Gov. Scott Walker delivered a passionate defense of Wisconsin’s reforms at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday night. The embattled Republican governor used his keynote speech at CPAC to outline what’s at stake in Wisconsin and other states if his budget reforms are rolled back. “Our most powerful tool is the truth,” Walker told an excited crowd of conservatives, who gave him two standing ovations. He defended his actions as courageous with labor unions mounting a recall campaign to remove him from office. Unions have already financed recall efforts …
Last week, the independent California High-Speed Rail Peer Review Group recommended that the state legislature not proceed with funding the proposed Los Angeles–San Francisco project. Its argument was grounded in concerns about “the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s plan to start construction without any assurance of future funding from the federal government,” according to The Wall Street Journal. The California High-Speed Rail Authority responded with a “you’ll be sorry” statement, asserting that it will cost Californians more not to build the system. It argued that the cost of expanding airports and …
New polling data reveals that voters in Iowa and New Hampshire overwhelmingly believe the federal budget deficit is the most important economic issue facing the United States today. Despite the nation’s persistent high unemployment rate, voters in the two early-voting states chose the deficit by wide margins. The CNN/Time/ORC poll was conducted before and after Christmas with 999 registered Republicans in Iowa and a total of 1,508 adults in New Hampshire. The results, released Wednesday, paint a clear picture about what voters are thinking about heading into 2012. They also …
The Obama administration is approving deepwater drilling permits at a pace of just 1.7 per month — a dramatic drop that is jeopardizing thousands of jobs for struggling families in Louisiana and neighboring states. The latest figures from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement also reveal a sharp reversal in permit issuance for shallow-water wells. Greater New Orleans Inc. compiled the data as part of its Gulf Permit Index. Over the past three months, deepwater permits are down 71 percent from their historical monthly average of 5.8 …
A chart created by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) has been circulating among liberal bloggers such as Ezra Klein, James Fallows, and Andrew Sullivan. The chart, seen to the right, purports to show that the next decade’s deficits are entirely the result of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, wars, bailouts, recession, and stimulus. Their methodology fails statistics 101. Imagine a basketball team that loses 100-98. It would make no sense to cherry pick one single basket by their opponent and blame it for 100 percent of the …
Representative Paul Ryan’s (R- WI) budget proposal has been analyzed by Heritage experts: “It is an immensely detailed budget; I’m so impressed with it,” says Heritage economist Bill Beach, in a new Heritage in Focus. In this podcast, Mr. Beach discusses Rep. Ryan’s proposed trillions of dollars in budget cuts, lower corporate and individual tax rates, and proposed reforms to both Medicare and Medicaid, and what it all means for America and the budget fight moving forward. To subscribe or listen to our weekly podcasts, go here.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) just released its 2011 Trade Policy Agenda, which highlights several initiatives designed to boost exports. Nowhere in the 443-page document is a mention of the biggest barrier to U.S. exports: the federal budget deficit. Budget deficits require the government to borrow money that otherwise could be spent on U.S.-made exports or invested in our economy’s productive private sector. In 2010, the federal government financed its deficit spending by selling $708 billion in Treasury securities to foreign buyers. To put that in perspective, …
The U.S. Commerce Department today reported that the country’s 2010 trade deficit was $497.8 billion, an increase of $122.9 billion from 2009. Exports increased from $1.57 trillion to $1.83 trillion, and imports increased from $1.95 trillion to $2.33 trillion. Increased imports are often a sign that the U.S. economy is growing. Imports typically fall during recessions and increase during economic recoveries. Prospects for a strong economic recovery could be boosted by extending agreements like the Andean Trade Preference Act and implementing new trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama. …
Reducing budget deficits by cutting government spending has a stronger record of economic stimulus than either reducing the deficit with tax increases or increasing government spending. That’s what Harvard economists Albert Alesina and Silvia Ardagna have found in their recent research. They examined 107 instances of large reductions (at least 1.5 percent in one year) in budget deficits as well as 91 instances of large increases (over 1.5 percent in one year) in budget deficits over the past 40 years. They found that when an economy expands following deficit reduction, …
Serious doubts surround President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, which has been tasked to make recommendations to Congress to reduce the federal deficit. Many fear that the commission will recommend the creation of a value-added tax (VAT) or similar tax increases to pay for Washington’s reckless spending. Then there is the possibility that the commission will produce nothing, succeeding only at prolonging any real action to put the nation’s fiscal house back in order. But as The Weekly Standard’s executive editor Fred Barnes points out in the …
