President Barack Obama is losing the debate over his Trillion Dollar Debt Plan. According to Rasmussen Reports, only 37% of the American people favor his legislation. And according to Gallup nearly 80% of Americans believe the current plan will not stimulate the economy. Faced with criticism of his plan, Obama has tersely responded to conservative lawmakers: “I won.” Well you know what? So did every other person in Congress. They all won their elections and their constituents deserve to have their views represented too. Defending his plan with an op-ed …
Buried in a January 7th Heritage WebMemo by J.D. Foster and Bill Beach is this passage explaining in careful logic via eloquent metaphor the nature of, and reasons for, economic growth: The American economy does not rise and fall with the level of aggregate demand or deficit spending. Further, government cannot simply pump up total demand through deficit spending. The deficit for 2009 is already projected to exceed $1 trillion, so if deficit spending were effective, the economy should already be poised to take off. Yet the economy is contracting …
There has been considerable debate over whether the proposed economic stimulus bill will actually stimulate anything other than an avalanche of new government spending and higher taxes. Well, the Senate has now ensured that its version of the bill will stimulate growth in yet another undesirable area: illegal immigration. Passed by the House last week and currently under consideration in the Senate, the economic stimulus bill could provide employment for illegal immigrants. Whereas the House version of the bill explicitly barred the employment of illegal aliens in stimulus-funded construction projects, …
Policies premised more on class-warfare than sound economics, are not going to get us out of this recession. They may actually delay recovery. In my last post, I discussed the example of a ban on “golden parachutes” for top executives. Now, another item from the Treasury’s pay rules for companies receiving “extraordinary assistance” that may soon be foisted on the broader market: executive pay caps. The rule is short and sour: Senior executives can receive no more than $500,000 in total annual compensation. They can also receive restricted stock that …
And so it begins: Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says he’s scrapping the lease of dozens of parcels of federal land for oil and gas drilling in Utah’s redrock country. Salazar on Wednesday ordered the Bureau of Land Management, which is part of the Interior Department, not to cash checks from winning bidders for the parcels at issue in a lawsuit filed by environmental groups.” As the head of the Department of Interior, Salazar will face a number of challenges and will also be presented with opportunities to expand energy exploration …
Policies premised more on class-warfare than sound economics, are not going to get us out of this recession. They may actually delay recovery. A case in point: the executive pay guidelines released by Treasury today. Though the new rules seem to apply, at this point, to only the few corporations that have received “exceptional assistance,” such as AIG and Fannie Mae, they are clearly a template for more broadly applicable rules. It is worthwhile, then, to consider how they undermine incentives for performance and economic growth. One particularly populist and …
It’s hard to get a feel on where the job-killing, protectionist ”Buy American” provisions now stand after President Obama’s series of media interviews yesterday where he believed the measured needed to be removed because of the potential of ‘going to trigger a trade war.’ This morning, the Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder reported such a stance might not be the case. A lot of sudden friction among allies of Barack Obama last night when the president told ABC’s Charlie Gibson that the so-called Buy American provisions ought to be cut out of the stimulus bill. Democratic …
Will the Stimulus plan currently proposed by Congress actually create jobs? The short answer is no. The longer answer is the government cannot create jobs; the government can only transfer or redistribute jobs. As Heritage Senior Budget Analyst Brian Riedl says, “[B]efore the government can spend $1 billion hiring road builders and purchasing asphalt, it must first tax or borrow $1 billion from other sectors of the economy, which then lose a similar number of jobs.” Maybe if the money came from the Tooth Fairy or Santa, we’d have a …
MOSCOW – The past week’s developments gave lots of food for conjecture and speculations among Kremlinologists both within Russia and beyond. The regime – President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin – sent out an array of signals that could be interpreted as both the attempts at somewhat liberalizing Russia’s domestic policy and proof of growing differences between the President and the Prime Minister. Medvedev has recalled from the State Duma the government-submitted amendments to the Criminal Code designed to dramatically expand the definition of such concepts as state …
With the protectionist stances coming from the Obama Administration via the Trillion Dollar Debt Plan’s “Buy American” provisions; you might forget the United States still has a series of pending trade agreements with Columbia and South Korea which need Congressional approval. Just yesterday, President Obama agreed with South Korea’s Lee Myung-bak to do all he could to get both nations’ legislative bodies to approve the trade agreement. South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and U.S. President Barack Obama agreed on Tuesday to fight against trade protectionism, as legislatures in both countries prepare to battle over a bilateral free trade deal. South …
