A few conservatives are rightfully concerned that the massive General Fund deficit, which is still above $500 billion a year, is too high and are turning on the Bush Administration. The National Review naturally thinks spending is too high and blames Democrats who must be someone making the Republican led government be so irresponsible: We […]
Buy or Rent? That is the question. In a recent paper, three economists compared buying and renting as part of reaching a conclusion that there is no housing bubble: Assessing High House Prices: Bubbles, Fundamentals, and Misperceptions. Dr. Thoma presents a couple of rebuttals: Housing Bubble or Housing Froth? And two recent articles gave specific […]
Byron York mocked Cindy Sheehan’s trip to Washington suggesting her peace march would get only a dozen or so supporters. While there were thousands of marchers today, it probably seemed small relative to the march in London. Mr. York owes apologies to Ms. Sheehan as well as NRO readers, but don’t hold your breathe waiting […]
Jerry Bowyer decides to take own Bill Clinton on the topic of fiscal policy: Last Sunday on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Bill Clinton’s core political values were put on full display … But did tax cuts for the wealthy really make things worse in the Gulf Coast? Should they be repealed, as some (including […]
The memo from Kash to Congress had five options for paying for President Bush’s proposed Katrina relief. Serious conservatives such as Bill Polley have a sixth as in his “What are our Fiscal Limits”. For example, Bill notes that the Federal government should avoid Bush’s tendency to reward his cronies with taxpayer funds. Even as […]
As I mentioned in a brief post last week, the BEA has released the most recent figures for the US current account (CA) deficit, which suggests that the CA deficit for the year will be in the neighborhood of 6.5% of GDP. Yesterday, Brad DeLong continued his excellent ruminations on the sustainability of this amount […]
One normally thinks of American exports of beef to Japan. Japan has decided to cease purchases of American beef with a mad cow scare being their excuse for trade protection. It turns out I had enjoyed a meal this weekend with Kobe beef not even thinking about where it came from. And now we learn […]
The Tennessean reports the facts: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist sold his stock in HCA Inc., the Nashville-based hospital chain his family founded, shortly before the stock took almost a 9% dive in mid-July. The sale helps minimize allegations that he has a conflict of interest on health-care issues as he considers a run for […]
Max Sawicky reads the latest from the Heritage Foundation and is very kind: Tax increases (actually, preventing scheduled phase-out of tax cuts, but no matter) are contractionary. People have less money to spend, less employment results. Government spending cuts are expansionary. People have less money to spend, and more employment results. I have to say […]
It would seem that certain House conservatives read the memo from Kash: WASHINGTON, Sept. 20 – Conservative House Republicans plan to recommend on Wednesday more than $500 billion in savings over 10 years to compensate for the costs of Hurricane Katrina as lawmakers continue to struggle to develop a consensus on the fiscal approach to […]