In three of the last four years, Congress has combined all the outstanding appropriations bills into one large omnibus bill. Each omnibus bill was ridiculed at the time for forcing Congress to vote on a huge sum of money without a chance to split it up and thoroughly examine each line-item. The cost of those budget-busting bills were: $515 billion in fiscal year 2008; $464 billion in fiscal year 2007; and $388 billion in fiscal year 2005. Even those expensive spending bills are dwarfed by the new “stimulus” bill that …
Yesterday in Tehran, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took up President Barack Obama’s oft-repeated invitation to engage in direct talks with the United States. President Ahmadinejad told a rally celebrating the 30th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution: “It is clear that change should be fundamental, not tactical, and our people want real changes.” What is not clear is how much longer President Ahmadinejad will be president. There is a good chance he will lose the June 12 election to former President Mohammad Khatami. But remember, it was under Khatami that, …
Senator Schumer (D-NY) believes that Americans are happy to have Members of Congress add a billion here, and a billion there into spending bills, without oversight or necessity. American taxpayers might disagree.
That seems to be sentiment coming from Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) Ken Salazar: President Obama is shelving a plan announced in the final days of the Bush administration to open much of the U.S. coast to oil drilling, including 130 million acres off California’s coast from Mendocino to San Diego. On Tuesday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar ordered the plan be put on hold while his agency conducts a 180-day review of the country’s offshore oil and gas resources. Salazar’s critical comments about the plan signaled …
Canadian Unions help prove economic ignorance and protectionism are something America doesn’t hold the copyright on. Two of Canada’s largest unions are urging the federal government to adopt a Buy Canadian policy similar to the proposal that has been criticized in the United States. At a joint press conference on Tuesday morning, the Canadian Auto Workers and the United Steelworkers said Ottawa should adopt a procurement policy that ensures the majority of public funds are spent on goods and services made in Canada. There has been no formal comment on …
As Congress considered the unprecedented federal spending increase on education programs, Members should take the time to check out the American Legislative Exchange Council’s new Report Card on American Education. The report examines the condition of public schooling in the states and offers policymakers lessons from the experience of our laboratories of democracy. One key finding: simply spending more on education doesn’t guarantee better student outcomes. Former Education Secretary Bill Bennett summarized this point in a foreword to the report: The fact is that more dollars do not necessarily guarantee …
George Mason University economics professor Don Boudreaux offered a grim assessment of the economic stimulus package that’s making its way through Capitol Hill, questioning President Barack Obama’s contention that government must do something. “Conventional wisdom in Washington is that we must do something regardless of how wise or prudent it is,” said Boudreaux, the keynote speaker at an economic recovery event cosponsored by Heritage and the Club for Growth. “It’s taken as a matter of course that we must spend wildly.” Instead, Boudreaux said, history offers a lesson that shows …
University of Chicago school of business professor Luigi Zingales has a plan to address the housing crisis that doesn’t involve bankruptcy judge cram downs or a federal government bailout. Before he gets to his plan, Zingales outlines what any government intervention in the marketplace must prove before it should be enacted: 1. the market imperfection that is being addressed must be clearly defined and explained; 2. the government cure must prove that it is not worse than the market disease. The current stimulus bill, the TARP bailouts, and all of …
As the Drudge Report was highlighting Betsy McCaughey’s commentary on Bloomberg.com on how the Obama Stimulus Bill will ruin your health care, the Senate quickly acted to pass the latest version of the $838 Billion Spending bill, by a vote of 61-37. Clearly, the polls were showing that the more America learned of this plan, the more likely it was to lose the little support it had. It is unfortunate that the Senate was pressed to consider a 1,000+ page spending bill in less than a week, and that in …
New York University economics professor Mario Rizzo kicks off the second morning panel “Market-Based Solution.” He begins by taking fire at the macroeconomists who are claiming they know exactly how many jobs each version of Obama’s Trillion Dollar Debt Plan will create. Rizzo says: Unfortunately, much of the policy advice offered recently by commentators, including many economists, is shockingly superficial. It is reminiscent of the simple prime-the-pump ideas of the early Keynes and does not acknowledge Keynes’s own cautions and qualifications after the General Theory was published.” Rizzo then went …
