Bruce Parker, This article originally appeared on watchdog.org. As lawmakers in Vermont consider a tax to help end obesity, a study by economists at George Mason University finds raising taxes on “unhealthy” foods hurts the poor financially and does nothing to lower consumption. As the midsession break comes to and end, all eyes are focused on the ever-growing hole in the Vermont […] Continue reading →
Daniel J. Mitchell Like the good people of Arizona, I despise speed cameras. But not because I want reckless driving. Instead, my disdain is based on the fact that governments set up cameras where speed limits are preposterously low in order to generate revenue. And I speak from personal experience. Like the good people of […] Continue reading → The European Union is suffering from a democracy problem: Too many Europeans feel that integration is being forced upon them. What’s worse, they may be right. New research from a group of economists — Luigi Guiso, Paola Sapienza and Luigi Zingales — paints a grim picture of the European project from the perspective of its […] Continue reading → What Jonathan Gruber is taking heat for right now, was planned out specifically with Barack Obama. On June 13, 2012, Obamacare Jonathan Gruber was interviewed by Frontline. He told them that the Cadillac tax issue was addressed in 2009. Obama knew it was going to be a problem, and they all agreed to lie about it. […] Continue reading → On Oct. 27, 1964, 50 years ago Monday, a movie actor and television host delivered a 30-minute speech on primetime national television in support of the presidential candidacy of Barry Goldwater. There were no visual diversions, and the production values by today’s standards were primitive. Few if any viewers realized it, but they were watching […] Continue reading → U.S. consumers have made a lot of progress in paring down the extreme debt loads that helped make the 2008 financial crisis such an epochal disaster. Fresh data from the Federal Reserve, though, offer an important caveat: Millions of the poorest families are still very deep in the hole — and might be getting deeper. […] Continue reading → U.S. economic growth this year will likely be at the weakest pace since the Great Recession ended, the International Monetary Fund said, mostly because of a sharp, weather-related contraction in the first quarter. But the global lending organization said Wednesday that it still expects growth resumed in the April-June quarter and will remain healthy in […] Continue reading → John Ransom Democrats hoping for some political relief from the economy had better change their dreams. An astonishing 30% of Americans think the country is on the right track with 62% saying the country is going in the wrong direction, according to an average by RealClearPolitics. I don’t know who that 30% is, but to […] Continue reading → U.S. home resales fell to their lowest level in more than 1-1/2 years in March, but there were signs a recent downward trend that has plagued the housing market may be drawing to an end. The National Association of Realtors said on Tuesday home sales slipped 0.2 percent to an annual rate of 4.59 million […] Continue reading →
Many economists, politicians and pundits assert that median wages have stagnated since the 1970s. That’s a call for government to do something about it. But before we look at the error in their assertion, let’s work through an example that might shed a bit of light on the issue. Suppose that you paid me a […] Continue reading → Viviana Woodbury, Memories of faltering economies and worldwide recessions remain fresh among consumers, who are still struggling to find personal proof that recessions have ended. Largely thought to have been averted by 2010, the most recent economic recession lingers in the minds of analysts and consumers who aren’t so sure we are out of the […] Continue reading → The Federal Reserve makes decisions based on great academic economists and veteran bank and corporate executives. Politics is minimal, at least compared to most other government decisions. Tremendous resources support the decisions, with great economists on staff, massive data banks and access to outside experts. You would think that the Fed can prevent recessions. You […] Continue reading → President Barack Obama will propose an election-year budget that would avoid reductions in federal benefits that he had previously supported, aides disclosed Thursday. He also will ask Congress to approve about $56 billion in new or expanded programs, stepping back from aggressive efforts to tackle long-term government deficits and debt. Obama is dropping his previous […] Continue reading → A Federal Reserve survey released Wednesday found that the U.S. economy held steady during the 16-day partial government shutdown, growing moderately in most regions from October through late November. The Fed said seven of its 12 banking districts described growth as moderate. Four — Philadelphia, Chicago, Kansas City and San Francisco — said growth was […] Continue reading → by Mark Schumacher Since the oil embargo of 1973, oil has basically been run like big tobacco. The prices just never seem to go down, only up. Middle Eastern big oil calculates to two thirds of the world’s available oil today, and is easily adjusted to whatever climate it needs, to maintain the “Three Card […] Continue reading → By: Sam Staley The Washington, D.C. city council recently approved legislation that would increase the city’s minimum wage for employees at larger retailers like Walmart and Target to $12.50 an hour, a nearly 50% increase over the current minimum of $8.25 that applies to all employers. The legislation was introduced specifically to target Walmart, but local politics […] Continue reading →