Government Spending
Commentary
Health-care budget realities
Before President-elect Barack Obama attempts to overhaul America’s health-care system and put us on the road toward “universal” coverage, he should have a chat with his new budget director, Peter Orszag. As former head of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the agency responsible for estimating the cost of federal legislation, ...
Business & Economics
Governor’s Entrepreneurship Conference offers recommendations
To find out which state policies California’s small-business owners would like to change, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently convened a two-day conference in Los Angeles. Greater government dependency and intervention will reduce innovation, economic growth and job creation. Or, as Albert Einstein said, “Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work.” ...
Business & Economics
Some Stimulating Reading
Some Stimulating Reading With the bloated, ramshackle, pork-laden, grotesque corruption of a “stimulus bill” now headed to the U.S. Senate, here’s a handy list of arguments and sources as we debate America’s new lurch towards European-style social democracy: The Pacific Research Institute’s Robert Murphy explains the economic-policy mistake that underlies ...
Business & Economics
Mixed-bag of recommendations
Which state policies would California’s small-business owners like to change? To find out, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently convened a two-day conference in Los Angeles. The first-ever “Governor’s Conference on Small Business and Entrepreneurship” included small-business owners, community-college administrators, state employment and development officials, trade-group representatives, and policy researchers, including me. ...
Business & Economics
Obama Set to Change Science and Tech
When Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States this week, he promised that his administration would “restore science to its rightful place.” Whether reality will fit the rhetoric remains to be seen, and there are reasons to be both optimistic and a little wary. ...
Business & Economics
Taxpayer stimulus: Failures help sectors recalibrate
The sages at the National Bureau of Economic Research have finally concluded what many Americans have known for months: The United States is in a recession. Several prominent economists have recommended vast government spending as a cure. In the December issue of the New York Review of Books, Nobel Laureate ...
Business & Economics
Does “Depression Economics” Change the Rules?
Wily competitors have known for ages that if you can’t win the game, you can simply change the rules. Now, during normal economic times, if somebody recommended that the government borrow a trillion dollars and spend it on anything that moves, most economists (as well as common sense) would say, ...
Business & Economics
’08 election lesson: Live free or die off
In the 2008 election, key swing states included Colorado, Nevada, and Virginia, all growing rapidly and on track for even more political clout after the 2010 census. A big reason for the demographic growth in all three states has been their expansion of economic freedom. Colorado , Nevada, and Virginia ...
Business & Economics
Tort reform can help states’ fiscal crises
The Wall Street meltdown, with the Dow hovering near its lowest level in years, has obscured a troubling reality. Economic growth in the northeast region has been stunted for a long time, for a simple reason. Four states in particular — New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island — ...
Business & Economics
Growth is the only solution to state’s crisis
Most of the proposed solutions for California’s budget problems – spending cuts, tax increases, infrastructure spending – attempt to patch a Band-Aid on a festering wound but do not address the underlying causes of the infection – an economy weakened by improper nutrition and the wrong medications. We cannot cut, ...
Health-care budget realities
Before President-elect Barack Obama attempts to overhaul America’s health-care system and put us on the road toward “universal” coverage, he should have a chat with his new budget director, Peter Orszag. As former head of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the agency responsible for estimating the cost of federal legislation, ...
Governor’s Entrepreneurship Conference offers recommendations
To find out which state policies California’s small-business owners would like to change, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently convened a two-day conference in Los Angeles. Greater government dependency and intervention will reduce innovation, economic growth and job creation. Or, as Albert Einstein said, “Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work.” ...
Some Stimulating Reading
Some Stimulating Reading With the bloated, ramshackle, pork-laden, grotesque corruption of a “stimulus bill” now headed to the U.S. Senate, here’s a handy list of arguments and sources as we debate America’s new lurch towards European-style social democracy: The Pacific Research Institute’s Robert Murphy explains the economic-policy mistake that underlies ...
Mixed-bag of recommendations
Which state policies would California’s small-business owners like to change? To find out, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently convened a two-day conference in Los Angeles. The first-ever “Governor’s Conference on Small Business and Entrepreneurship” included small-business owners, community-college administrators, state employment and development officials, trade-group representatives, and policy researchers, including me. ...
Obama Set to Change Science and Tech
When Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States this week, he promised that his administration would “restore science to its rightful place.” Whether reality will fit the rhetoric remains to be seen, and there are reasons to be both optimistic and a little wary. ...
Taxpayer stimulus: Failures help sectors recalibrate
The sages at the National Bureau of Economic Research have finally concluded what many Americans have known for months: The United States is in a recession. Several prominent economists have recommended vast government spending as a cure. In the December issue of the New York Review of Books, Nobel Laureate ...
Does “Depression Economics” Change the Rules?
Wily competitors have known for ages that if you can’t win the game, you can simply change the rules. Now, during normal economic times, if somebody recommended that the government borrow a trillion dollars and spend it on anything that moves, most economists (as well as common sense) would say, ...
’08 election lesson: Live free or die off
In the 2008 election, key swing states included Colorado, Nevada, and Virginia, all growing rapidly and on track for even more political clout after the 2010 census. A big reason for the demographic growth in all three states has been their expansion of economic freedom. Colorado , Nevada, and Virginia ...
Tort reform can help states’ fiscal crises
The Wall Street meltdown, with the Dow hovering near its lowest level in years, has obscured a troubling reality. Economic growth in the northeast region has been stunted for a long time, for a simple reason. Four states in particular — New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island — ...
Growth is the only solution to state’s crisis
Most of the proposed solutions for California’s budget problems – spending cuts, tax increases, infrastructure spending – attempt to patch a Band-Aid on a festering wound but do not address the underlying causes of the infection – an economy weakened by improper nutrition and the wrong medications. We cannot cut, ...
