]

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In a Tweet, Everything You Need to Know about California

I wrote last week about the ever-expanding burden of government spending in California. And that was after writing two columns last year (here and here) about the state’s economic decline. But sometimes a specific story is more compelling than broad economic trends. So here’s a tweet that caught my eye. It tells us a lot […]

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Earmarks Enable a Bigger Burden of Government

As we have seen in nations such as Greece and Argentina, voters sometimes cannot resist the temptation to support profligate politicians – a process that can lead to “goldfish government.” In effect, voters choose fiscal suicide. There’s even a quote, often mistakenly attributed to Ben Franklin, that this is the Achilles’ Heel of democratic governments […]

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Least Surprising Headline. Ever.

Last month, I wrote an article comparing Switzerland’s admirable fiscal policy with the profligate tendencies of other European nations. I included a chart showing that the burden of government spending in Switzerland is far below where it is in countries such as Belgium, Greece, and France – where the public sector consumes about 60 percent […]

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Hawaii’s Rail Boondoggle

I just returned from a trip to Hawaii, where I gave a couple of speeches about the desirability of strict annual limits on the growth of government spending. But regular readers already have seen plenty of columns on the issue of TABOR-style spending caps, so I’m using the trip as an excuse to highlight a […]

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D.C. Politicians Are Pushing Industrial Policy

Politicians in Washington very much like the idea of industrial policy. Steve Forbes, however, warns that legislation to expand cronyism would be a very bad idea. As Steve notes, politicians foolishly claim we need our own version of industrial policy so we can compete with China’s industrial policy. But China is suffering in part because […]

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Biden’s Infrastructure Boondoggle Will Undermine Growth

President Biden has proposed a massive $2 trillion-plus infrastructure plan. Here are the two things everyone should understand. It will hurt growth because it will be financed with very harmful tax increases, most notably a big increase in the corporate tax rate that will undermine competitiveness. It will hurt growth because the new spending will […]

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Coronavirus and Big Government, Part III

I wrote about “Coronavirus and Big Government” on March 22 and then followed up on March 27 with “Coronavirus and Big Government, Part II.” Now it’s time for the third installment, and we’ll start with this hard-hitting video from Reason, which shows how red tape has hindered the development and deployment of testing in the […]

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Government, Coronavirus, and Libertarianism

Some folks are using the coronavirus crisis to say that libertarianism is an inadequate approach to governance. Noah Smith got the ball rolling with a snarky tweet. Since total government spending is at an all-time high and since even left-leaning fact checkers have debunked the assertion that public health bureaucracies have been reduced, Smith’s core […]

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California Has Many Natural Advantages, but How Long Can It Survive Big Government?

In 2016, here’s some of what I wrote about the economic outlook in Illinois. There’s a somewhat famous quote from Adam Smith (“there is a great deal of ruin in a nation“) about the ability of a country to survive and withstand lots of bad public policy. I’ve tried to get across the same point […]

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Hopes and Fears for Policy in 2018

Happy New Year! We listed yesterday the good and bad policy developments of 2017, so now let’s speculate about potential victories and defeats in 2018. Here are two things I hope will happen this year. Welfare reform – If my friends and contacts on Capitol Hill are feeding my accurate information, we may see a […]

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The Never-Ending Rip Off of Government Infrastructure, the NYC Edition

In 2011, I wrote about how taxpayers were getting pillaged to finance a new metro line in Fairfax County, Virginia. But you won’t be surprised to learn that California taxpayers are getting screwed even worse. I’ve since learned, however, that the real experts at wasting money are in the Big Apple. Earlier this year, as […]

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The Federal Government Should Get Out of Infrastructure

I’ve called for the abolition of the Department of Transportation. On more than one occasion. So I was very excited to see this new video about infrastructure from Johan Norberg. Very well put. As Johan says (channeling Bastiat), we should remember that jobs are destroyed when money is taken out of the private sector to […]

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The “Stupid Party” Strikes again with a Disheartening Deal to Avoid a Government Shutdown

Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the White House. In theory, that means a long-overdue opportunity to eliminate wasteful programs and cut pork-barrel spending. In reality, it mostly means business as usual. Politicians in Washington just reached a deal to fund the government for the rest of the current fiscal year. As reported by […]

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California Secession Would Force West-Coast Leftists to Confront Reality

I’m not a big fan of Donald Trump, mostly because I fear his populist instincts will deter him from policies that we need (such as entitlement reform) while luring him to support policies that are misguided (more federal transportation spending). But I admit it’s too early to tell. Maybe my policy predictions on Trump will […]

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The United States Has the Third-Most Competitive Economy, but Could Be #1 if Government Was Smaller and Less Expensive

Most folks in Washington are still digesting last night’s debate between Tweedledee and Tweedledum. If that’s what you care about, you can see my Twitter commentary, though I was so busy addressing specific issues that I failed to mention the most disturbing part of that event, which was the total absence of any discussion about […]

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Clinton and Trump (Clump?) vs. Taxpayers and Free Enterprise

When Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton agree on things, it’s always bad news for taxpayers. They both want to boost the capital gains tax rate on private equity investment. They both want to let the entitlement problem fester and worsen. They both want more federally financed pork-barrel spending on infrastructure. Now they both agree that […]

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More Items for the Libertarian Humor Collection

I have an entire page dedicated to libertarian-related humor. Unfortunately, the majority of my collection makes fun of libertarians. So I’m always on the lookout for new items that will even up the balance. And here’s something clever, at least for people who are familiar with both Gary Johnson’s failure to know the supposed significance […]

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