The need for speed is one of the specious arguments put forth by President Bush for the end-run around the FISA Courts. Never mind the fact that the FISA Courts act quickly and have approved over 99% of the requests made over the years. Never mind the fact that the government can wiretap even before […]

From Bush’s press conference yesterday, justifying his violation of US laws: “[I]t was a shameful act for someone to disclose this very important program in a time of war.”“We’re at war, and we must protect America’s secrets.”“[T]his is a different — a different era, a different war.” Given how centrally Bush is relying on the […]

So claims the headline of this story: Republican House and Senate leaders finalized agreements yesterday on a $41.6 billion budget-cutting plan that includes tough medicine for Medicaid recipients and on a massive defense spending bill that would open the Alaskan wilderness to oil drilling. That’s just over $8 billion per year – and as the […]

Consider the latest from Lawrence Kudlow on monetary policy: I still can’t forgive the central bank for decimating and deflating the bullish stock market economy five years ago, a move that temporarily ended the great productivity surge of the Internet revolution. After all, the fact that the employment-to-population ratio was over 64% was no indication […]

CNN reports on another step in the direction of free markets: HONG KONG, China (CNN) – Ministers from 149 states have saved long-running global trade talks from collapse with an interim deal to end farm export subsidies by 2013 and open up markets in wealthier countries to the world’s poorest nations … The draft, which […]

The National Association of Home Builders reports builder confidence fell again in December. The largest drop was in “Traffic of Prospective Buyers”. The Traffic component fell to 39 from 46 in November. UPDATE: Builder Sentiment Cools Further In December Confidence of single-family home builders slid further this month from its summer peak, yet remained well […]

The BEA released its estimate of the US current account balance for the third quarter of 2005: The U.S. current-account deficit–the combined balances on trade in goods and services, income, and net unilateral current transfers–decreased to $195.8 billion (preliminary) in the third quarter of 2005 from $197.8 billion (revised) in the second quarter. The decrease […]

How many times will FuzzCharts draw the same misleading garbage: Another month, another vindication of the Laffer curve … Once again, empirical data bears out the fact that tax cuts (in this case the broad tax cuts of May 2003) can lead to increases in tax receipts. Last I checked Kash was one Angry Bear. […]

While some liberals (Duncan Black’s post from Wednesday responding to this)are advising us Democrats to stay out of the briar patch, I appreciate the efforts of Andrew Samwick and others. Dr. Samwick writes: The plan contains four primary elements: a gradual reduction in future benefits; an increase in the payroll tax cap; an increase in […]

This morning’s BLS report on the Consumer Price Index in November reflects an extremely sharp fall in energy prices: On a seasonally adjusted basis, the CPI-U decreased 0.6 percent in November, its largest decline since a 0.9 drop in July 1949. The index for energy declined for the second consecutive month, down a record 8.0 […]