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    CBO: Tax Increase Fails to Solve Spending and Debt Crisis

    While President Obama keeps calling for more taxes, today’s figures from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) show the tax hike he signed into law just last month will provide no lasting improvement in the federal government’s fiscal outlook. This is because spending continues to grow, driving deficits back toward the … More

    Morning Bell: Fighting Government Cronyism with an Opportunity Agenda

    Would you like a raise? For some workers, cronyism prevents receiving raises in pay. In early 2011, a Giant Eagle supermarket in Edinboro, Pennsylvania, wanted to give wage increases and higher starting wages to 25 employees. But a union wouldn’t let it do so. Why would a union object to … More

    Mongolia: Advancing the Rule of Law Key to Economic Success

    Mongolia continues to make strides toward economic freedom. The Economist recently predicted that Mongolia would have the second-fastest-growing economy in the world in 2013. Mongolia has been developing a modern and vibrant economy with a rapidly growing mining sector, which has generated double-digit growth rates for the country in recent … More

    Taxpayer-Funded Infrastructure Bank: The “Investment” Isn’t Worth It

    Bad ideas never seem to die. But the proposal to create a national infrastructure bank to federally fund transportation and infrastructure projects with taxpayer dollars is one such idea that President Obama and lawmakers in the 113th Congress should put to rest. A recent Politico article noted that the departure … More

    Scholars Agree: High Tax Rates Do Harm Growth

    The Congressional Research Service (CRS) stirred controversy last year when it released a study claiming that tax rates do not influence economic growth. Predictably, those who favor higher taxes used the flimsy report to bolster their backward argument that raising tax rates, as Congress and President Obama did with the … More

    Chile’s Strong Economy: A Case of Positive Policy and Freedom

    Chile continues to lead Latin America in 2013 in both economic growth and economic freedom. These positive outcomes reflect well on the solid policy choices being implemented by the Chilean government of President Sebastián Piñera. Making it onto the 2013 Index of Economic Freedom’s list of top 10 freest countries … More

    Smaller Paycheck? Welcome to Obama’s Post-Fiscal-Cliff World

    Working Americans receiving their first full paycheck of the year may have had a rude awakening today. Despite all the President’s promises not to raise taxes on the middle class, he did exactly that. By allowing the payroll tax holiday to expire at the end of 2012, President Obama and … More

    Don’t Believe What You Read: Bigger Trade Deficit = More Economic Growth

    The latest trade deficit figures are out, and like always, most reporters fail to accurately explain what these numbers mean. During the past 10 years, there has been a clear relationship between trade deficits and U.S. economic growth. Most news coverage got the relationship backwards. Consider the following reports: “The … More

    The Obama Tax Plan: Undercutting Economic Growth

    The President and his advocates in Congress argue that raising taxes on all taxpayers would damage the economy but that raising taxes on only “high-income” households is supposedly not economically destructive. This line of reasoning is simply mistaken. (House Speaker John Boehner (R–OH), perhaps still cognizant of the economic ramifications … More

    Time to Take Mexico Seriously

    When President Obama and Mexico’s President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto meet in Washington on Tuesday, their talks will highlight the critical relationship between our two nations. Today many businessmen and investors are increasingly bullish on Mexico. The potential for positive developments in Mexico, The Economist and others argue, are too easily … More