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What’s So Bad about the Budget Deficit?

by Scott McPherson November 12, 2003

Recently I was discussing taxes with a friend who was praising President Bush for pushing his massive tax cut through Congress. “Sure,” I replied. “But a lot of good it does us when he has simultaneously pushed federal spending through the roof.” I was referring to the projected $540 ... [click for more]

Big-Spending Republicans Can Learn from Ireland’s Reforms

by Benjamin Powell September 17, 2003

Despite some tax cuts, the size of the U.S. government has increased rapidly under President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress. Washington leaders looking to improve the economy could learn a lesson or two from Ireland, which has consistently achieved high rates of growth over the last 15 years by ... [click for more]

Federal Spending Threatens Our Security

by Jacob G. Hornberger September 17, 2003

As is widely known, the federal spigots in foreign affairs, as in domestic affairs, are now wide open: hundreds of billions of dollars will be spent in Iraq, not to mention the billions of dollars in foreign aid that will be sent to dozens of foreign governments, all under the ... [click for more]

The Hubris of the Central Banker and the Ghosts of Deflation Past, Part 2

by Richard M. Ebeling March 1, 2003

Part 1 | Part 2 In spite of the fact that the monetary policies of the Federal Reserve System in the United States and the European Central Bank (ECB) have been highly expansionary during the current economic downturn, central bankers at both institutions have taken the time to deliver addresses assuring their listeners that there is no need for ... [click for more]

The Hubris of the Central Banker and the Ghosts of Deflation Past, Part 1

by Richard M. Ebeling February 1, 2003

Part 1 | Part 2 Nearly 75 years after the great stock-market crash of 1929, monetary policy is still haunted by the ghost of the Great Depression. The severity of the American stock-market decline during the last three years has again awakened fears among some policymakers that the economic downturn might bring about a deflationary period of collapsing output ... [click for more]

Postmodern Government Budgets

by Sheldon Richman January 17, 2003

If President Bush’s bureaucracy were as capable as the bureaucracy in George Orwell’s great novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Lawrence Lindsey, the president’s former economic advisor, would have been airbrushed out of every photograph he appeared in while holding that post, and every reference to his estimate of the cost of the ... [click for more]

What Is Seen and Not Seen in the Federal Budget Deficits

by Richard M. Ebeling January 17, 2003

President Bush’s budget director, Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., has now admitted what most people have been expecting — that the era of federal budget deficits has returned for the foreseeable future. In the current fiscal year, the deficit will most probably be greater than $200 billion and will very ... [click for more]

A Rare Moment of Candor

by Sheldon Richman November 9, 2002

President Bush says he’s got the economy under control. That’s supposed to comfort us. I’d feel better if he said he had the federal government under control. It’s spending wildly — and it can’t blame the “war on terrorism” for it all. That’s just the latest spending. ... [click for more]

Book Review: Should We Have Faith in Central Banks?

by Richard M. Ebeling October 1, 2002

Should We Have Faith in Central Banks? by Otmar Issing (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 2002); 53 pages; $12. One of the momentous events of the new century has been the establishment of a single, common currency for many of the member nations of the European Union. The German mark, the French franc, the Austrian schilling, the Italian lira, the Irish ... [click for more]

The Disunited States of Europe: The Politics of Power and Privilege, Part 2

by Richard M. Ebeling April 1, 2001

Part 1 | Part 2 FOR SIX DAYS, during December 6-12, 2000, the 15 member-nations of the European Union (EU) met in Nice, France, for a conference that was meant to set the direction and structure for the organization well into the 21st century. On the EU’s agenda were: (a) plans for expanding the European Union to include many of the ... [click for more]

The Disunited States of Europe: The Politics of Power and Privilege, Part 1

by Richard M. Ebeling March 1, 2001

Part 1 | Part 2 The corrosive effects that may occur from a spirit of political and economic nationalism were understood long before the disastrous consequences experienced as a result of them in the 20th century. In 1759, in his first book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith warned against the danger residing within any strongly held nationalist ... [click for more]

Legal Tender and the Civil War

by Jacob G. Hornberger November 1, 2000

FACED WITH A LACK of Northern enthusiasm for his war against the South, President Lincoln resorted to drastic means to finance his war effort. If Lincoln had resorted to a traditional method of government finance — taxation — he knew that he might be faced with tax riots among the people of the North. And he knew that if ... [click for more]