Reuters has this morning’s bad news on the economic front: The U.S. economy came perilously close to flat-lining in the first quarter and grew at a meager 1.3 percent annual rate in the April-June period as consumer spending barely rose. The Commerce Department data on Friday also showed the current …
President Obama and congressional leaders can’t seem to agree on any plan to avert a debt crisis. As the White House’s Aug. 2 deadline approaches, the House has adopted the Cut, Cap and Balance Act, while the Senate has floated a number of bad ideas. Earlier this year, The Heritage Foundation formulated …
In this week’s Heritage in Focus, labor economist Rea Hederman discusses last month’s job report. Listen to the full interview, here. Unfortunately, last month’s jobs report was the worst one in some time. We created a mere 18,000 jobs and the unemployment rate increased to 9.2 percent. Normally in a …
This Wednesday marks the first anniversary of Obamacare. While advocates spend the week highlighting the new law’s effects on different groups of Americans, we will do the same. A review of the facts on the ground and the conclusions of Heritage research over the past year reveal the far-reaching negative …
The House of Representatives will soon vote on full repeal of Obamacare. In an attempt to defend the health care overhaul, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner writes this morning that, in light of continued unacceptably high unemployment, “Given where we are, we must do things that help bolster the recovery, and …
Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Director Douglas Elmendorf recently testified before the Senate Budget Committee on policies that might give the economy a helpful lift in the near term. Congress is right to be concerned. But for an inventory surge last winter, the economy remains stuck in low gear at about …
Still in the midst of a recession, the United States finds itself at a crossroads regarding which path will lead to economic growth and job creation. There are two choices: further government involvement and a stronger role for Washington—accompanied by higher taxes and heavier regulation—or the path of less government, …
Carnegie Mellon University economics professor and American Enterprise Institute visiting scholar Allan Meltzer has a must read op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal titled: Why Obamanomics Has Failed: Uncertainty about future taxes and regulations is enemy No. 1 of economic growth. It is re-posted in its entirety below but as …
Political candidates apparently can choose no better campaign issue this year than excessive government spending and the exploding debt it’s producing. In one campaign after another, voters high and low on the economic ladder respond in the same way when challengers berate incumbents for reckless debt accumulation: raucous, fist-pumping applause …
