Fiscal Policy

Will Trump Reduce Federal Spending?

by James Bovard September 1, 2017

Donald Trump’s first proposed budget took a step towards draining the swamp in Washington. His proposal was the first one since the Reagan era in which a president has sought a wholesale demolition of boondoggles. On the other hand, Trump’s defense and homeland-security spending increases will squander bounties that should be reserved for taxpayers, not bureaucrats. Regardless of whether Trump ...

Trump’s Democratic Budget

by Laurence M. Vance June 2, 2017

Although the Constitution doesn’t mention a federal budget, according to the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, the president must annually submit a proposed federal budget to Congress for the next fiscal year by the first Monday in February. Because the government’s fiscal year runs from October 1 to September 30, the budget submitted in February is actually for ...

Libertarian Angle: Fiscal Policy (video)

by Future of Freedom Foundation March 22, 2017

FFF president Jacob Hornberger and Richard Ebeling discuss fiscal policy.

Trump’s Budgetary Blueprint Retains America’s Welfare State

by Richard M. Ebeling March 20, 2017

President Donald Trump has issued his preliminary federal budget proposal looking to the U.S. government’s next 2018 fiscal year. What it shows very clearly is that there will likely be no attempt to reduce the size and cost of most of the American interventionist-welfare state. On Thursday, March 16, 2017 the White House released, “America First: A Budget Blueprint to ...

The Libertarian Angle: The Debt Ceiling

by Future of Freedom Foundation March 15, 2017

FFF president Jacob Hornberger and Richard Ebeling discuss U.S. fiscal policy. Go to the podcast.

The National Debt Limit Equals a Balanced Budget

by Richard M. Ebeling March 13, 2017

Once again the United States government is rapidly approaching a fiscal debt ceiling: After March 16, 2017, Uncle Sam will not be legally allowed to borrow any more money to cover its budget deficits, unless Congress votes to raise the debt limit, once again, like it has every time in the past. Uncle’s Sam’s debt has been growing at a ...

The Entitlement State and America’s Fiscal Crisis

by Richard M. Ebeling August 1, 2016

The Republican and Democrat Party Conventions are now behind us, but through all the cheers and jeers, hoopla and poopla, warnings of a dark and dangerous future or promises of a bright and beautiful shape-of-things-to-come, one of the most serious shadows hanging over America was hardly mentioned at all: the unsustainability of the “entitlement” programs of the welfare state. In ...

America’s Fiscal Debt Bomb Caused by the Welfare State

by Richard M. Ebeling February 10, 2016

Portuguese The news is filled with the everyday zigzags of those competing against each other for the Democrat and Republican Party nominations to run for the presidency of the United States. But one of the most important issues receiving little or no attention in this circus of political power lusting is the long-term danger from the ...

The Libertarian Angle: The Debt Ceiling Charade (video)

by Future of Freedom Foundation November 3, 2015

Each week, FFF president Jacob Hornberger and Richard M. Ebeling discuss the hot topics of the day. This week, Jacob and Richard discuss how Congress repeatedly raises the debt ceiling, destroying the notion that any such ceiling actually exists. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly. Go to the podcast.

Balancing the Government’s Budget Now

by Richard M. Ebeling October 12, 2015

Uncle Sam has added nearly an additional half a trillion dollars to the national debt over the past twelve months. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the Federal government ended its fiscal year on September 30, 2015 with a budget deficit of a “mere” $435 billion. Total Federal expenditures for the fiscal year were nearly $3.7 trillion, while ...

Spending and Redistribution are Not the Answers to Slow Growth

by Richard M. Ebeling May 11, 2015

Old fallacies never seem to die, they just fade away to reemerge once again later on. One such fallacy is that if there is significant unemployment and slow economic growth it must be due to not enough consumers’ spending in the economy, what Keynesian economists call a “failure of aggregate demand.” This fallacy has been voiced, once more, in a ...

Politicians Ignore the Looming Debt Iceberg

by George Leef November 1, 2014

We libertarians are often accused of “worshiping” the Constitution, but that charge is false. Although we don’t care one bit for the “living Constitution” theory that leads only to the expansion of state power, it does not follow that we think every idea in the written Constitution is ideal. The document is flawed, as many Americans, the Anti-Federalists, argued ...