Coverdell Education Savings Accounts were created in 2001 to provide parents with more options to pay for their children’s elementary, secondary, and college education. Unless Congress quickly takes action, those accounts will no longer be allowed to fund secondary and elementary school expenses. President Obama often talks of helping Main Street instead of rewarding Wall Street, and Coverdell accounts are a unique asset for Main Street investors. Parents can squirrel away $2,000 per year per child in Coverdell accounts. They can then invest that money however they like in stocks, …
A just released report by the Sutherland Institute introduces a metric—the Self-Reliance Index—that can be used to track people’s reliance on government and lack of self-sufficiency. You might call it the opposite of The Heritage Foundation’s Index of Dependence on Government. The report notes, “Government aid only creates an illusion that aid recipients are well-enough off. Just as a student who hires someone to help them get ‘A’s’ is not truly an ‘A’ student, a person who depends on government to fulfill his or her needs is not out of …
An interesting, if alarming Op-Ed in the Washington Times by Ernest Christian and Gary Robbins this week, outlines what is likely to happen due to Washington’s Devil-may-care spending habits. The authors point out that according to the Obama administration’s planned budget, the gross national debt will reach 123% of GDP by 2020. Greece’s Debt to GDP ratio stands at 133% this year however there is no conglomerate of comparable size to the U.S. as The European Union is to Greece so no rescue of America will be imminent. Christian and …
The stock market reacted favorably this morning when it was announced that the number of people on payrolls fell by 36,000 in February, better than the 50,000 loss expected by economists. The unemployment rate held steady at 9.7%, also slightly better than expected. Another indicator that may have received less attention is the 15-Week unemployment rate—the percent of the labor force that has been unemployed for 15 weeks or longer and is still looking for employment. In December, 2007 this statistic stood at only 1.6%. In February, 2010, it was …
DC lawmakers tried to sugarcoat the five cent per bag tax on store bought items, calling it a fee rather than a tax. The tax has been in effect in the District of Columbia since New Year’s Day. Stories in the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and other media have reported of widespread disaffection with the tax among people in DC. The lawmakers behind the tax surely do not understand economics. Furthermore, the legalese used to draft the law would provoke laughter if it was not so deserving of …
Businesses have to deal with nearly unprecedented levels of uncertainty due to Washington’s inability to give them a clear roadmap of what policy changes lay ahead. A large part of this uncertainty is about the level of future taxes and increased regulations. Businesses are reluctant to hire when they could be facing additional labor costs due to government policies. This, at a particularly vulnerable time due to the credit crunch and financial crisis, spells a death sentence for many small businesses, and stunts the growth of others. The health care …
Coverdell Education Savings Accounts were created in 2001 to empower parents with greater options for their children’s education, but unless Congress takes action, those accounts could change in 2011. Currently, parents who send their children to private schools because they’re not satisfied with the public school quality or culture have to pay twice: once in taxes for public schools, and a second time for their private school tuition. Coverdell accounts are one small way to help lift some of this burden by letting parents save for these education costs in …
It’s a common refrain among progressives when criticizing free-market economic policy – “Conservatives are out of touch”. Conservatives don’t know how to create jobs, the progressive echo chamber booms. What we need to do is to spend our way out of the recession President Obama announces. The only people who think that government stimulus doesn’t work are at Conservative think tanks like The Heritage Foundation they go on. In this, as in so many other things, progressive policy analysts are out of touch. In reality, hundreds of experts agree from …
A million here, a million there, and pretty soon we’ve got real money. So said Illinois’s Sen. Everett Dirksen, the long-time Minority Leader during the 1960s. who often reminded his colleagues about how quickly a million here and there added up to enormous sums of public spending. Today, of course, its billions, and Members of Congress spend that denomination with the ease they used to spend millions. However, do Members or most of the general public have a solid grasp of how large a number a billion actually is? To …
President Obama last week told a group of Republican members of Congress who were at the White House that, every economist he has talked to said they need to spend more money to create jobs and stimulate the economy. The President then asked them to produce a list of economists that say we shouldn’t spend money to get us out of the problem. Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) today released such a list. 222 economists from across the nation signed on to support a statement that cautions against out of control …
