House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R–WI) has released a fiscal year (FY) 2011 budget target. This target—302 allocation in budgetary parlance—was necessary since the previous congressional Democratic majority failed to pass a 2011 budget resolution or even enact a single 2011 appropriations bill. Instead they passed a continuing resolution …
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) promised during his campaign that he would balance the Empire State’s budget without increasing taxes or borrowing. Left untouched, the state’s $135 billion budget would otherwise result in $10 billion in deficit spending. This week, Cuomo appears to have taken the first step to …
The Great Recession lasted 18 months—slightly longer than the recession of 1981—and it might not be fair to compare the two. Unemployment was higher, for example, during the 1981 recession. But Reagan’s approaching centennial brings to mind the Reagan Recovery, and the economic climate of 1983 must be enviable from where …
President Obama yesterday signed the U.S. instrument of ratification for the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with Russia yet did not release the text of the document to the public. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is scheduled to exchange this instrument with the Russian government’s corresponding instrument this …
What happens when the going gets tough for unions? They protest, even if they don’t have a legitimate reason to do it (other than an inability to compete and their plummeting membership rolls). Take the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters (MRCC), for example. As The Mackinac Center for Public Policy …
The announcement last week by President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s government that Argentina intends to repay nearly $9 billion in official sovereign debt—a higher figure than it had said previously that it owed—to other member nations in the Paris Club could be seen as a step forward. But apparently it …
On February 11, the U.S. Department of Commerce will release our country’s 2010 trade statistics. The following three principles will help in understanding what the numbers mean: Unlike the U.S. budget deficit, the size of the trade deficit does not matter. The trade deficit results from people in other countries …
February 2 marks the start of President Hugo Chavez’s 13th year in power. Venezuela’s populist authoritarian took office back in 1999. That day was a somber day for the Americas and friends of democracy around the world. In a recent discussion with American diplomats to the Andean region, someone asked …
